Thank you, David, and thank you all for the invitation that we are invited to your Zen Lab opening. This is for me and for... and a great honor. Your project has been, I would say, representative for the Dharma Sangha, as the director of the Johanneshof, which we have met some of you in Sashins and in different seminars. We have become very bright when you have appeared in our horizon, in our little world. Because we already notice what you have here and what you build up here. The energy and what you have just described. The elan that you have brought in here. Maybe even more of that, if I were to say from my observation, more of what is between you.

[01:05]

What you are with each other. What is maybe even more than the unique speciality that each and every one of you brings with you. That is something very special. And in the name of the Dhamma Sangha, I just want to say, we support this from the bottom of our hearts. I'm very happy that you're doing this here and so fast. Yes, maybe fast is almost the wrong word. You've put this on the legs of a kind of timelessness. Great. Yes, and I would like to say a few words about it. You invited us, but I think we have a special relationship with you, with ZenLab. I mean the institutions, which are also legally separated, really. You are the ZenLab and you don't even have to give yourself an institutional form, if you want to, as a club or whatever.

[02:08]

and now we as the dharmasangha and we understand our relationship to you maybe first of all like a partnership where we have the feeling That we are just there for you. I don't think that's much more. We are just there for you. And it's not just this willingness and the strength from us, where we are ready, wherever you need it and ask and want to have it, to make it available. It's not just from the... Thank you. we know well and have shared for a while. But it's not just the personal connection, it's also the core thought, your core thought, the experiment and also the result-free experiment.

[03:21]

And there we have the feeling that we are very close to each other. There is perhaps something like a core thought relationship. We want to completely support that you really follow your inner compass here, see what works for you, how it works. The Johanneshof itself and the Johanneshof, the Zen center, we have been there for 23 years now. And we understand ourselves simply as an experiment. We are just a slightly older experiment. We have been collecting data for a while now and evaluating it within our compass, our value compass, and within our sense of what really counts.

[04:27]

What really counts individually and what really counts in the world. And we can only encourage you to do that. and we are happy to be able to guide and accompany you, if now, partly at least from our slightly older experiment, your newer experiment can be inspired. Yes, so in this respect, I would just like to express our full support for everything you are doing from now on. Thank you. Thank you. Well, probably, hi, good morning.

[05:46]

Probably enough has been said, and most of what will result or happen is what will happen from now on by you folks sitting together. But the excitement that's visible and feelable here since yesterday I've been here and this morning reminds me at least of some of the excitement we felt back in 1961, 62, starting the San Francisco Zen Center. Freudvollen Energie, excitement, Aufregung, nein?

[06:56]

Begeisterung, danke, das ist das Wort. Teil der Begeisterung, die ich jetzt gestern Abend und heute Morgen, seitdem wir hier sind, mitbekommen habe, das erinnert mich an die Art von Begeisterung, die wir auch 1961 empfunden haben, als wir das San Francisco Zen Center aufgebaut haben. And someone found this old photograph of Sekiroshi and myself and put a fence in front of it. Yeah, thanks. I escaped, though, you see. Here I am. But that was about 1966 or 7. Before anybody in this room was born.

[08:00]

You? No? Yes. Me too. And we had and I had the idea or the feeling then of something like the Zen Lab. And it's clear that Suzuki Roshi taught Zen as a practice of actuality, not as a religion. It is quite clear that Suzuki Roshi taught Zen as a practice of reality and not as a Buddhist Zen practice. But then I had to think about it.

[09:01]

Why does it look so darn religious then? So I had to study and think about the cultural differences between an East Asian yogic culture and a Western culture. And I've been thinking, observing, engaging with those questions ever since. And the most reports I had from Nicole about the Leipzig Zen Lab They were very wary of any religious-looking stuff.

[10:16]

So I said, okay, I won't wear robes, I'll dress all in black. But isn't that kind of a robe? I don't know. And then she told me they didn't like the fact that she sat on a platform. And I've often felt that way myself and sometimes just I sit with the group on the floor but It makes it difficult if I want to feel everybody.

[11:24]

It helps that little platform, actually, for this kind of presentation. And I asked myself that often, too. And I said to myself that I was hesitating. And often I met a group where we all sat on the floor. Then I... Yeah, and then I heard David ring the bell. And David I've known since he was... before he was born, because I knew his parents. Yeah, and I've always thought he was a cute kid, you know, and now he's a lawyer, oh my goodness.

[12:26]

Yeah, and so he's been one of the persons instrumental in developing this. But I heard him ring the bell. And he rang the bell in the ritualized way, which is typical of Zen. Which is on the first ring. It's sort of like, hello. There's actually a conceptual dimension you bring to each hit, which is part of the practice. So the first hit, the first hit says, hello, Here we are.

