So has anything stuck in your mind you'd like to bring up? Or stuck anywhere, I don't care, mind or body. Yes. Yeah. I think it's very interesting that you can explore the mind with a motionless body posture. I find it very interesting that it's possible to explore the mind with an unmoving body posture. I do too. And since you brought up the example of the microscope, I'm wondering if there's not somewhere a kind of light switch that one can turn on.

[01:08]

Yeah, it's called an inner attentional space. At least those are words that give you a suggestion of how to do it. I remember when I received the monk ordination in German. Yes, please, in German. When I received monk ordination, I remember we made a full bow in the direction of where we live. And then you say goodbye to your parental family and then that's it.

[02:30]

That's it. I did that at the time because everyone did it. And then you moved in with your father. Dad, where are you? Oh, there you are. See, some people say goodbye and then they move in. Some people say goodbye and then they move in. And I noticed that a lot of what was mentioned before about coming home, And I noticed that some of what was said before about coming home that it is this tension between the two families and so forth.

[03:33]

And I also know classical Buddhist ordens like schools or communities. And they cut off their families. And then their new brothers and sisters are the people that they are practicing with. And so they call themselves brothers and sisters. And they don't have these problems. And maybe they have other problems, but they don't have this problem. an experiment and this is how we live Buddhism, um so the question is if that's also part of us going the so-called middle way or maybe it's a i don't know is

[04:48]

What's it called when children can do it? Oftentimes they can spread their legs like this. Doing the split. Oh, doing the split, okay. I can't do it. If it's part of going the so-called middle way or maybe it's a kind of doing the split... And if it's part of how we are developing it in the West and of us not knowing or not being able to do it any other way, because for us it wouldn't work to just cut off and say, this is our brothers and sisters now. Or are we just cowards and not determined enough?

[06:09]

Goodness sakes. I think it's... it's not so useful to think in terms of either or. And it's easy to imagine either or alternatives. But I think that in fact either or is always a process. And the middle way as far as I feel is to enter into the middle of the process and find your way. And the middle way, as I understand it, means to get in the middle of this process and thus find the way.

[07:29]

Yes. I continue finding it brilliant about Buddhism that it keeps pointing out that one cannot only occupy physical postures but also occupy mental postures. And that by occupying a mental posture in a conscious way one can notice that one had prior to that already occupied other mental postures that weren't noticed or perceived. And maybe for mental postures one could say attitudes or perspectives or views.

[08:44]

How prior to a perception there can already be a view or actually there already is a view. That's my experience too. And I want to speak about that a little bit, but first, yes? Can I ask, what is your name? Rudolf. Rudolf, hi. Not the reindeer. Not the reindeer. That's obvious. I would like to come back to the term home. Ja. My first home was my biological home with my parents. I'm 30 years old and I don't have a family anymore. So, and then I'd have to say a couple of sentences about my homes.

[09:56]

You know, as long as you like. I'm patient. My first home was my biological home with my parents, but that's already 30 years back. And now, actually, I don't have a family anymore. Okay. And my first spiritual home, traditionally for me, was a Catholic world. My second spiritual home, if you can call it, was my psychoanalytical world. And my second spiritual home, if one can call it that, was my psychoanalytic world in which I was trained and experienced for many, many years.

[11:01]

But it never gave a real home. Now that I'm looking Now that I'm looking for a home, I'm finding that I don't need another religion. The second religion. All the bells and whistles. Yes, I understand. It was difficult for me, because it reminds me of my time as a measurement service worker.

[12:06]

And in Buddhism, I find many things that feel home to me, that resonate with my inner feeling of home. But then all the bells and whistles, they remind me, they make it difficult for me. They remind me on my Catholic background as a service altar boy. Yeah. Thank you. That's it. Yeah. Thank you for that. That was good. So what would be an example of a bell or a whistle? Yeah. The incense, you mean? Well, so far we haven't asked you to do any of those things.

