is grateful living and grateful dying. We have had much emphasis on the dying already. We sort of anticipated that twice. And so this time I want to emphasize the living. And I want to call to your attention at the start that grateful living is... something different from being grateful once in a while. We all are grateful once in a while, but grateful living is making a practice out of what all of us experience once in a while when we have good reason to be grateful. It's a practice. It's an attitude in life. It's not just something that happens once in a while. And that would be... the main focus, as a spiritual practice, because that is our overall team, the spiritual practice, Christian Buddhists.

[01:12]

We'll hear Paul in the afternoon about the Buddhist aspects of this grateful living. And so, again, as usual, we arranged the questions that... gave us in a certain order to lead us into this topic. And they were mostly the questions that when we first read them and organized them, we marked with L for living. There are many excellent questions about living. And the first question in this series is, why are we here? Why are we here? a very good question and as so often the question a very good question contains the answer and the answer to this why over here is the why to ask that why that's why we are here to ask that why because when you said who is we

[02:31]

Well, we humans, the squirrel does very well, as we heard this morning in the poem, can be a great example for us, but does not ask why as far as we know. But it's more important to know what we ask than to know exactly what the squirrel does. So we, as humans, ask why. And that's why we are here. That's what we are here for. At least one way of saying what we are here for. To ask this why. We are the animals that are confronted with the big questions of life, as we listed slightly differently, but we listed why, what and how, as doors into the mystery. Why are we here?

[03:35]

To ask that why, and thereby come into interaction with that mystery. That mystery, to just make sure that we all mean the same thing by it, we have said that many times, but mystery, when I use the word mystery, or also we mean by it that which we can not comprehend, we cannot lay hold of intellectually, we can't put it into words or put it into concepts, but we can understand it by letting it something do to us, by opening ourselves to letting it do something to us. Very much like music, that's always a good example.

[04:36]

What's there to be grasped with the lecturing about a good piece of music, and yet we understand and does something to us when we deeply listen, and it's the right moment for the right piece of music. And life is another word, a more Maybe concrete word, closer to home, word for mystery. Life is that which, particularly our life, but life also in general, is that which we cannot comprehend, but can and must understand by living, simply by living. And then comes, of course, right away, the second question, what is the purpose of my life? And when we feel our way into it, we find this interesting, in a sense, startling fact, that life really...

[05:59]

wants something, life has a direction, and it goes to almost to fuller life. And so life wants more life. Life propagates itself. Life unfolds in a variety of ways. It's creative, unfolding, and strong in keeping alive. Those are directions we could imagine that it would be otherwise. Life would try to be as short as possible. So there is a kind of fly which in German is called the one-day fly. They live just one day. There's the story that Mr. One-Day-Fly says to Mrs. One-Day-Fly, what are we going to do tomorrow?

[07:09]

And she says, I have no time for such jokes. You put it back in that our life is very short, right? But life is very tenacious. This is a direction. And the answer to what is the purpose of my life is simply to live with this, live the kind of life that life wants. That's what we mean by aliveness. There is a kind of life that life wants. Another kind of life that life doesn't want. And one very important aspect of life that we have been talking about, again and again, is interbeing. Dicterbeing, Thich Nhat Hanh calls it.

[08:10]

Everything is interwoven with everything. And we can go with this direction, and weave our way into it and be ready to weave and be ready to be woven into it or we can resist it. The opposite is interrupting interruption interruption interruption interbeing and interruption not interruption but interruption so a rupture is when you tear something that interbeing is like a weaving and the interruption is when you tear it and our no can and often does

[09:15]

cause these interruptions in life. And that is pain and that is injury to others. That's also what the word sin wants to say, sin cutting asunder, bearing. Interruptions. And of course, from this question, what is the purpose of my life, to live fully, comes the next question, how do you discover your life's purpose? But the question is very interesting. How do you discover your life's purpose and then live it? That would be wonderful if we could do that, you know, discover your life's purpose when you have it, and then we just carry it out like a man.

[10:16]

But this and then puts you right on the wrong track. There is no first discovering the purpose of life and then limit. You discover the purpose of life now. There is no other place or way in which you can discover because life is just start with the notion of life as interbeing. So it's constantly intermoven. So when you come to this point of the weaving or in time, the decisions and the interactions of everything else there is has already created this moment and will create the next moment definitely. So you can't have... One purpose that you know beforehand, because you may know, even that is not so true, but you may know more or less what you will want the next moment.

