Morning. So it's me. The windows are open. Things change all the time. I thought I was done with hot flashes, but here I go. They're back. Uninvited. Unexpected. But here they are. And no way to hide them. Um... And that's in some ways, you know, how life is. There are two kinds of suffering. One is just the way it is. Hot flash or pain or having lost somebody or being

[01:16]

assaulted by a feeling that we don't like. That's just how it is. And then my partner, the love of my life, says, and then there's the second kind of suffering, which she calls the do-it-yourself suffering. It's the stories we tell about what just is. And the stories will be just okay by themselves. But then we do something in addition to telling a story, we start believing the story we are telling. So then we're in deep trouble. And not only we, but everybody with us. whether we know that or not.

[02:18]

So, we have some comments which are also just out of our control. Here goes a belly having something to say. Can we listen with an open mind? an open heart, no judgment. That would be another great example to have a lot of story going on about this, right? Believing this story and then being, besides what it is, be engaged in the do-it-yourself suffering. So today I would like to talk about Appreciation. Appreciation. Deeply appreciation of everything.

[03:30]

Being grateful to everyone, to everything. Appreciating everybody, everything. Because... A life, a human life, or any life, or any life form, is utterly amazing, unfathomable, and irreplaceable. It cannot be also inconceivable. So on these trees out there, or out there, or on the magnolia tree that came down because it was not healthy anymore and its lifespan had come to an end, not one leaf is the same as any of the other ones on that tree.

[04:37]

So, the A friend I talked to you about in June who had to face her approaching death actually did die exactly a week ago. She did decide not to take her own life which was one of the options she had explored. She did stop her dialysis which was a very hard decision for her because she was only 64 and she had a lot of things she still wanted to have had in her life. So I saw her in August twice. I saw her in June for

[05:43]

Seven days where I went just to be with her. I didn't tell anybody else in Switzerland that I was there. Not my family, not my friends, so that I was just for my own protection, actually. So I wouldn't feel torn and I wouldn't have to say, no, I can't see you. And no, I can't see you either. And I wish I could. In August, I was there to celebrate my father's 93rd birthday. So I only saw her twice. And I came home and she had stopped dialysis just before I came home, back here, this home, I have two homes. And I have one regret. And the regret is that I did not, they were coming back, you know, there's so many things that go on. all the things you didn't get to before you left, all the things that have piled up while you were gone.

[06:46]

So I got very busy with doctor appointments and things. I had commitments. So I kept talking to her every day. But the regret I have is that I did not stop. That I did not at some point stop and appreciate all the different things that kind of came into play, like the feeling I would like to be there, the feeling I should be there, the feeling I have all these commitments here I can't possibly leave, the feeling it's costing so much money, I looked up, you know, I kept looking up, playing fairs and because it's short notice, they're way up there, it's a lot of money. The feeling I have to take care of my own body because I just discovered that I have a whole quarry of gold stones that I carry around, which I didn't know either, you know, till suddenly, well, what's that?

[08:02]

The... All those feelings and circumstances, I didn't stop and lay them all out. Appreciate each single one of them and just lay them out and then see what happens when they all get equal respect, equal appreciation. What clarifies when I do that? So I went from day to day kind of... Unhappy, wishing this weren't there and this wasn't there and this wasn't happening and why the timing kind of also flowing through all of that. But I didn't stop. On Saturday morning, her cousin, who she had contacted,

[09:05]

way back in June after she contacted. She had a good relationship with that cousin, even though after seeing each other during childhood, she had only seen her twice in her adult life. But they had been speaking on the phone. So she had called her cousin on Sunday last week when she went to the hospital. And her cousin in Berlin was kind of on Saturday or Friday decided I just have to go. Took an early plane, arrived in the morning early at the hospital, went to the hospital room, and there was Gabriele, and the cousin said, one eye was like not seeing anymore, but one eye still was. I took her hand, I said, I am here, and everything will be okay. And Gabriele looked at her, made sounds like she was trying to say something.

[10:19]

Tears started running down her eyes, side of her head. She took one deep in-breath and a very long out-breath and was gone. She had started to be able to speak about from Wednesday on. But that human contact, which had been so much of it, had been missing in her life, was there at that last minute and was so necessary. In German, the word for necessity is Notwendigkeit. It's what... is necessary to turn the misery, to turn the need. And it was right there, right in time.