[13:19]

Some people come for that, just for that. Yeah, but I hope not here. I'm trying to eliminate the bells and whistles. But I'm trying to keep the bells and whistles which have a nice sound. And I think when we discover some of the bells do have a nice sound, For me anyway, it makes me understand the overlap where religions are trying to reach the same place. I mean, the example I gave this morning In the Zendo, not looking around, I would say is a bell or a whistle.

[14:40]

It's a rule. Why bother? Yeah, but it's been my discovery. I mean, I... was never in any religion. I grew up as an ardent atheist. I mean, I'm sort of embarrassed to say so because maybe there's some lack in me that I didn't have a feeling for. But there wasn't enough evidence for me. So I came into this practice with nothing but skepticism. And by hanging out with Suzuki Roshi, slowly I softened my stance.

[16:05]

And I began to find dharmas as appearances. And once I discovered how to physically, mentally, emotionally acknowledge appearances as dharmas, and how to physicalize that so it becomes real, A lot of the secret bells and whistles turned out to be wisdom. But this has been a process of some 55 years.

[17:06]

Of noticing and so forth. someone else. Yes, Suzanne. sitting here there were three words that came to mind and one that the word calmness stillness and Ja, tranquility, maybe. Tranquility? How do you say?

[18:06]

Equanimity? Tranquility? Tranquility. Anyway, three different in German. They don't entirely overlap the same way. And about this German word now, roughly calmness, I noticed the calmness of the breath is different from the stillness of the breath. And the stillness of the breath, maybe that takes 50 more years for me to experience. I don't know, maybe not quite as long. I hope not that long, because I want to be around when you realize it. I hope not that long, because I would like to be around when you realize it. And now about this German word, maybe some, to calm down.

[19:14]

To calm down the body. Is that the prerequisite in order for a mental space to appear? I think so, yeah. So then that's a kind of a question out of curiosity. What happens then when we do move, like in Qinhin, something else happens? Of course something else happens because it's different.

[20:19]

And that's partly what I'm speaking about is changing, change is changing. And it takes a certain subtlety of attentional space and a confidence to notice the subtlety of change and if I can say something fully about what I mean by the subtlety of change, by Sunday morning, I'll be pretty happy.

[21:23]

And it would be What's interesting to me is what I'm trying to weave here. I'm trying to weave a Bodhisattva here. We're weaving with very ordinary words. And those ordinary words will continue to be what's on our loom Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, but hopefully we can discover what technically in Buddhism is a very advanced practice. But it's loomed from or woven from ordinary experiences.

[22:42]

Anyway, that's what I'm hoping. Yes, Gaurav? You're after Geralt. What is your name? Ulrika? Rika? Zilk? Oh, Zilka. That's beautiful. But Geralt first. To return to your question, what has stuck with me? It is also the attitude, and it is so difficult to describe, that sitting down in the, let's call it, in the attitude of the Buddha,

[23:47]

Again, it's posture. To sit down in, let's call it Buddha posture, it's like a puzzle sitting down as a puzzle where it matches exactly. And at some point the posture is no longer separate from my environment. And that is something that I cannot do through my mind. And then the body has to sort of settle itself in, into the posture.

[24:57]

Takes a few minutes and then the mind follows. And that's my experience. And then the mind does something similar. Okay. That's why this word Haltung is so important to me. And so for that reason, this word posture, and I'm happy you're speaking about it, is so important for me. Okay. Thanks. Silke? For me, it's I have to overcome myself a bit because I'm new here. That's all right. You look familiar. So that works out. I feel familiar. And when I sat in the Sendoh yesterday for the first time, I had this feeling of home. I've been being accompanied for like 10 years by someone from the Sangha.

[26:18]

For me yesterday this was like arriving in something familiar. And so that was the one thing and it was suddenly like a multiplication that was familiar but then suddenly there was so much more of it there. And the other thing also refers to the sense of feeling at home.

[27:27]

That's something I've strongly developed for myself so that I can really feel it. And others have mentioned before too how it's particularly with one's own family difficult to maintain this feeling. At the moment I am in the process of observing this very closely and I have the feeling that it is between a ... If I feel at home, then I am connected with everything. And so that's something I'm currently investigating very closely, that there's a connection between when I feel at home, then there's a sense of connectedness with everything.