[11:27]

But you can possibly imagine what all the others together will want, and that's what you meet in the now. So you have to be fully alive means moment by moment to answer what's coming to you. have spoken about this stop, look, go. That is simply a method of coming into the present moment. Stop, because otherwise you'll be carried past this present moment into the future by your wishes, by your fears, or will hang on to the past. So to be really present means to stop. Briefest of seconds. Split seconds. Stop. Look what is now meeting me and then respond to that. Go. That means do something.

[12:29]

And in that sense, of course, it's a beautiful... This question is a beautiful question. How do I discover my life's purpose and then live it? How do you discover it? First by stalking, by looking, because how could I discover it if I don't look? And then live it. So this is a very important aspect of this. Not just look and see, there's a possibility. Grab it and do something with it. Otherwise you are not hearing a voice. Just an observer. Do it, do something. And then live it. That's very beautiful. And therefore, again, the next question, and they are not the same question, it's just beautiful how everybody weaves that together. Somebody different asks, how do I open my life to the purpose I am meant to be?

[13:32]

That's also very beautiful. It's a little elliptic, but it's very beautiful. How do I now really open my life to that purpose that I am meant to be? And in order to answer that, we have to make, again, one of those important distinctions that we over and over get to make. And this time it's the distinction between purpose and meaning. Unfortunately, in our... sloppy everyday language. You often say meaning when you mean purpose, and you say purpose when you mean meaning. But let's stop and consider that these are two very different things, or rather, we are dealing with two very different realities, actualities, and so we need two different words, and they are handy and available in our language.

[14:40]

purpose is your goal. You go somewhere. It remains a purpose until you accomplish it. The purpose always has the idea that it sits out there somewhere and you go towards it. It may be even very difficult to accomplish this purpose. It may be something like climbing Frag Mountain. Vanya was director of Tassara for a few years. I was from Switzerland, Austria. Switzerland is a terrific mountain climber. He climbs these frozen waterfalls in the winter. This is what I was saying. He said climbing Flag Mountain here was one of the most difficult things he had ever done in his life. Everything is loose. It falls down and it's very steep. So... That could be your purpose, climbing for a mountain.

[15:43]

And it's difficult until you get up. So it's something that lies ahead of you, climbing up, getting there. It's work. Purpose and work belong very closely together. Work is an activity that tends towards the activity achievement of a particular purpose, and when this purpose is achieved, work comes to an end. Not just because you say, okay, I reached it, so I don't want to work any further. Many times, when the purpose is achieved, you can't go on working. My favorite example is if you are sweeping and vacuuming this floor here, for instance.

[16:46]

So you're going with your broom, and you're cleaning it, and then you clean it again, and clean it for a third time, and it's absolutely stick and span. And then you still walk around with your broom. Sooner or later, somebody's going to come and say, what are you playing around with your floor? See, something hasn't turned into play. It's work until you have achieved your purpose and then you're playing around. And if you say, oh, but I like to play around with my pro, I dance with my pro every Thursday morning or something. You have a perfect right to do it, but it has turned into play. And play has no purpose. Or rather, if you want to put it that way, all the purpose of play is in the doing, not somewhere outside. In the doing. You don't dance in order to get somewhere. You work in order to achieve something, but you dance in order to dance in order to dance.

[17:50]

An orchestra doesn't play in order to get finished. with the one who gets their first win. The meaning is all winning. Meaning, purpose is that which you need to achieve. Meaning is that within which you can rest. That within which you find rest. And not... just falling asleep there, but rather at dynamic rest, dynamic stillness. Think of dancing or whirling. You are restful. So what we really want in our life, that what I'm meant to be, is that we combine meaning and purpose.

[19:00]

Very often, unfortunately, in the way we have arranged our world, people wake up one day and have to say to themselves, my life is full of purpose, but where's the meaning of it all? So the goal is to put the meaning into the purpose. find meaning within your purpose or work playfully. Work playfully. But find work, this is not everywhere allows that, but find work that you can do playfully. That means it can be very serious, Free is very serious for everyone, but especially for children.

