It evolves more and more and more, and so we make, just to the point where the joy would occur by the overflow, we make the vessel bigger, and when it wants to overflow again, we make it bigger and bigger, and then it never overflows. The joy never comes because we focus on the quantity instead of the quality. But when we catch on to it, as Lisbeth said, we can make our vessels very small and so the joy will be there the quality of life will be increased with a limiting of quantity and also the overflowing means sharing that is one of the important aspects so the sooner we start sharing the greater our joy will be because joy is in the sharing So it might be a helpful image.

[01:05]

I was just thinking about something when you mentioned about the hero journey, about the creator of Logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, that I think you met. No, I never met him. Shame for him. Okay. And he says that for some people, in some cases, pain is unavoidable. And also psychological suffering or emotional suffering or physical pain. And that the attitude must be of a hero. And he also uses the image of Jesus carrying the cross in a full acceptance of the pain that is unavoidable. than just embracing it and making meaning out of that act of acceptance, you know? Very beautiful. I said shamefully that I never met Victor Funke because he was teaching while I was studying psychology.

[02:16]

He was teaching in Vienna, but not at the Psychological Institute of the University, but at the medical faculty. because the psychology was so in the other direction that even though I was a psychologist, you wouldn't go there. Just not interested. You were interested in rats. And this sort of thing. Then I later discovered him and I thought, wow, what an opportunity I missed to go to his lecture. David, you said meaning is that within which we can rest. Yes. Could you say a little bit more about that? No. Well, I think many of us feel that we are going through life with a question, but we don't even, not only don't we know the answer, but we don't even know the question.

[03:29]

Like in the Hebrew Bible in the book of Daniel, where the king says to Daniel, tell me what I dreamt, and then interpret the tree. It turns out to be a little more. Daniel quits himself of the past. That question, and then some of me carry that to life. some questions, some unspecific questions, and then comes a moment where we say, this is it. And there was a question about the peak experience. Usually we are talking about peak experience also speaking about practice. We haven't even mentioned it, but the question was how do I make myself

[04:30]

accident prone for peak experiences. And peak experiences are, by definition, those moments in which we say, oh, this is it. We didn't even know what we were looking for, but there it is. And there are moments of communion with everything. Moments in which interbeing kind of shines up and interbeing includes more than all the beings but also the ground of being and the source of being, so it includes mystery. We are one with it. We experience that we are one with it. And in those moments, we have a sense of rest, which we would express by saying, this is it, that's what I've always been waiting for. And those are moments through which meaning flows into our life. And, of course, there are little moments of meaningfulness.

[05:35]

I can rest in this, I can rest in this. Like when all my children are around me and we have a little vacation and don't do anything but sit in the sun or sit in the shade and drink tea. I can rest in that. So it's a bit of an image for it. It's not yet the final meaning. But in our experience, something like a final meaning shines out. So it's meaning more like revelation or realization? I would say revelation in the sense of... becoming aware of something for which we always long, and realization in the sense that there it is. Aha, this great big aha experience. This is it. This is it. And what it is, it is the mystery of life, if you want to.

[06:41]

Yes. The mystery. but we get a sense of being at home there. You see? Yes. In Stranger, in German, this is very well expressed. The German word for mystery is secret, and the word is geheimnis, and heim is home. So we are at home in the mystery. That's our real home. Mm-hmm. St. Augustine is a question of resting in God. No more questions. Yes, thank you for reminding me of that. St. Augustine says, restless is our heart until it rests in you, O God.

[07:46]

Restless is our heart until it finds rest in the great mystery. And that restlessness has a direction. We don't often even know what the direction is, but it's like a compass needle. Heart, we actually use the word heart. Heart, we haven't defined yet, but heart is in the Western tradition that The center and the whole person. It's the whole person. It's body and mind and willingness and understanding and feeling. It's all in one. My whole being is, what I say, with heart. Whole heartedly. This whole heart. And this heart is restless.

[08:49]

This heart... It has a direction, it goes in that direction towards finding rest in meaning, looking for meaning, looking for that within which it finds rest. the answer to this question, how do I make myself accident-prone for these experiences? Now, Maslow, who coined the term click experience and who explored this whole area of what he really called mystic experience, and mystic experience is encounter with mystery, and he said that every human being, to the extent to which one

[09:54]

generalize in psychology is allowed to generalize he said I would say that every human being has these peak experiences these moments and he said in youth in childhood they are much more frequent than they are in life that was also a finding he had but we can make ourselves more excellent for them by living in the present moment. Because this is one of the characteristics of the peak experience, that you are fully present, fully there. Without any effort, you are in the present moment. You are simply there. And you are not even thinking, or you are not feeling, or rather. You are thinking and you are feeling and you are committing yourself, but not thinking that you are thinking and not feeling that you are feeling.