[11:25]

So my feeling is that kind of because it had started, she had started to become a little more able to be connected over these last months. And so this kind of I feel like that she didn't leave alone in that hospital room, that there was a presence, a human being that she loved and that loved her. It was also the woman who told her, you know, there is a place in the family grave that's still open, and if you would like it, I would love to give it to you, which had meant a lot to Gabriele. So that human presence that loving, just being there, I think just cut, finished that part of the karma. That's not going with her wherever she's going. So now I have these regrets.

[12:30]

So now what are the stories I tell myself about them? Do I now? And, you know, the regrets, when somebody died, you can't change it anymore. It's done, finished. So, the practice continues. The practice of investigating, inquiring, respecting, looking at, Because if I now tell myself the story I was bad, I should have, and why did I? And I can feel how this weighs me down, how this doesn't make me more present to what's going on now, because life does not stop for one moment. So am I now not present because I'm continuing hanging back there?

[13:35]

Am I present to what... kind of pulls me back there, but in a way that it opens me up rather than closes me down. So what's the difference between resignation and acceptance? Which you could say resignation, you could look at as a near enemy of acceptance. Resignation takes something And your interpretation of it makes it into a fixed thing. This is how it is, substantial. And this, it's not going to change. So there is no resignation. The realm of possibilities is excluded. This is how it is. This is how it will be.

[14:35]

This is how it affects me, and this is my eternal stance to it. So you also put yourself in a box that's closed. No possibilities there. And it can be a relief. I'm not going to be hurt by this anymore. I'm taking my position. It's safe. That's resignation. Acceptance is this is how it is. Or even it is what it is. This is my interpretation of what it is. But really, truly, I don't really for sure know what it is. But this is how it appears to me. This is how it affects me. I accept That means I accept that it may continue to be painful, I may not know at all what to do, I stay present, and who knows, it may change.

[15:57]

So I was with my mother last year in March when she died. And there was no question. I was there. There was no question about it. My relationship with my father is a completely different one. I could never imagine that I would be close if he ever would need that much support that my mother did. and that maybe others of my siblings would be much closer during the event, if I would draw a mongola, I would be way further out. And that was okay. That was how it was. This location, I had somehow a different perception. I could see all of our siblings

[17:03]

how we function and how we are loving, open, obnoxious, hurtful, kind, everything, you know, depending on what the circumstances were. And our individual kinds of do-it-yourself suffering were very apparent, you know, do-it-ourself suffering. So, And I also saw my father, how he can be generous and kind and loving and totally selfish and rude and awful and, you know, kind of denigrating. It was just, oh, wow. And again, I had the feeling I'll be way, way, way out there. I decided to stay four days, the last four days, at my father's home where I grew up.

[18:06]

I did things during the day, he did things during the day, but I was there for meals and we just didn't talk much. We have a non-speaking relationship. Each time we try to talk, we get into big, big trouble. So, You know, over the course of my life, he's done things that kind of dipped into an other level of relationship. So we sit in the TV room, which those moments have happened, where he's zapping through channels and reading the paper and falling asleep and waking up and listening the fifth or seventh time to the same news on the day, loud, because he can't hear well. And I'm just sitting there and hanging out a little bit. Suddenly, this man reaches over and strokes me over my back.

[19:12]

Something I can't remember him doing. I'm sure he did it when I was very small. And it changed everything. He didn't talk, I didn't think about it, but if now, if he needs help, if he wants me there, it's completely possible. It's just totally open as a possibility. And it wasn't before. That's the difference between resignation. If I had resigned, which I did in between, you know, there were lots of phases where I was resigning to this. I would have had a story that would have made impossible that shift, that transformation into another space, that opening.

[20:27]

I wouldn't have been able to see it. I would have thought, well, what does he want now from me? Or, well, too late, too bad, too late. You know, I would have needed that 10 years ago. I don't know what stories would have been, but that would have been resignation. So, how do I appreciate? How do I listen? And there are two poems by... again Hafiz, that speak to that for me. One is called there. There, I bow my head at every, at the feet, excuse me. There, I bow my head at the feet of every creature. This constant submission and homage of kissing God all over, someday every lover will do.