[20:03]

Free is really more serious than work, because meaning is more important to us than purpose. If all the purpose of your life is taken away, but you still find it meaningful, you have a meaningful life, but if you have no meaning, no kind of purpose will help you. So, meaning is the important thing. And, uh, This combination of work and play we call leisure. So doing leisure. Because leisure is not, again, we get this often wrong, leisure is not what certain people who have enough money can afford, so to say. But leisure is a virtue. It is giving as much time to whatever we are doing as it deserves.

[21:06]

Giving time. We have time. That's a great treasure that we have. We can give that time or we can withhold the time. I have no time. But giving as much time as it deserves, that is vision in living. No more and no less. And that combines the best of work with the best of play. You will achieve your purpose much better if you work leisurely than if you work hastily. And you will enjoy it much more if you work leisurely. So how do I open my life to the purpose I am meant to be, actually, by living leisurely. That opens it. We have already said living in the now, this is very closely connected.

[22:09]

And then, an interesting question, is it okay not to have any questions? I think it's very okay not having any questions because when you're really in this lesion living, you may have long stretches in which you live, but you're not bothered by any questions. You're just responding moment by moment to what is there. So it's perfectly fine and enviable to have no questions unless it is just that You are so lazy that you're asking a question. But for a happy, peaceful, leisurely living, we should not constantly be bothered by questions. Sometimes, particularly people who try to be very spiritual, and that's good, but they get the impression, I owe it to myself to be bothered by questions.

[23:16]

Almost. I couldn't be spiritual if I hadn't constantly, we are not constantly grappling with questions. No, it's wonderful to have no questions for a while. But then, sooner or later, that comes and asks a question. It's hardly avoidable in life, and that is good again. But I want to stress this aspect because our dealing with mystery is not only through these difficult questions. We spoke about questions that lead you into mystery, but we are always surrounded by mystery, always part of mystery. As we said, in God we live and move and have our being, and this is a wonderful, great dance. Ultimately, it's a big dance, and that dance can be unquestioning actually might be even a goal that dance itself is living out the mystery without the questions if they are not right there I think it's a justified question is it okay to have no questions but

[24:45]

But then comes another question, so interesting, as if these people were sitting together. They wrote these questions at different times, and then at different times, so the next one asks, what is the most important question in my life? Nobody can tell you that, nor... Can you know it ever? Except right now. What is the question right now that you are confronted? Because all other questions would not be so important. You have only this present moment. Right now. What is right now the question? If there is any. What confronts you right now? It would be nice to stretch this notion of question so that it is not just has a question mark behind it.

[25:52]

It is not a question that you can formulate. So a request is in a sense also a question and every moment makes a request on us. Right now the request of the moment is that I Talk to you. We have agreed on that. And the request for you is that you listen. So that's not exactly a question, but it's the most important question, question what, and put in quotation marks, right now for us. And so I would like you to turn together. Again, two is better than three. Clues. And this can be very brief.

[27:07]

Let's tell each other Just one and the other, you can decide who is first and second. What is the most important question in my life right now? And stretch the notion of question. You can formulate something that has a question mark if it's really on your mind or request. We have spoken about it. What's right now? What is the moment asking of me? Maybe doing something. not doing something. As a back and forth discussion or one person and then the other? One person and then the other. It might be better if you just forced to listen, let the other say a few words. We won't discuss any further what you said now, what was the most important question right now in your life.

[28:07]

The other I'd like to take the next question that was handed in, and that was, what do I, or you in parentheses, what do I really want? What do I really want? That's a point of question that we ask ourselves. What do I really want? So we have already several times spoken about what does life want from us? This is now, what do I really want? That particular focal point of life that I find myself in, whatever I mean by I, I myself, what do I really want? And fortunately, one can answer that question very clearly for everyone with great confidence

[29:08]

and not only for our human beings, but for our animals, plants, everything there is, we want joy. We want joy. Everyone wants joy. And by joy we mean happiness, but a special kind of happiness. And it's not something different from aliveness, full aliveness. Full aliveness means healthy aliveness. That means for many people it is not possible to have physically full health. But one can even live with physical handicaps and One can even make the physical handicaps an incentive to be more alive, more healthy inside.

