You know, Wolfgang this morning at breakfast asked me if we have any ceremonies for acknowledging transitions in our lives. You know, of course I understand the question. And I'm touched by it and at the same time a little surprised. Because, you know, I still don't, you know, I sort of Yeah, I feel I'm here and I sort of get invited to talk too much, but I talk too much. But there's also a sun there, a community which has developed, and you spoke about it as a sense of community.

[01:02]

And I should have just let things happen. Maybe we should take more general responsibility for our Sangha. Yeah. And so you told me Carolina made up a ceremony for the mice in her laboratory that she has to... And I guess you did a ceremony for Ulrika Dilla's baby. Is that right? Oh, yeah. And I was asked to do, Paul Rosenblum, she was asked to do a baptism for someone's baby, which he did, a kind of baptism, while he was in California and the baby was in Vienna.

[02:50]

That was really wild. You know, there is a problem here. Because Buddhism does not have really very many ceremonies. It has the basic ones, the ordination ceremony, and the full moon ceremony. Because there's no God that we're relating to through ceremonies. Though when self sneaks back into Buddhism, so does God sneak back into Buddhism. Then you begin having ceremonies which are kind of like But strictly speaking, there aren't many ceremonies.

[04:03]

So the funeral ceremony is an ordination ceremony. It's just, you know, you're ordaining the person who died to hear And there's a problem there, too, because if you're in Chinese or Japanese cultures, they want it to be about reincarnation. But, for example, Sukhya, she had no interest at all in reincarnation. So he'd have to do ceremonies with the words of reincarnation, but he didn't really believe them. But the culture expected it of him. So I don't have that problem exactly, but I still don't know quite what to do sometimes.

[05:03]

I remember Sukhiroshi and I used to go sometimes and visit. the houses of Japanese parishioners. He wanted me to learn the religious side of And one thing he asked me to do was to go to all the funeral ceremonies he did. And since most of the Japanese congregation was old, had survived the Second World War in camps that the Americans sent them to as potential traitors.

[06:15]

And one of the main traitors was in the Soto Zen congregation. I've never told this story. Shall I tell the story? An anecdote? Please. The Hagiwara family owned, I think, the tea garden in Golden Gate Park. You know the story. I don't remember. Anyway, and the tea garden is still, in fact, my brother-in-law, Lenny, just rebuilt the tea ceremony, the tea, some of the tea, because he studied Japanese wood chinery carpentry. And he didn't know this story. I told it to him recently. Anyway, the Hagiwara family owned the tea garden, and it was one of the main tourist spots.

[07:19]

It still is maybe the main tourist site in San Francisco. It's rather corny and schmalzy and touristy and it's got an arched bridge and all that. But it has a pagoda in the town. And at some point the U.S. government by triangulation that radio signals were being sent from San Francisco to Japanese battleships at sea off the coast of California.

[08:20]

So with the triangulation, where did it end up? at the Stupa Pagoda at the San Francisco Tea Garden. And they had mounted at the top of this building with a little Buddhist spire a radio tower. Well, because of this, That's one of the main reasons that the entire Japanese community in California and San Francisco was relocated to Arizona and New Mexico. It was also a land grab. Because the Japanese were simply better farmers than the white folks, and the white folks wanted their farms.

[09:39]

But one of the ostensible, upfront reasons was the Hagiwara family were loyal to the emperor and not to the president. But the visible reason was that the Aguirre family So it would make a good no or no play in Japan or kabuki play. Living in the enemy country, you're still loyal to the emperor. Well, the Japanese community was horrified and terrified and asked Mr. Hagiwara to commit harakiri. And Mr. Hagiwara And his son, who I got to know very well, I liked him, he was a nice man, said, we may be loyal to the emperor, but we're not that Japanese.

[10:54]

But Hagiwara's sister disemboweled herself with a sword on the steps of the tea garden. That's what harakiri means, to cut your hara, harakiri. Anyway, why did I tell you that story? What is ceremony? Yeah, right. This is we're not adding to the sign. Okay. But the funeral ceremony, as I said, is an ordination ceremony.

