Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[01:37]

And I'll give you a good speed and listen to it. She's a little bit better than they've sucked. I'll take a crown on what was she taste, but she'll eat the will of the flag of others' words. Can you hear me? I can hear myself. I don't know when I was last giving a talk in here. It may have been before the pandemic, a long time ago. It's a very nice feeling to be back in here, to see all of you, some familiar faces.

[28:08]

people I haven't seen since a very long time. Some I've just seen, and you just saw me forgetting something. And the Jesus had to remind me that I should offer petals before I do my bows. So this is how life unfolds. I wanted to welcome all of you and I also wanted to welcome everybody that's participating online today for a moment I would like to invite you to just look around feel around listen around to all the people that are here in this room together with you see how that feels to be surrounded by all these people and maybe people that drive by or talk on the street.

[29:24]

Maybe we hear them during the talk. In Bhutan they would say, Everybody that is here has met everybody else already innumerable times in innumerable lifetimes. That's how they understand human life as many, many lives in many, many different forms, animal forms, human forms, in all different relationships. And that's how they greet you when you arrive at the airport. guide greets you as part of his family and declares that to you so I think that's a nice way of thinking that you don't have to know it but could be that everybody we really encounter we have encountered before and that means we are one big family with humans and plants and animals

[30:42]

Today I want to talk about, as usual for me, the body. I always come back to the body. Can't help it. Just keeps presenting itself. Because it is what enables us to live this life. experience this life in this lifetime on this planet enables you to actually be here right now to hear me to see me to see each other to listen to be online on your computer and open your computer and go to the right side and participate in this way today.

[31:59]

And the life on this planet, our life is inextricably and completely one with this body as it is right now. Not the one we had yesterday, not the one we would like to have, not the one we might have tomorrow or might not have tomorrow. I went to Switzerland a few weeks ago, several weeks ago, with a very clear plan to help a very ill friend and a very old friend do some things for them. And three days, four days after I arrived, out of the blue, I fainted on an escalator. I had no warning sign before. I had felt totally fine and boom.

[33:06]

And so all the plans changed. They kept me for 24 hours for observation. They couldn't detect what that I'm right now for 30 days with a heart monitor that monitors continuously my heart to see if there's something going on there and it affected me totally because my body put the stop to all my plans and Luckily, I had a lot of support, and so I ended up spending eight days up in the mountains with one of my sisters, something I wouldn't have done probably never, just eight days with her in her place. So we had a fantastic body-to-body time where nothing great was happening.

[34:12]

trusting my body, I mean, it really rappled me. I still feel not so stable on my feet as I had before. I feel more frail. And just the experience that it can happen like that, with no warning, with nothing, is just actually helping me to appreciate much more the moment, like being able to be here. And I don't plan to faint, but who knows? So I hope nobody else faints. But it can happen. And some people, friends of ours, just dropped dead out of the blue. So I didn't die, which is nice. So I have some more things to do. Obviously nobody thought it was time for me to check out, but it's coming, and it's coming noticeably closer.

[35:21]

We are coming into this life through the action of bodies and with a body when we get born, and we are leaving this body when we leave. this earth. And we don't know what's next, but when you're a part of a birth, you see that that being is coming from somewhere. And when you accompany people that are dying, you get a sense that the essence of them, the spirit of them, the consciousness of them, goes somewhere. Some stay hovering in the room for a while, and some are just out the door and don't look back for the window. So, you don't know for sure.

[36:34]

There are different theories. I think to really appreciate that how we live this lifetime, if there is a lifetime afterwards, it's the ground we step off from. How we live this life is the ground we step off into whatever is possibly next. And to think that the human body evolved over millions of years, and the modern anatomical human form that we share started 300,000 years ago. And so we are a child of this unique...

[37:38]

of this planet, and our cells are completely interconnected with everything that's going on. And our bodies is a means. It's not a tool. It's a means. It's a way. It's a path. A process. It's not an implement. even though in our culture, in this Western culture, it's often viewed and related to as a tool, a tool for what I want, to enable me to do what I want. And not a means, we don't understand it so much as a means to live our life as fully as we can. and the life of this body as fully as we can.

[38:39]

We would wish to live the life of another body, or of the body we had when we were young, or some other fantasy, something that gets presented to us in the advertising. But it's this unique, absolutely unique body that is the means of our life. of living our lives fully. And even though there are hundreds, probably thousands of books written about Buddha's teaching and philosophy, I think that the body, the body we have plays a central and, I would say, principal role in Buddha's teaching.