[30:17]

Just think of Helen Keller, what a great teacher she became to millions of people, and she would not have become that if she hadn't been blind and deaf and mute. Terrible, unimaginable handicaps. physically she was not well but spiritually that physical handicap became the incentive to become spiritual health so being healthy means again alive fully alive not diminished in the aliveness and that we can't draw we can look at different plants and some look a little withered and have some brown leaves and the other one is young and has only nice clean shoes, you would say, this one looks more joyful to me than the other. So joy is clearly aliveness, and that's another word for happiness, but a special kind of happiness, as I said, namely

[31:33]

The happiness that doesn't depend on what happens. This is the, when you really look, what kind of happiness do I want? I want a lasting happiness. A happiness under all circumstances. Circumstances constantly change, but I want to find that happiness that remains that doesn't change and that is the great claim of gratefulness that it is now not just happens once in a while to say thank you but this attitude of grateful living that's the great claim that it gives you that joy and And you don't have to take that because I or somebody else claims it, but you can just ask yourself what happens when you are joyful, when you are grateful.

[32:47]

Two things have to come together for any person to be grateful, and that is they have to receive something have to receive something, it's a response to receiving something, and receiving something that's valuable to you. If you receive something that's not valuable, you're not particularly grateful, or it may even be something that you don't want, but if you receive, the more valuable it is to you, the more grateful you will be for it. So it has to be valuable. The second aspect is it has to be freely given. No strings attached. Completely gratis. If you have to work for it, all right, you may still like it, but you are not particularly grateful. Or if you have to pay a lot for it, you're not particularly grateful. It has to be gratis. And the more obviously it is freely given and the higher the value for you

[33:58]

the more you will enjoy it. Let's not even talk about gratitude. We will enjoy it. And that joy is gratitude. That joy is gratitude. It's not saying thank you. Saying thank you is a very nice and polite and a good habit, but it is completely external, if you want, to a grateful living, to be the guy. The joy is the guy. My favorite example, and I'm sure many of you have heard it already from me, is when you bring children a gift, you bring them a gift, and if the child says thank you, puts it down, plays with something else, you will say, he was very well trained or something like that, he would never say he was very grateful.

[34:59]

If he never says thank you, he just grabs his replacement all afternoon, he would say, but wasn't he grateful? Because he enjoyed it. That is the important thing. And this is applicable to our lives whenever we really enjoy something. Really enjoy it. then that way we show ourselves grateful. Maybe the enjoyment is not so important, but the doing something with it. Take it and do something with it. Like the child plays with it, and we do something with it. Thereby we show our gratefulness. Now we have to make an important additional step and see that we know that gratefulness always arises as the joy when something is valuable, is freely given to us.

[36:04]

Now we make the next step and say, what is the most valuable thing that anybody can receive and totally freely given? The present poem. Because if the present moment were not given to us, anything else that you think of that you would enjoy isn't there. The present moment gives you the opportunity. That's the next important keyword. But the present moment is always the most valuable thing that anybody can receive and completely freely given. To such an extent freely given that you... You cannot buy it, no matter how much money you are. You can't buy one moment of your life. It's completely freely given. And that brings us back to this now, to live in the present moment. And therefore, grateful living is a real spiritual practice because it brings you again and again into this present moment.

[37:16]

And that's what Bodeva spiritual practice wants to do. It brings you into the now. And in that sense, all that is given to us in this present moment, this gift, all is grace, all is gift, as Augustine says. But then comes, of course, immediately the question, how can I understand the pain this part of life a part of life's unfolding as it should. What is this moment is a moment of pain. There is where this word opportunity comes in. Most of the time, the present moment offers us an opportunity to enjoy. When you hear this for the first time, you may wonder, is that really true?

[38:22]

Well, try it. Wake up to the present moment, and you will see that 99% of the time, the present moment offers you opportunity to enjoy. It's just that you pay no attention to these opportunities. Who of us, when we came in here, paid attention to the seat on which we are sitting? We could all be sitting on the rocks or something else that's very uncomfortable. All of us are sitting on something that's relatively comfortable. Our publics ought to be trained to enjoy that. Most of the time we have this pleasure, but we take it for granted. When you get into the habit of looking, what is this, what opportunities do I have now to enjoy, there's always something there, just breathing freely, just having eyes to see, ears to hear.