[28:29]

and I have different percepts about that one is the feeling that my heart starts being really wide and then I notice that my heart closes in such situations with my family And in the beginning I thought that it's their fault, it's because of them. But the more I investigate it, the more I can notice that although the feeling does come from the outside, I can also observe the feeling but also participate in it or have an effect on it from inside.

[29:56]

That's good. It's good that you can notice that. And the ability to notice things like that is identical to the ability to practice. And to see the consequences of noticing that. We could say practice is nothing but having the courage of the consequences of noticing. I like that. I never said that before. The courage of having the courage of having the consequences of noticing.

[30:58]

Den Mut zu haben, die Konsequenzen des Bemerkens zu haben. Okay. And, you know, while we're sitting here, Each of you is quite a different person from each other. And you have different life histories, for sure. And yet, from what I feel right now, is you all have two hands. I think all of you do. You all have two feet. And stomachs.

[32:03]

And when I hear Silke's voice, I feel the tone of her mind. Although she's speaking from her own experience, somehow the tone of her voice reaches us somehow. And Felix, who I love, sitting over on the far end, has a neurological problem with his neck. And we all have necks and yet I can feel your neck and want to put my head like yours. So there's such an immense amount we share despite Right here, even though we have such different life histories.

[33:29]

And we share the overwhelming fact of proximity, nearness. Okay, someone else? Yes, Susanne? Before, some people have mentioned that suddenly they would have trouble with their families and their friends. I had that before and I cleaned up my circle of friends and also my family considerably.

[34:29]

And since I've been living here for half my life, it's actually more like this, that in my circle of friends, well, I don't really tell a lot, but they always ask me, how are you, what have you experienced? And they are happy for me that I found this place here. And since I live here half-time now, it's more the case that I don't speak that much with my friends about this place, but from time to time when they ask, what are you experiencing there, what is it like, and so forth, then the feeling is that they are really happy for me to have found this place. Good. Good. Thanks. We're happy too. It makes a big difference when you're here. Yes, Uli? You spoke this morning about stillness and fearlessness.

[35:44]

And that reminded me a lot when I moved in here ten years ago, you spoke about that too, and you made this gesture of Buddha Dipankara with the raised hand, and that triggered the same feeling in me. And what I keep noticing is the extent to which the bodily stillness, and I call it a kind of gravity, the extent to which that has an effect on the mental stillness. And I can see that very clearly when I'm agitated in any way mentally, how the body also becomes agitated in different regions.

[37:09]

And if I understood correctly, you spoke this morning about three ways to generate stillness. And the first was that we exclude undesired or unwelcome, unwanted distractions. And you also spoke about the screen which is still before and after and even during the movie. And about the path of transformation. And these are different ways that I'm experimenting and I'm trying to distinguish.

[38:40]

My intimation is that the way of Zen is the way of the screen. And the way I explain that to myself is that there are sometimes tremendous upheavals, almost like an explosion. And there are precious moments when neither the body nor the mind reacts and yet can fully perceive such sensations. But what's difficult for me to answer for myself is the question, how can I generate that?

[39:46]

And then my inclination would be to start practicing in the direction of transformation. And so my request for you, Roshi, is maybe if you can say something about these three different paths. Okay. This is a lifetime you asked me for. Okay. Let me say I treasure the things each of you are saying and maybe some persons want to say some things, but right now I'd like to say a few things and hope that you won't lose what you'd like to say later. Let me say that the primary dynamic of Zen practice is an inclusive stillness.

[41:30]

Okay. I'll just say that and I will maybe make that clearer as we go along. Let me say that I said this morning also that there are no universals. I said that fairly easily. It's two words, no universals. My own experience is to really recognize that and have that penetrate your beingness. Simply takes years. I think of an image I had early on in practice as a 20-year-old

[42:32]

of a Gothic cathedral with its flying buttresses. Yeah, those guys. And I felt, as I started sitting zazen, I was propped up by all kinds of flying buttresses. And I wanted the cathedral of my life, which wasn't very... cathedral-like, to sort of settle down and not need the flying buttresses.