[13:40]

Let's get started. Yeah. But I did decide to bring my row that I started practicing with from Suzuki Roshi. Because I thought I should introduce you to what looks like the religious side of practice. Religion, Zen practice is a multi-generational lineage. And it's in the terms of Timothy Morton, it's a hyper-object.

[14:48]

Timothy Morton is one of the leading philosopher, environmentally rooted philosophers. And Timothy Morton is . And he would define global warming as a hyper-object. And when you feel the rain on your head, rain, drops keep falling, you know, that's the weather. But it's also all of Vietnam practically in 30 years being underwater at high tide. And one of his points is that we've lost the multi-generational sense of our beingness, which is one of the causes of how we've lost, exceeded the capacity of the planet.

[16:18]

So, as a reminder that I'm practicing, I'm presenting, being present with you within a multi-generational tradition. I put on a version of the Buddha's, a symbolic, iconic version of the Buddha's robe. But Kaizen is a practice of actuality.

[17:22]

So we have to ask ourselves, what is actuality? I mean, no one knows, really. We can approach something we feel like is actuality, but what's that? So one of the most famous of all Zen teachers and masters was Matsu, who is a Tang Dynasty teacher recreated as an unusual Zen teacher in the Song Dynasty. Now I say it to you that way because this is not a revealed teaching. This is a manufactured teaching. Manufactured by changing, giving a dramatic persona to Tang Dynasty teachers in the Song Dynasty. And I say this to you in this way in order to say that what we have here is not a teaching of revelation, nothing that is revealed, so to speak, but a taught teaching, a teaching that is made, that is produced.

[19:07]

And, for example, is produced by a dramaturgically important person So Matsu, pronounced in Japanese Basho, is famous for saying, this very mind is Buddha. Okay, so this is a political statement. This is, he's saying in the Chinese, in the Chinese of the time of the Sun Dynasty. This is not Indian Buddhism. This is not the Buddhism of the historical Buddha and the sutras. This is Buddha, which is actually the mind, which exists here in China at this time.

[20:13]

And exists here in Freiburg right now. I mean... It exists in Freiburg and also like me. I'm in Freiburg quite often, sorry. Okay. So now, I'm also labbing, laboratorying myself here, because in the first week of December, I'm supposed to be a participant in a conference called The Religion of No Religion in Esalen.

[21:17]

On the California coast. So this is a laboratory for what I'm going to say when I'm there. Now, I can't say much about this except that you're not born with a mind. You're born with a kind of awareness, sensitivity. And your caregivers, parents, hopefully, and culture turn some of that into consciousness. And then there are whole fields of knowing which aren't really included in consciousness.

[22:28]

One of the huge mistakes that Western culture has made, and other cultures make huge mistakes too, but one of the huge mistakes of Western culture is to make a gulf, a difference between human nature and the rest of the world. This is a horrible mistake. One of the greatest, incredibly greatest mistakes that have been made in Western culture, and other cultures also make mistakes, but the most massive, most incisive mistake that has been made in Western culture, It's allowed us to exploit the earth for our human benefit. Without recognizing that, as Dogen says, the entire earth is the true human body.

[23:54]

Okay, so I would say, to refine my statement, that Zen is a practice of actuality. I would say Zen is an individual practice of actuality with others. With others is essential. And within an inseparable spectrum of phenomena. Yes, there's a difference between levels of sentience and so forth. And there's a difference between spinach and carrots.

[25:21]

But I'm made of spinach and carrots and a few other things. So Matsu was also saying that Mind is here present now, necessarily. So although this is inherited as a tradition from the historical Buddha, Made of scraps of cloth from, collected. Now it's made of usually silks, a piece of silk cut up into scraps and sewn back together.

[26:40]

Okay, so when I put this on, according to the tradition, I put it on my head first. And that means I'm giving it the feel of mind because mind, the bodily mind, is very closely connected to the spine and this chakra. So once I say, okay, yes, thanks Buddha, but this is mine now, mine and mind now. And then I open it up. And then... And now I can speak to you with the feeling that it's not just me speaking to you, it's a multi-generational tradition which has been developed over centuries.

[28:10]

With intelligence. So in Freiburg, there's a kind of Chinese junk shop. Actually, it's not a junk shop. He has quite wonderful things, a young Chinese guy. And we sort of became friends, and he makes special, not this one, but little strings of beads for me and things like that. But he supports himself by selling to the tourists and all, sort of various little Chinese things.

[29:15]

But he's got a deep feeling for Buddhism. So he's always got a few extraordinary things there. And unbelievably inexpensive. I mean... Inexpensive. [...] Unbelievable. I mean, you couldn't mail it from here to Hamburg for the amount of money he sells it for. But he brought it all the way from China. It cost 400 Euro or something. The thing. So I'd just been in there and he had two more Buddhas and so I bought them. Yeah, when it comes to Buddhas, I tend to buy them.