[39:28]

And the more you train this, moment by moment, looking for the opportunity, stop, look for the opportunity, avail yourself of it, the more you find that There are all these enjoyable things that I never paid attention to. And so life becomes much more joyful. But this is now the question, how about pain? What if this is a moment of pain? How difficult? There you have to fall back on the insight that what we are really grateful for is always, always the opportunity. And as I said, most of the time it's the opportunity to enjoy. But life offers us also other opportunities. And it's good to start with training by enjoying the opportunities to enjoy.

[40:31]

Then you are in training. And then if something comes up that you cannot enjoy, your mind will be ready to ask, what is this now the opportunity for? And it may be the opportunity to learn something new. It can be very unpleasant because we always like, most people like to stick with the old and something new comes out. So learning is one of the great opportunities that life gives us and that is... quite distinct much of the time from simply enjoying something. Not enjoyable what you're learning here, but learning is always enriching for life, and that's what we said. Life wants more life, life wants richer life, unfolding of life, and the opportunity to learn belongs here.

[41:35]

Or it can be the opportunity to to serve, to do something difficult for someone whom you love and belong together. And sometimes I'm called to serve, to do something like that. I'd rather like to do something else than serve. Opportunity to grow. Growing, as teenagers, I think many of us experience growing pain. I think of growing pain. This can be very painful. But it makes us grow. And if we don't go through this pain, we will not grow up. So this is growing up and maturing.

[42:38]

Pain of maturing can be a very painful opportunity. But the opportunity is a gift. And if you look at it as a gift, you look at it with a different perspective. That is why this attitude of grateful living is so creative. It always looks for the most creative element in a situation. Or it may be the opportunity to protest there's also a tremendous opportunity that's given to us. Both in private life, in personal life, this is where I draw my limits. No, I say no. Saying no at the right time can be a tremendous opportunity. I'm present. We like to say yes. We like to check along. But if there's something that you have to draw the line and say, no, that is also an opportunity.

[43:43]

And that can be in private life and it can be in public life. And many people, even many spiritual people, people who explicitly want to be spiritual, they overlook these many, many opportunities in public life where we are given the opportunity to say no and to speak up. or even to say yes and promote something that needs to be promoted. And when you go on the internet, you have thousands of opportunities to vote for something or to sign a petition. That's a great opportunity in which we should not overlook. Today, formerly you had to go onto the street and hold up a placket or something like that. Now you can demonstrate simply Very simply, confusingly important that you are number 50,503 or something like that.

[44:44]

It makes an impact. In other words, opportunity is the gift within every gift. It's opportunity. And to stop, look for that opportunity, and then avail yourself of the opportunity, that is the process of grateful living. And even if this is pain, can I learn from it? Can I grow by it? Can I bear it lovingly for others? There are all sorts of opportunities. And then the question, what makes life worth living if all is taken away? Sooner or later, all will be taken away. Where is the opportunity when everything is taken away?

[45:45]

It's the opportunity to distinguish between having and being. What's taken away is always something that you have. But being is something different from having. Every time something is taken away, you don't have to wait until everything is taken away. The question is very good because it points you to, it's very radical. But every time something is taken away, and we played that yesterday on the wonderful game, you come to the distinction between having and being. you spoke about the I and the self, that the I has, the self is. So when I speak of I and myself, I speak about having a body, you see, for instance.

[46:55]

It's a very strange situation that as human beings say, I have a body. Who is that I that has the body? It's a body that's saying it, you see. Bonnie sits there and says, I have a body. It's absurdity in a sense. What's happening there? It has to do with the messenger, I'm sure. But at any rate, are there two? Is there one? Is there nobody at home at all? We went ourselves down into this great mystery. But it's helpful for us to find that anchorage in the is, not in having. And the more what we have is taken away from us, the more we are kind of forced by life to find the being.

[48:04]

And ultimately, it is what we have called the self, or the Christ in us, or the Buddha nature. It's not something which you have. If you want to have, it's something that you are. And that's why in this poem that I read the other night, Rilke says, That which we cannot grasp takes hold of us and transforms us into that which, barely suspecting it, we are. We are transformed into that which we are. And that is an important process in life. Using everything can be great way to discover who you are when you have nothing.

