I'm here because I have to say something again. Sometimes I'm a little shocked I have to say something again. But then I also want to say something. But what I want to say and I hope these come together Aber das, was ich sagen möchte und dass ich was sagen muss, also ich hoffe, das geht irgendwie miteinander. And I assume some of you want me to say something. Und ob es dann auch noch damit zusammenkommt, was ihr wollt, dass ich sage, das weiß ich nicht, werden wir sehen. And we're doing all this together to create the ingredients for something to say.

[01:04]

But for the two of you who have just arrived, I don't know. Did you just arrive too? Okay. I know Ulrich told me it took him a while to figure out what was going on. Yeah, okay. Yeah. One of the onlys in practice is If you want to find satisfaction or real satisfaction in your life, the assumption of Buddhism is you can only do it in zazen.

[02:08]

Eine der onlys, also eine der einzigen, wo es nur auf einem Wege geht, And you can't find it in the changing, unpredictable world. Whatever combination of things you put together may be partially satisfying, but not completely satisfying. And we might say, and as Sukhirishi would say, real practice begins when you really know that. And we could say, Suzuki Roshi would say, that the real practice begins when you know that.

[03:21]

So when you say, or someone says, you know, my Zazen is not so good, I'm not doing this and that, and all these thoughts come up, and karma, garbage, and so forth. Well, try it somewhere else. Yeah, you can make provisional satisfactions but not deep, thorough satisfactions. Du kannst dich provisorisch zufriedenstellen, aber nicht zutiefst zufriedenstellen. Even the satisfaction of Zazen is provisional in some sense, but still it's something different. Und sogar die Zufriedenheit, ja, diese tiefe Zufriedenheit, die durch Zazen kommt, ist provisorisch, aber... is provisional, but...

[04:21]

but it's still something different. So, in other words, if it's possible for you to find satisfaction, it's going to be possible in Zazen. And whatever satisfaction you find in Zazen makes the world more satisfying. I suppose because of this truth, it makes some sense to classify Buddhism as a religion. And not just a philosophy. Now, I really enjoyed Yo-san's, Christine's talk, the last two talks, the only two talks. She kind of rummaged around in her life.

[05:34]

Do you know the word rummage? In an untidy way to kind of poke around and things. So she kind of rummaged around in her life and came up with Buddhism. In other words, with some alertness, she looked at the ingredients of her life in Vienna and Sufi mud and night trains and things. And then suddenly somehow Zen practice made sense to her. So rummaging around she found her path. That's actually a kind of description of the world from a Buddhist point of view.

[06:59]

And actually, your son said to me, did I embarrass you by what I said about you? And I blushed. No, I didn't. I said, no, it just seemed normal to me. It didn't seem personal. It's like people come to Atmar's work weeks and then they decide to practice. She came to this funny event in Krakow and decided to practice. And I felt, from my point of view, I just felt I had a bunch of Buddhist maps

[08:00]

From my perspective, I just had the feeling I had a whole bunch of Google or Buddhism land cards. And the inner map quest, there's alternative routes, and I talked about alternative routes, and she said, I'll take one. For me, it wasn't about me, it's about, I've got these, I found these good maps. This is a cartographical practice here. A cartographer is a person who makes maps. And Atmar's talk, a wonderful talk, I really enjoyed. And he's right.

[09:28]

It does come down to a choice between two things. Even if you practice, say, like five skandhas. Selbst wenn du, sagen wir mal, die fünf Skandhas praktizierst. You've got, the practice of the Skandhas is possible only when you begin to notice the transition between the Skandhas. Die Praxis der Skandhas wird erst dann möglich, wenn du wirklich den Übergang zwischen den Skandhas zu Skandhas bemerkst. And if you don't know the shift, you don't feel it, then you can't feel, explore, articulate the field of each skanda. So these categories, Zen Buddhism is full of categories.

[10:31]

And part of what I've been saying is the categories, you know, as I said, I think I said, I made a decision not to use Sanskrit and Pali words. Because they didn't have filaments to other words. But also, as I discovered, I chose to use English and through each of you German as well terms. Because actually the The categories, the shift between categories in English and German are different than the shift between categories in Sanskrit, Pali, Japanese, and so forth.