[11:03]

That comes afterwards. And that is our problem. What we really want is feeling without feeling that we are feeling, but just feeling. I think in this poem that was again there, it's the squirrel that does this. It's living. Yes. This is very serious and the squirrel personifies it. And we are so lucky because we have all these two different types of squirrels out here. I feel like it's only fair because I asked Paul this yesterday. When slash if, I assume when, because you're human, you have some sense of despair or whatever, you're in a space where you need to call out. How do you do that? To whom or to what do you call out? To whom do you cry out?

[12:04]

You. That is a strange and really almost paradoxical aspect of mystery that we have already touched upon, that we are in it. In it, we live and move and have our being, and yet we have a direction to it, we have a relation to it. And that relation we spoke about in the context of Martin Buber saying, or the coming saying, I am through you, so I. And Buber saying, that I can say I, as a human being, presupposes a you. It doesn't create a you, it presupposes. I discover myself when I begin to discover myself as a human I in relationship.

[13:07]

That very well, when I expresses that, you see, I go against you. And our ultimate you is in is hidden in mystery, just as our ultimate eye is hidden in mystery. I cannot fathom myself. That's why I say, well, I can say that I live in mystery, because I can never fathom myself. I can only understand myself, but I can never cast myself, and not get myself into a grip and say, this is This is me, for this I came, that Hopkins says. Each thing says one thing and the same. Selves. Myself, it speaks in spells. This is me, for this I came. I say more. The more is, I cannot say, this is me, for this I came.

[14:07]

I can only say, I'm a mystery to myself. I'm ultimately... That's what it leads up to, Buddha. And that is not something that I can grasp. And to that I call out. Well, I was going to follow up with a question about you personally, about your calling out. To that I call out, you see. And what I call out It depends on the situation. My personal prayer, with prayer ring or so, my most frequent prayer is, Lord Jesus Christ, mercy. Lord Jesus Christ, mercy. And 99% of the time it means, what mercy, another mercy, another gift, another gift. But mercy can also mean mercy.

[15:11]

I can use the same prayer when he gave me trouble. And we don't know exactly what we're even asking for as in this collection of Phillips. Phillips was the one who made this collection of D.T. Suzuki's writings. And I mentioned that there's the key word, prayer, that D.D. Suzuki says, it makes no sense, but we do it. From this point of view, it's really not very reasonable. And I guess from nobody's point of view is it all that reasonable. Because if you, for the people who, well, I guess for the people who imagine that there is a God, because at that moment it becomes a God when it's sitting over against us.

[16:12]

Not God, the mystery, but a God sitting there. And then you ask that God to help you. But even in the Hebrew Bible already in Psalm 91, it says, I am with you in your trouble. And people would want to say, oh, for heaven's sake, that's the last thing I want. When I'm in trouble, God is in trouble. I want somebody to sit up there and pull me out. We are in this together sometimes. Brother David and I were marveling at, in many ways, that poem by Nassim Hikmat mirrors what Brother David was saying, even about the hero's journey and how the impermanence of our planet, that we will, in the middle of our heroic journey, this will be confronted.

[17:43]

That beautiful image of the empty nutshell that's all in the dark. He holds it up in a starkness, you know, and then says, and really letting it in, then we can love the earth. That's the life and death to play up with each other. Any last question before we break? I have a question about peak experiences.

[18:45]

It seems there's a danger in trying to cultivate peak experiences or danger of not accepting. How would you express the danger? I agree, but how would you express How do you see the danger? The danger of being dissatisfied with the present moment. Right. Mervyn speaks about that in a poem. I'm afraid I won't be able to recite it correctly, but he says something. When what has helped us has helped us enough, it moves the away and sits down with his friends every time we ask it again it takes away some of the answer it has given us it sits there with his friends all of them nodding yes while we grow smaller because of the melting of our bones

[20:03]

We grow smaller because of the melting of our hormones. Every time we ask, let's take something away, and we grow this smaller. So in other words, don't go back to it. But cultivating the accident problem that it will happen again is a different thing. It's not going back and wanting it. It's being present, not exactly the opposite of going back. It's being present and just being open to what life brings us. And it may bring us one of those big bang moments, or it may not. But you're right, wishing for it is like going, and then every time we go, it takes something away from us. Brother David, do you recall the name of that poem? I don't remember it. What? The name of the poem, do you recall the name of it? I can't recall it. I know which one it is. But I would try and find it on the computer.

[21:09]

I might find it if I've stored it and then I can say it correctly and write it down. But it starts definitely with the words when what has helped us has helped us enough and then it moves away. moves away, sits down, not looking our way.

[21:38]

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