[49:09]

Great opportunity. And now, the question, why is gratefulness so powerful? So that must have been asked by somebody who has already experienced grateful living and experience it as very powerful in our lives. And of course, there are many answers that could be given to that question, why is it so powerful? But I would like to briefly try this approach. It is so powerful because somehow the sense that... It is what life is all about. And this is how we can go about saying that, explaining that. People have asked themselves, as long as, you know, a lot of humans who have language and reflect, what is life all about?

[50:25]

This is one of the very, very basic questions. What's life all about? And we know that people have given answers to this question and answer to these questions if you want. Before historic times, from prehistoric times, we receive already the hero myth. Because to these great questions, people give answers that we call myth. A myth in the full sense is a story that answers one of those basic questions. And this basic question is life all about, and the myth that answers that question is thousands of stories, as Joseph Campbell calls it, the hero with a thousand faces, you see, and remember that poem, Christ, the hero, plays in 10,000 places,

[51:29]

in the features of human faces. So that's the hero that plays, what's life all about, that play. So the answer to the great question, what's life all about, is the hero myth. And you can think of any classic hero figure or model even... Sometimes in modern ways you have the anti-hero, and that confuses the situation a little bit. But if you think of any hero, you will see that the hero myth always, as with all the great varieties there are, always has three phases that must not be lacking. And the first is that the hero is distinguished, not so different that you can't identify it the hero must be someone with whom you can identify very special but you can identify and in the first phase the hero goes out from the community goes out or set apart set apart and that can be

[52:53]

set apart by being particularly beautiful, particularly strong, or particularly stupid. The third brother was the stupid one, or the ugly duckling, but turns then later on into a swan. So, somehow distinguished in a way that you can identify. Hand goes... Sometimes thereby, and sometimes physically, riding out on a white horse into adventure, into the forest, or something like that, or a bear wolf crossing the sea, or a little red riding wood going into the woods. The hero goes out. It's out from the community. That's the first phase. Second and most central phase, the hero now encounters adventure. and a radical form of adventure and encounters that which we have to deal with but can't get into our grip.

[54:05]

That's what happens. There are things in life which we inevitably have to deal with and which under no circumstances we can't control. Something that It does something to us, and we can't do anything to it. And the most typically generic terms for it is love. It's inevitable in life, but you can't control it. It does something to you. You have to interact with it, deal with it. And death. It's also inevitable, and you can't control it. Often these two images are even brought together in the hero myth, and then you have the hero out of love for the princess fighting the dragon. That would be the middle of this hero myth. It has often to do with love.

[55:09]

It always actually has to do with death. And by comparing those thousands of myths that hero myths that have come down to us, you see that the storytellers make a special effort. And the effort is to make the hero as dead as possible. They are not satisfied with just shooting and bang and you're dead. No, it has to be cut into pieces. But the other half of it is, and yet he lives. One of the beautiful heroes is Orpheus. And Rilke has dealt a great deal with Orpheus and wrote early sonnets to Orpheus.

[56:13]

And Orpheus is torn into pieces by the menace. Tear him into pieces. So he's really as dead as you can be. But, Ritke says, he was not torn, he was distributed. Distributed. And his head, torn from the rest of the body, floats down the river singing. And his lyre is... taken up into the stars and becomes a constellation. So he's dead and vetriated. And returns, that is now the third phase, returns to the community as life bringer. That's why Velke says he was distributed. And now he says he sings in the rocks and in the lions and in the trees.

[57:15]

Everything sings, everything sings because he's no longer the little singer alone, but he has been torn and distributed. And so in every hero mystic we find something similar that the hero returns, except in one version of the hero myth, the cowboy. Does not return to the community, but rides off into the sunset. And every anthropologist will say, what kind of a community is that of the cowboys than you? There's something missing. It's a very, very dangerous kind of situation that we've got here. But normally, in a hundred thousands of versions, the cowboy returns as the bringer of life. remember now this is a story and it's the story in answer to what is life all about so it's about going going yourself becoming yourself by going out of the community confronting death or actually dying over and over again and

[58:40]

being born into a new kind of aliveness and sharing that with the community, coming back and sharing that with the community. That's what all the hero myths tell us. But from the very start, the hero myths, the storytellers felt that it wasn't enough to leave this sort of as a story that you hear, But you have to enter into it. You have to enact it. And ritual is the enactment of the myth. And the particular ritual that goes with the hero myth is the rite of passage. Rites of passage. Because life is a passage and so all the rites of passage in some way or other will enact now the hero myth. And the most typical rite of passage is what we call sacrifice.