[11:55]

Now, lots of the rituals we do And I've tried to specifically emphasize those. Our rituals to embody appearance, to embody dharmas. Simple work, like you bow to the cushion. It's a kind of respect and a recognition of where you're going to sit. Then you turn around and bow to the space, the people, the Zendo, or whatever it is. And all this doing things with two hands, you know, is all Dharma rituals. But these Dharma practice rituals don't apply much to baptisms and things like that.

[13:04]

So, I don't know, you know, we can figure, maybe we should have a Sangha newsletter. And in Vienna, you know, they decided to start doing their own internet practice period which you know from my point of view is a little nuts but but when they stopped calling it a practice period and just called it an internet practice that worked quite well for them. I don't mind if you don't call it a practice period. And from all the reports I've had, people really They started out with a few people and people really did like the connectedness, even if they'd only saw each other physically occasionally.

[14:17]

Dobin emphasized face-to-face practice. But he said actually nothing about Facebook to Facebook practice. I don't know. I'm old and fashioned. I'm outmoded as well, I guess. And... And I really To me, face-to-face practice is what I do, what we do. But things do change and develop. For instance, I started the winter branches. And... Anyway, I started the winter branches.

[15:19]

Which as you know means... The branches look like they're dead, but in spring they bloom. So winter branches is an image for the lineage. It may have several generations where it just looks like people are practicing and the right circumstances happen and it blooms. Anyway, I started winter branches. And we made it rather strict. Somebody saying Sashin and this and that, right?

[16:29]

And I thought it was strict enough that we'd have eight or ten people. Instead we had 80. And I couldn't say no, all these people applied. And I thought it was unrealistic that they could take all their vacation time plus, you know, sick time and so forth and do these things. And of course I was right. I mean, I don't mean of course I was right. But people did try for the first couple of years. But pretty soon people began doing the parts they could do and didn't do the parts they couldn't do. So that it took its own form. And it made its own rules. So now we're going to try to at least let everyone know through our non-existent Sangha newsletter that the rules have changed.

[17:40]

And what the Sangha has created, that will be the rules for the winter branches. And then we'll start another group of eight. No, I don't know. I can do so much. So the Sangha has a life of its own, independent of what I do. And it's got to have a life of its own, independent of what I do, because I can't promise I'll always be around. I mean, the part of me that undresses me or dresses me thinks there's going to be an exception made in my case. But probably there won't be an exception made. And I'll have to retire with my friend here. Okay, so that's all that.

[19:04]

And I have no idea if the resources to... It looks like the Sanger would like to do Hotzenholz, so we don't know for sure yet. But we have no idea if the financial resources will be there. And we don't want to cripple Johanneshof with debt. So I don't know if we'll do it. If we do do it, then the Sangha will again There will be a stage of the development of the Sangha having a life of its own. And now we don't have much time to discuss your discussion. So tomorrow. But we'll at least have one report from Anja. Wir werden von Antje wenigstens einberichtet.

[20:11]

Well, that was really English. No, she had told me this morning she was so... Will you be back? Wirst du wiederkommen? Oh, good. Okay. So, she told me this morning she was much too shy to say anything. Sie hat mir am Morgen gesagt, dass sie viel zu schüchtern sei, irgendetwas zu sagen. So, please say something. Sag bitte etwas. Just something. Etwas. Etwas. How was your... Just pretend no one's here but me and this guy. This is your husband. Yeah, how was this discussion? How was this discussion? quite inspiring. Oh really? And what did you say? Yes, what you said. Before the break, before when you had set this up, my idea was also to, if this could have been looked at as a circle,

[21:33]

Or as single steps in living it or experiencing it. And one of the many experiences of self and also the solution of self was the observing. and with the feeling of having to make decisions within a group. For me the experience that I experience different selves. Different selves in a group and I take them up but when it's my turn You can take no decision. Because I'm sort of enriched by all these other things.

[22:57]

I don't have the feeling of to lose myself or to miss myself. Just to experience it that way. And then one aspect, not to make a decision or to make the decision, I make it tomorrow, is not so important. Then the others have to wait. And it is not so fortunate. We had a red balloon. I have the feeling I've taken responsibility to see where did the journey go and everything's there. Now we have to stop her. Jetzt müssen wir sie bremsen.

[24:15]

Now that you've proved how good you are at giving reports, you'll have to do this more and more often, like starting out tomorrow morning. You really have drilled a well here. Yeah, really. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow.

[24:38]

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