[12:05]

So we can use some Japanese categories, for instance. Like the word ma. I'm trying to explore with you. So wie ich dieses Wort Ma versuche mit euch zu erforschen. But mostly it's this knowing this shift which we can experience within our own paradigms of our own language. Aber im großen und ganzen versuche ich die Verlagerung Okay, so now if we look at the most basic distinction within Buddhism, which goes way back in Buddhism, which is to its earliest times, the two truths.

[13:29]

Nagarjuna emphasized it most and emphasized its alchemistry most. Nagarjuna has emphasized them the most and has also emphasized their alchemy the most. So again, very obviously, what are the two truths? The conventional world and the fundamental world. Now they're called two truths. Because it's actually just a way of interpreting the same thing. Okay. Now, if you only know the conventional truth that the world is more or less predictable, You won't ever know the fundamental truth that the world is not predictable.

[14:43]

Okay. And what Nagarjuna pointed out is you only... can know that it's unpredictable if you first know that it's predictable. Knowing it's predictable is the precursor to knowing it's unpredictable. So it's a kind of metabolic process. And in biochemistry, a precursor is something that is the substance or material that leads to the next thing, is the source of the next thing.

[15:50]

So knowing the predictability becomes the basis for knowing the unpredictability. Now we need some kind of sign you know, some kind of way to notice. Like all over the world, now that we have these rapidly moving pieces of steel, and now plastic sometimes. So wie wir jetzt über die ganze Welt verteilt diese sich sehr schnell bewegenden Metallstahlstücke und manchmal auch Plastikstücke haben.

[16:54]

We need road signs, traffic signs. Da brauchen wir jetzt daher Straßen. Didn't know I was talking about. What do you think I was talking about? Fire breathing dragons. Darüber hat er wohl gesprochen, über feueratmende Drachen. Yeah, a few of those would be interesting too. Okay, so we have red lights and green lights. And for the colorblind, we put the red on top so they have a chance. Or one of the first things you have to learn in driving in Germany and Europe, I guess, in general, is red. there's unpredictability coming from the right. We don't have that in the United States. So you have these signs, like a triangle, and it tells you that you have the right of way or you better be aware that there's an unpredictability coming from the right?

[18:15]

You better be aware, yeah. So the right of way is the true path. It's coming, the true path is coming from, unpredictability is coming from the right. Yeah. So I think that actually the word unpredictable is the simplest and best sign for the practice of the two truths. Just attach the word unpredictable to every perception. I mean, the conventional truth is to know that that things are Delusional are usefully predictable, but delusional.

[19:49]

So, every time you think something's predictable, you tend to notice you're assuming it's predictable, you're hoping it's predictable. You immediately take one of your unpredictable signs out and you nail it on it. Unpredictable. Unpredictable, that's what you are. No, that's not how it goes. Yeah. So, if you really get in the habit of marking everything, noting everything with unpredictability,

[20:57]

What is the chemistry of that? Or the alchemy of that? And this is where Nagarjuna in a way transformed this practice into truth. He emphasized, you can't do this philosophically, you do this through your practical behavior. And through your practical behavior you notice when things are more or less predictable, when they're very unpredictable, and so forth. Sorry, can you say that again? You notice when things are somewhat predictable or not predictable, and so forth.

[21:59]

As we all do. I mean, when you cross a street here, I hope this is a little more unpredictable than the stone path here, and so you look both ways. Now, every thoughtful person knows things are unpredictable. But They base their life mostly, and naturally enough, on the likely predictability. And many people actually keep a little special corner for it really is predictable. Like this wonderful man, Teilhard de Chardin, the scientist and Jesuit priest.

[23:09]

Teilhard de Chardin. As the new sphere and the omega point. and a kind of incremental evolution leading to love and God and so forth. So if everything is an activity, If everything is an activity, then everything is a process. And if everything is a process, that process is either random or guided. And religious people and new age people and so forth, they usually pick guided unpredictability.