[30:30]

And then, here were these Leipzig... Leipzigerns? What do you call yourselves? Leipzga. Leipzga. Leipzga. Okay. Leipzga. Leipzga. No, Leipzga. Leipzga. So I said, oh, I've got this extra Buddha, you want it? So I gave it to you guys. But I said, I don't want to make it too religious for you guys. This is a Zen lab. You have to discover your own Buddha. Yes, so we're talking about contemporary, traditional Zen Buddhism here. Contemporary, traditional Zen Buddhism. So, You agreed to accept the Buddha, the few of you who were there, and one person put it in his suitcase, which destroyed his suitcase, because it's so heavy.

[31:56]

And the suitcase cost more than the Buddha did. And one of you put it in his suitcase, and the Buddha broke the suitcase, because it was so heavy. And the suitcase was probably more expensive than the whole Buddha. Yeah, so remember now, we're in an inseparable spectrum with phenomena. Okay, there's some simple distinctions that are made that change the world. I mean, really change the world. What time am I supposed to stop? Yeah.

[32:59]

How are your legs? I'll stop it in a while. But so exciting to be here with you. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. Yeah. We're an inseparable spectrum of phenomena. Okay, so the Buddha, well, you know, somebody carved it out of stone. But it's got to come alive here. It comes from a tradition of making statues which has an aliveness. Now these simple distinctions that make a huge difference is do you think all of this that exists had a creator?

[34:08]

Or do you think it's always? Well, this is beyond our human comprehension, really. It's just a decision. There's a creator or... Here it is. Who knows? This is a really important distinction. In East Asian yoga culture, there's no creator space. There's no other space that's different than this. In the East Asian culture, there is no creative space, no space outside of this space, from which this space is made.

[35:30]

There is no space from which something can be created that's different than this. It's all this. There is no space from which something can be created that would be somehow different from this space here now. So when you come into this room, if you come into it with the feeling it's a container and was made for us, that's assuming a creator space. If you assume it's a generated world, not a created world, Then we're generating it right now. We're a momentary instantiation of the Big Bang right now. I see the big bang around.

[36:50]

This is the big bang happening right now. I get excited. Yeah. So the excitement we feel together here is we're actually... You know you've made this wonderful oak wood floor. You've made, with the help of some oak trees, which were also made. And the enthusiasm... Die wir hier jetzt spüren, ist auch die Begeisterung, dass ihr diesen Raum gemacht habt. Ihr habt diesen Boden, ihr habt den gemacht mit der Hilfe von ein paar Eichen, die aber auch gemacht sind. So we've covered this stone Buddha, which I found by chance for you.

[37:54]

Nothing special, but it's nice enough. And it's, you know, it's sort of like in a... It's resting now and half asleep and doesn't know where it's moving to, so we've covered it up with a cloth. So if you'll allow me in the afternoon sometime, I will do a little ceremony with it. And so we'll uncover it and say, hey, wake up there, stone Buddha. And then I will take a brush and paint eyes into it.

[38:57]

And then I find when I get here yesterday, you've got this crazy room with a gateless gate in the middle of it. There's three famous koan collections. One of the three is called the Mu Mon Khan. Mu is emptiness or not emptiness. Mu bedeutet lehrheit, oder nicht. And mon is gate. And mon bedeutet tor. And kan is teaching, or koans, or something like that.

[39:59]

So it's the gateless gate collection of koans. So here you've got this weird room, kind of great room, I think I like it, but it's got a gateless gate right in the middle of it that goes nowhere. I like it, but it's a very strange room. And in the middle is this gate-less gate that leads nowhere. So from my point of view, this is the gate-less gate Zendo. From my perspective, this is the Zendo, the gate-less gate. The Moumon Zendo or gate-less gate Zendo or whatever you'd say it in Deutsch. The Moumon Zendo or the gate-less gate Zendo. So when we do whatever we're calling a ceremony in the afternoon, we'll come start by the door.

[41:01]

Where else can we start? And we'll just walk. I mean, there's no God or anything or Buddhist police watching us. So all we can do is walk around and say, hey, hi. So we'll start at the door and we'll walk through the gate, this gate. And then we'll feel, maybe, that we've gone through a gateless gate. But somehow we've arrived somewhere. Which is this new Zendo.

[42:02]

And then we'll open the eyes of the Buddha. And then I will hope you all open your eyes from now on. Yeah. That wasn't what I thought last night or this morning I might talk about. But wherever you go, there you are. Thank you very much. Thank you for translating. My pleasure. Thank you. Now what are we supposed to do?

[42:56]

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