[39:43]

Because it is a way of life that requires embodiment, that doesn't require just intellectual understanding. It actually requires embodiment. an embodied understanding. Buddha reached this understanding after a long search through different traditions, spiritual traditions and teachings, by stopping, by sitting down in silence for a long time. For actually, his intention was, I'm sitting here for as long as it takes. He didn't know how long it was going to take. But he stopped, he sat down, which he could only do with his body, in stillness.

[40:53]

He created a clearing. And there's a beautiful poem that is called The Clearing. Martha Puzzlewit. Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands, and you recognize and greet it, only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of it.

[42:04]

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, Create a clearing in the dense forest of your life and wait there patiently until the song that is your life falls into your own cupped hands and you recognize it and greet it. Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue. That's the last sentence. Only then will you know how to give yourself to this world so worthy of rescue. Which is, I think, we recognize in these times there is a world that needs rescuing in many, many ways. So when you live here as a resident at Zen Center,

[43:14]

As a resident, we begin that day in silence and quietness, sitting zazen, not speaking before we go to the meditation hall. And then the next thing we do is bowing. So it's another body expression, and we bow first in the meditation hall, like I did, to the seat we're going to sit down. And then to all that sit with us, I turn to all of you, and I bow to all of your capacity to be fully alive, fully awake, and fully human. That's inherent in us. In Buddhist teachings, that is called Buddha nature. That is inherent in every human being. During service, we do many boughs. to the representation of our capacity to be fully awake, which is Buddha.

[44:20]

We don't bow to a god, we bow to our own capacity that's manifested in Buddha, that we also share with Buddha, that we can be fully awake, fully alive and fully human. And during training periods at the monastery, we do this clearing, sitting down in the morning, and we do it in the evening before we go to bed. And we all can find ways to create clearings in our own lives. There is no end to the variations that can have. It doesn't have to be sitting in a particular posture, on a particular chair or place. you can find out what could be, how you could introduce a moment of stillness in your body, a pause, a stopping, and just be.

[45:31]

Just not plan your next moves, just be still. And whatever goes through your mind, let it go through your mind without engaging it. without being pulled by it. That can be sitting in your car when you get home before you go into the house, sitting in your car for a while before you go to your office. It can be making a cup of tea and sitting in your garden for 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. It can be feeling your body being supported by your bed, all the parts that are held by your bed and the ground underneath it and the earth underneath it before you go to sleep. It can be doing that when you wake up before you get out of bed.

[46:37]

There's no end to possibilities. And they change something. If we do that on a regular basis, that is the main thing, I think, is the discipline or returning to when you lost it, to doing something like that that takes you out of the relentless tempo of our times. You know, everything gets faster and faster. coming into the city. Now people drive at 55 and 60 over the Golden Gate Bridge. It still says 45 miles per hour. Everything is much faster and gets faster. It doesn't get slower. So we have to take ourselves out of that stream of speed.

[47:43]

And we can. Animals do it all the time. I mean, if you have a house pet, watch it. I mean, they are fantastic. The sunshine here, oh, it's warm. The cat lies down and the dog, you know, or by the fireplace. They know how to take care of their body. We don't. We stop when it breaks down. When I faint, I stop. oh boy, I have to pay attention. Something is too much. So, if you have an animal, learn from it. Take a little break with it when you see it just having a great time. Wherever it has a great time, you can feel it. Also, when you watch animals that are ill or that are dying, it's very... encouraging to watch them because they do their very best.

[48:49]

They try to stand up. They want to go outside to do their business. And they try. And when they realize signals from their body they can't do it, they surrender. They don't go, they don't get mad. They don't complain. They just stop trying to get up. Our bodies have no problem with dying. They know how to die. They just follow the process and are with the process and there's nothing wrong. It's complete. And it's alive till it's not alive anymore. There's also, when you're around people that are dying, it's not the diminishment of life. Of life. It's a diminishment of possibilities of what they can do physically. But there is another aliveness around that is quite stunning.

[49:57]

I mean, some of that gets diminished by drugs or painkillers, but it's really up to us and to take that agency for your own life to create spaces in it. I want to use the word clearings in it on a daily basis where you can just be yourself the way you are at the moment, with no judgment, with no wanting to be different. You know, when that comes up, just not engage it, not put energy into it. Just say, oh, that's wanting to be different comes up. And not how would I be and how unfair it is that I'm not or that this person is or... Also, if we become, have more times, we can also call them rest times, where everything can rest, your body, your mind, your feelings.