[59:43]

And that has three phases that correspond perfectly to the three phases of the hero myth. Typically sacrifice, no sacrifice can exist without that. And there are countless forms. But one of them have the first phase which in the Christian religion we call offertory and that is that a gift is set apart from the rest as representative just as the hero was set apart as representative for you for the community separated, so this gift is set out now. It can be, as in the Christian tradition, bread and wine, representative of gift of, as he says explicitly in the prayers, gift of the earth and work of human hands.

[60:57]

Bread is both gift of the earth and work of human hands, so nature and culture. is represented thereby and of course always the ones who bring this offering are represented by this offering. Now remember in India, a goat being offered and the whole family was bringing this goat and then the father put his hands on the goat while the priest kills the goat on the other side. So the family stands around and holds the goat and identifies with that goat, and then it's killed. And that's already the second phase of the sacrifice. Something is not always killed, but always made over to mystery. And death is of course a very strong image of making over into mystery, giving it over to mystery.

[62:00]

But often it's a very small little gesture. For instance, in Greece, when people drink wine, before they drink, they will flip the glass a little bit and one drop goes down to the ground. So this is one clock. is separated as representing everything that's in the glass and it falls to the ground from which this whole wine in the first place grew. This mystery, this electronic mystery, this earth mystery is yellow. Or usually it's not down but up because we think we usually fall down and rise up so up is... a positive direction, life grows up, so it's made up, and in China you will see, or many parts of the Far East, before people eat, they take a little bit out of the rice bowl, that's set apart, and you lift it over the brim, so it's made over to mystery, that's enough of the chest, and then you eat,

[63:21]

And that is already the third phase that you enjoy. A part of this sacrifice is then shared by everybody. The middle part corresponds to the death of the hero and yet he's alive through this conflict with mystery. And then the third phase is now everybody shares it. And in India, for instance, at that occasion that I remember, even though they're vegetarian, but after they have sacrificed the goat, they will eat cooked right then and there, hang it up and skin it and cook it. Right there in the temple, the family will all eat that goat, even though they're vegetarian. But that's something completely different. That's this, it's a sacred act, this communion. with that history. And now, one more step from the hero myth to the ritual, myth to rituals, and now ritual doesn't do so much to us anymore today.

[64:33]

We have very few rituals, and in the ritual of the Eucharist, very obvious, we have consequences. first offertory, gifts of water, presentative gifts are brought up to the altar, then the second act is consecration, that means making it over to the mystery, raising it up also, the cup and the bread is being raised up, and then communia, everybody shares it. as I say, many people today lack ritual, and so this place can be taken by grateful living. That's where grateful living comes in again. Because grateful living, moment by moment, acts of gratefulness, always have these three phases.

[65:34]

Now, the first is you have to recognize the gift as gift. Recognize. That means recognizing it also as representative of everything. Because in this interbeing, every being is representing everything. This is something that the intellect does. The whole human being is engaged. The intellect recognizes the gift as gift. Then the will, to distinguish it from willfulness, the willingness acknowledges it as gift. And it's difficult enough for many people to recognize a gift as gift. We spoke about some difficult situations, but in our society it's particularly difficult to acknowledge this dependence because if you recognize and acknowledge this gift you acknowledge that under no circumstances can you give it to yourself you could buy that same thing but then it wouldn't be a gift it is a gift because you receive it and you receive it freely

[67:02]

completely freely. So acknowledging belief is even more difficult because it establishes inter-being, it establishes this, not that it isn't there before, but if you enter there by inter-being, by acknowledging it, you are not engaged, then you acknowledge it. And that means giving up your independence. Interdependence costs you dearly. It costs you your illusion of independence. It's only an illusion that we give up. But we have to give it up. And it's very difficult to give it up. So it's like a death for many people to give up the idea of independence. That is the second thing. And the moment you do that... you come alive in interdependence. And that is the communion aspect, the life-bringer, the hero's life-bringer.

[68:10]

So if we really live moment by moment gratefully, we enter into that great mystery, what is life all about? It's about Dying into fullness over and over. Dying into greater life. Very prosaically expressed and very abstractly in what the hero myth tells it in such a beautiful way. And grateful living acts it out moment by moment. Like a ritual. And then we have one more question and that says, I feel very lucky in my life, and I have gratitude, but I feel guilty about being so lucky. Why? My inclination is, and many different ways of answering that question, I can first of all very deeply feel the same.