[24:13]

Some kind of oneness comes in or the omega points. We're all going towards some kind of somewhere. But for Buddhists, it's not a guided field. It's just a field of potentialities. Much as your son found in her life, this field of potentialities. She saw them as potentialities, which probably is different than some people. And when the potentiator came along and made the most sense to her, she took it.

[25:32]

Okay. Okay. Okay. So Nagarjuna also emphasizes that you have a feeling for the field of unpredictability. And you notice the point at which you shift from knowing things as unpredictable and wanting things to be predictable. Okay, now as I started to say, most thoughtful people know the world is unpredictable. But the difference with that kind of intelligent person and the kind of intelligent practitioner that Nagarjuna imagines

[26:51]

And the kind of intelligent person or practitioner that Nagarjuna imagines. Nagarjuna imagines that the practitioner knows a radical unpredictability. Thoroughgoing unpredictability. complete unpredictability. Now that takes a shift and an intention. But if you make the shift to radical unpredictability, comprehensive unpredictability, just testing your vocabulary, Well, it means many things comprehensively. I know. No excuses. Because we still want predictability.

[28:14]

That doesn't go away. The knowledge... that the world is unpredictable, radically unpredictable, is analytic knowledge. But catalytic, soteriological means toward enlightenment knowledge, Is to know that everything is absolutely unpredictable. But you still want predictability. What do you discover?

[29:27]

That the continuum of the mind is predictable. And you really discover and enter into the mind is, if there's anything predictable while you're alive, it's the continuum of mind. Wenn es irgendetwas Vorhersehbares gibt, solange du am Leben bist, dann ist es das Kontinuum des Geistes. So everything is changing. You're in the midst of a field of potentiality. Alles ist im Wandel begriffen. Du bist inmitten eines Feldes von Möglichkeiten. But there's a stillness of mind within the field of potentiality. And this, when you really reside there, this is enlightened. So Nagarjuna saw the practice of the two truths as the catalytic transformer of conventional truth into enlightened truth.

[30:37]

Nagarjuna has seen the practice of the two truths as the catalytic process of transformation from the conventional truth to the fundamental truth. So here we have this, as Hartmar pointed out, this distinction. You notice, oh, it's predictable, it's unpredictable. It's an entity, it's an activity. And if everything's an activity, then as I just said, everything is a process. And in Buddhism, we don't sneak in predictability. We say this allness, as Otmar pointed out. I love the way he showed us that all this and this all are completely different. Ich habe das geliebt, die Art und Weise, wie er gesagt hat, dass all dies und dies alles komplett anders sind.

[32:05]

So that the allness is a field of unpredictability. which transforms the mind into a stillness, which and the allness becomes a field of potentialities. And that's a shift in the concept of the Dharmakaya. In early Buddhism, the Dharmakaya is a kind of a neutral space. But with Zen and Shingon and Tantric Buddhism, it becomes a field of potentialities.

[33:05]

That's all right. Calling forth the Alaya-Vijjana, which is also a field of potentialities. Yeah, I wanted to talk about Ma and the eating board is the lip. I don't know. No, I better stop. This is where things can change. Or it's a transition where you change from one kind of space to another kind of space.

[34:10]

So things like the eating board and Buddha bowl in the middle of the three bowls are all behavioral teachings to get you to notice shifts. In fact, the whole narrative of the koan literature whole maybe much of the narrative of Koan literature, is this text, what's said here, looks like conventional truth, but it might be fundamental truth.

[35:19]

And then sometimes it's conventional truth. And then sometimes it hints this isn't conventional truth, but... It is conventional truth. And sometimes it insists it's conventional truth and it means it's fundamental truth. This is really straight from Nagarjuna to teach you the distribution in text and in our activity of conventional truth and fundamental truth. That was fun to try to say that. I'm happy to see if I can unpack any of it in the future. Or maybe it's so unpacked already you feel you're rummaging around in your suitcase.

[36:42]

The Dharma suitcase just fell open. Thank you very much. May our intentions be the same in every place and every time.

[37:03]

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