[51:36]

We can start to hear and listen better because when you watch TV now, nobody's really listening. They're all screwing opinions about everything. And listening is so important and Krishnamurti says something really beautiful about listening. He says, there is a quietness. I hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know. And this is very difficult to do. You listen to something and your mind immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its past memories.

[52:38]

It listens inquiring for a future understanding. Just observe yourself. how you are listening and you will see that this is what is taking place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer and you are impatient. You want to know what it's all about, what life is all about, the extraordinary complexity of life. You can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind does not react immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is being said. Then in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in which alone there is a comprehension.

[53:47]

So I find that also interesting that he uses the word comprehension rather than understanding. There is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding. If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said, in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely for a long period, or for a few seconds. In that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. The immediate reaction is the old brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional accepted reactionary animalistic sense. When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is suspended, when there is an interval, then you will find that the new brain acts.

[54:59]

And it is only the new brain that can understand, not the old brain. So it says in that interval... if you observe, there comes clarity. And that is what the stories of Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree was. It became clear to him, clarity arose about what then he transmitted as his teaching, his understanding of life, of how we are caught by... beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. How we, if we stay in our habitual ways, we go round and round and round. So to step out of that, we can create clearings in our everyday and allow ourselves to rest, allow our minds to rest, not...

[56:10]

spin in their wheels like hamsters, our bodies to rest, all our senses to rest, so that new thoughts and new understandings, new clarity can arise in us and help us. And you can pay attention what happens when I wait to see if anything more comes up in me that I want to say or not.

[57:13]

How you're waiting or can you use that time to just be in a clearing? Also pause and stop. Or if your brain is mulling over what you heard or... checking it against your views or what happens. Because I do think we are in a time, we live in a time we experienced the end of an era which went on for so long that we felt like it wasn't going to continue like that. We see it in the climate. We see it in politics.

[58:16]

I think we see the end of capitalist society where endless growth was the tenet And everything was in service of that. And there is no endless growth. It's not sustainable. And we reach the end. We're reaching the end of sustainability. And so how do we meet this? How do we meet this with an open heart, with generosity, with tolerance, with patience, with... clarity with inclusiveness. I have a brother who has studied biology, and he says, you know, in our cells, biologically, they are geared to their continuation.

[59:22]

So we create children, and we want to have them live, have a life. And so when the resources are abundant, we are happy to share them. When they become scarcer and scarcer and scarcest, we look out more and more out for the life of our family, out for the life of our children, out of our own life. We become constricted. So this teaching is teaching us that actually there is no one that can survive all on their own and there's no one that can live on their own. We are all completely interdependent. So it's like not being just caught by the biological urge, but also understanding that we, if we collaborate, because we would have enough resources for everybody on this planet.

[60:31]

But the way we deal with them is depriving whole parts of... It's depriving wildlife from its habitat. It's depriving humans from their habitat and from enough food. And so how do we... What can we do? And what can each one of us do in response? And I think there the poem by Martha... I can never remember her name. About the clearance, that poem, that only if you know yourself, if you're in harmony with the being that you are, which is an absolutely unique being. It's human like all other human beings, but it's also at the same time absolutely unique. Only when you know who that being is, not the ideas you have about it, but as an embodied experience, will you know how you can offer yourself to the world so in need of rescue.

[61:50]

So that's why I encourage you to play with the idea of what are clearings for you you may already have them so can you pick them up and make them a regular event in your life can you actually consciously engage them not just oh they I always feel good after I did this so what is this and how can I actually engage this in a more full way it relaxes me makes me feel peaceful it makes me feel friendly, it makes me pull in my hedgehog pins. I'm not afraid. You all have moments of that and you can cultivate situations and environments that promote those. And Wendell Berry goes to the wild for that, he says.

[63:01]

And I will stop with that for today. He calls it the peace of wild things. When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life is. and my children's lives may be. I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world and am free.

[64:08]

So that's how he creates clearings for himself. Thank you very much for being here. You have been part of creating this talk. It's always a surprise to me what, from what I've written down, actually combines itself in new ways and comes out based on all of your energy in the room. So thank you very much. That was your talk. Thank you.

[65:24]

Thank you. Thank you.

[65:48]

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