[43:51]

But if you take away the culture and the mental habits and family and all, the whole thing starts to tip around. So I had this problem of kind of depending less and less on the flying buttresses and letting the construct of my life find its own foundation. And it almost has to be done brick by brick or unit by unit. And And to really accept the implications of no universals is something like that.

[45:15]

It takes step by step to see the difference that makes in one's world view. Of course, if you locate yourself with confidence in this process of resettling your foundation, Aber wenn du dich mit Vertrauen, mit Zutrauen in diesen Prozess dein Fundament neu zu, dass es sich neu setzen kann, diesen Prozess vertraust. Wenn du dich wirklich in diesem Prozess verorten kannst, ohne zu wissen, was da überhaupt passiert, Sometimes enlightenment experiences or insights make it clear and it settles more solidly or strongly or something.

[46:29]

But usually that requires putting yourself in the midst of the change with a kind of inner confidence, even without knowing. Anyway, all of this is the adventure of practice. Okay. So again, let's go back to the fact that I'm always trying to wonder how this practice will continue and what is the monastic or sangha element and what is the individual lay person element.

[47:31]

And my conclusion, after a lot of years now, Entschuldigung. Das Sangha-Element und das Individuelle und das Klösterliche und das Laien-Element. Und meine Schlussfolgerung nach all diesen Jahren jetzt. Is to emphasize practice as a craft. Besteht darin, die Praxis als Handwerkskunst zu betonen. The craft of Zen practice. Die Handwerkskunst der Zen-Praxis. I don't know if handwork is the right word, but anyway, it's the best we have here in German and English. You could just say art in German, if that's any better. Art, okay, the art. Okay. Because if I can make the craft clear, the art of it clear, the lay person can do that as well as the monastic person.

[48:36]

No. Is she making jokes? Involuntary. She mentioned a new word in German. Oh, she did. Klostermensch. Okay, good. Um... Hmm. Because Well, there are some things, like I mentioned this morning, the immersion of us together.

[49:52]

Certain things can happen that don't have to be explicitly a craft. They just have to be noticed in the context of immersion in the proximity of others. And there are some things that can happen that don't have to be understood explicitly as a craft or an art, but like, for example, this diving into the proximity of others. I think that's it. I think I said it. It was... All right. So... Again, I'm talking about something like immersion in mutual beingness, which occurs not just in a monastic setting, but of course in a kaufhaus, not a coffeehouse.

[50:54]

You mean a kaufhaus? Kaufhaus. Kaufhaus. A car park. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now, I discovered, well, I discovered when I first started sitting that my experience in Zazen was not languaged. And it was a relief to me.

[51:55]

Because I was entangled in language. So it was a big space. It was like the basket all woven of language. I could suddenly see between the weaving and see a big space. But then as my practice evolved and developed, I found I had to come back to language. And that coming back to language is what I'm doing now and discovering how to practice with you in this way.

[53:04]

Now I knew from early on, let's see how much Maybe we should have a break soon. Yeah, okay. I'm testing all of your sitting skills. You know, I used to think as I got older, as I sat longer, it would get easier and easier. I forgot about getting older. And it actually makes it harder. But if you're committed to practice, you have to make a deep intention to maintain the skills of zazen, or pretty soon you won't really be practicing. If you want to maintain the way, still sitting can let you see into your life and world.

[54:19]

Wenn du die Art und Weise, wie das stille Sitzen dich in dein Leben und in die Welt hineinspähen lässt, aufrechterhalten möchtest. So that's secretly one of the reasons I'm testing your sitting skills. Und insgeheim ist es einer der Gründe dafür, dass ich eure Sitzfertigkeiten überprüfe. Let's see what kind of skills we have at having a break. Schauen wir mal, was für Pausenfertigkeiten wir haben. It seems to be easier sometimes.

[55:06]

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