[21:37]

Only there I prostrate myself against the beauty of each form. For when I bring my heart close to any object, I always hear... the friend say, Hafiz, I am here. So, this continuous dedication to bow our heads at the feet of every being, every object, every creature, is paying homage to that irreplaceable, utterly unique form of life, of the life we all share, of the life that makes us be here.

[22:40]

And God, or the Spirit, or Buddha Nature, or life force is always there. And this bowing our heads or appreciating needs to happen within ourselves and with whatever we perceive as being outside. So it also applies to what comes up inside. feelings, memories, thoughts, physical events? Can we really be available to it? Can we listen to it?

[23:45]

So in the, in one of the Jewish tales of creation, there is the female aspect of God who says, if you create this world of phenomena, I will go and be in each of these phenomenons. Each one. And so the light and the female aspect... The divine is in everything. And it doesn't say I'm only in this and not in that. It's in our tools. It's in everything. So there I bow my head at the feet of every creature. This constant submission and homage of kissing God all over.

[24:51]

Someday every lover will do. If we do that, what we encounter is who we are in this moment, in this moment, in this moment, and we're put together who we are by everything around us. So you're putting together this talk. This room is putting together this talk. The sitting in the zendo before is putting together this talk. the realizing that I'm not wearing these robes very often in my life now, and that because I don't wear them every day anymore, I become kind of clumsy with them. Everything is practice.

[25:54]

What we keep doing, how we keep expressing our intention every day is what is available to us. And otherwise we become more clumsy. I'm not clumsy bowing. I don't bow so often anymore. So that reminds me, maybe I should take a bowing practice again. The Dalai Lama says, every day when I wake up, he meditates for hours. One part of it is cultivating his motivation. Then he has a lot of other parts, but one also is, I think, on a regular basis, It's really creating the shape of his mind. It's a cultivation of mindsets. In an interview with Spalding Grace, Spalding Grace said, you know, in the hospital,

[26:57]

hotel here, you know, all these beautiful women in bikinis and bathing suits, do they appear in your mind? Do they call up desire? What happens for you? And he says, yeah, they do appear. And because of my daily practice, when they appear in my mind and start looking really attractive, what comes up is I am a monk. In my dreams, when there's I have dreams where there's violence and guns. When they come up, those dreams, what comes up with them is I am a monk. I'm not going to engage in this. And he says it's due to daily practice. The Buddha didn't stop sitting after he woke up. This cultivation is a continuous, never-ending process. And we can do this without having to move into Zen Center.

[28:04]

We can do this with simple little things. So the poem How Do I Listen by Hafiz goes, how do I listen to others? As if everyone were my master speaking to me his cherished last words. So that could be something we can take in our day, into our everyday, ordinary day with all the things that happen. And can we listen to everything that happens in that way? That it is teaching us something. That it is telling us something. That we might not, we will not hear this again. You can ask your wife, you can ask your children, how was your day?

[29:11]

And you can just listen. Not have opinions, or not engage, you will have opinions, but not engage in them. Not go, oh, I know that too. Not go, oh, can I help you fix this? Just receiving it as a gift. Oh, this is how your day was. for you and leave it there and say, thank you so much for telling me. That's the crooks of the forms. But that was a good place to make his help.

[30:19]

He gave it some gratitude, so thank you. So what I wish for you is that you carry out of here an encouragement for appreciation, for expressing appreciation, for remembering appreciation, because what is now may be gone the next moment. We all don't know if we are going to be able to be at another level. Saturday morning lecture. We don't even know if we're going to wake up tomorrow morning. We don't even know if we're going to get to go to bed tonight.

[31:24]

We just don't. So can we keep appreciating this life, including its pains, including its mistakes? including its confusion, including its not knowing what to do. But being willing to slow down a little and listen in that way, or hold that inner attitude of bowing at the feet of every creature. of every being, of every thing, of every tree, of every feeling, in order to really become able to see more clearly what they are, not just what we think about them, not what we think they make us look like or not look like, or just...

[32:40]

not to engage so much in this do-it-yourself suffering. Because there is enough pain without that, just by being alive. you very much.

[34:06]

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