[69:25]

feeling. I've been giving so much and I feel almost guilt. It feels like a guilt feeling. Why do I have it and so many other people don't have it? And I believe that must be part of living fully. I feel that the sorrow of the people When you are healthy, you feel the sorrow of people who are not healthy. When you are rich, you feel the sorrow of people who are poor. When you have to eat, you feel the sorrow of people who are hungry. That is part of it, and not, oh, I'm feeling so much better because the others are hungry. On the contrary, I feel at the same time the joy of having it and the sorrow of not... being able to share it with everyone. That's part of it. That makes the texture, the richness of life simply belongs to it.

[70:29]

And that was also very beautifully expressed in that poem this morning with a different slant. But one thing helps me in dealing with with this sorrow that ever since I was a little child in school, I always felt that I had so much more than all the other children in school. And to a certain extent, it was even true, probably. I went to a little village school and lived in the white house on top of the hill, so to say, and all these other kids who often slept. three and four in the bed, in the village in Austin. So that was easy for it also. But all my life, I felt both the joy of having and the sorrow of not being able to share. And what helps me is to think, this is my role.

[71:33]

I didn't choose that. And other people have a different role. When we are born, we are born with a script. And that script is... far more detailed than anybody would guess before we look carefully into it. We are so determined when we are born, so much is given to us, and all that matters is the eye is that script, and all that matters is that we allow the self to play this script well. I've been given this tip, you have been given a different tip. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages. It's just like so many. And we all need to pray together to make the pray interesting. In order for the pray to be good, one has to be the villain. The villain has...

[72:34]

drawing that role giving that script and he or she is playing that role when we first Sunday of each month in the monastery in Austria we spend a lot of time now we have a special service for children sometimes over 100 children in that little chapel and the service is adjusted to them and we do all sorts of things and we dance around the altar and then afterwards there's puppet show because in Austin it's very popular this puppet show hand puppets and so one monk may play with one hand the princess and with the other hand the crocodile with one princess now the self is like this playing different roles with all its different hands you know but when you see yourself confronted with the crocodile it's a good idea to remember it's the same self that's playing this crocodile than the one that's playing me and you get out of the way that can be helpful you take it lightly

[73:59]

Still, the sorrow should stay there. That's part of life. But you take it kind of lightly. Okay, I'm playing that role. I'm playing another role. And it takes also away this judging about which we spoke yesterday. You can't judge the other one. You've been given that particular part to play. So I thought maybe in conclusion, when I say, Paul would be so kind of... You read it so clearly and loudly this morning. That was easy for me even to hear. But you will see immediately how that really says many things that you need to do when you speak about faithful living. Brother David, in the past I've heard you say something which I would ask you to repeat if it's... In the past, you have talked about gratefulness being like a chalice, and that sometimes in our society as it builds up.

[75:08]

Would you talk about that? Well, that's a different aspect of it. I think we need a break. Oh, I'm sorry. We need a break. Let's do that after the break, okay? We'll put that up. But the poem might be nice before we go to the break. Okay. Okay. He'll be quick. On living. On what? On living. On living. Living is no laughing matter. You must live with great seriousness. Like a squirrel, for example. I mean, living must be your whole occupation. Living is no laughing matter. You must take it seriously. So much, and to such a degree, you can die for people. Even for people whose faces you've never seen.

[76:09]

I mean, you must take living so seriously that even at 70, for example, you'll plant olive trees. And not only for your children either. But because although you fear death, you don't believe it. Because living, I mean, weighs heavier. This earth will grow cold one day. Not like a block of ice or a dead cloud even. But like an empty walnut, it will roll along in the pitch black space. You must grieve for this right now. You have to feel this sorrow now, for the world must be loved this much. If you're going to say, I lived. Okay, brother. Thank you. Oh, you have to leave. Yes. Do you have time to go to the bathroom or right away?

[77:10]

No time? Right away? Okay. Big hugs to you. Big hugs. Safe travels. Thank you for coming. It was lovely to have you here. And the babies. All four of you. What is the baby dream? Possibly. They're already received.

[77:49]

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