How a Living Bodhisatva Influenced Shinzen Young

Some of you know.

Some of you actually knew Nicola Geiger.

Before she passed away, so this is a woman that I've met in Japan.

Who was German?

And had lived through World War 2 as part of the resistance to the Nazis.

They even made a movie about the group called the White Rose, so she had to go if it was like Schindler's list. You know, I mean that she lived in, she was only 20 years old at the time.

And she just been through everything I mean, she's been tortured interrogated raped you name it.

It it happened, many times.

Anyway.

Uh so she.

I met up with her.

I didn't know like who she was or whatever and

But she said, well if you ever come to kill to come visit me.

She was running friends World College, which is a Quaker.

College that site has campuses all over the little.

And she was interesting Lee engaged, she worked for Amnesty International, she was in fact, there.

Specialist on human rights violations in South Korea.

Which at that time was very bad on human rights violations and she was she was actually like?

It was like this.

Was very cinematic I mean? She was engaged in like secret espionage stuff because she was trying to save the life of kinda jump.

Now you may or may not know the whole story, but eventually Kim did joke became the president of South Korea and Korea became democratised.

But he was in prison at that time and she was doing all sorts of stuff with Amnesty International to make sure that he didn't get killed.

So she looks like you know you would think someone that had like been through that themselves with want us on a distance themselves.

Right but no anyway, so how this relates to challenges what have you is?

I am

So she says come visit me if you are very countable.

And.

So I wasn't guilty. I came to visit her and she said, like she said. Come up come up to my living room here sit down? Do you know? Why I wanted you to invited you to come here?

I said no.

And then she proceeded to tell me exactly where I was at in meditation.

And what I needed to do to take the next step.

That was sort of surprising, but then later on after I knew her story. She had been trained to Meditate from the time that she was 3 years old.

Her father had had been a meditator.

And they were associated with.

With.

Herrmann has said and the League of the Journeyer's to the East and this whole group of Europeans that were interested in sort of Buddhist kinds of things during the Vimar Republic.

Anyway, so I mean, she's been trained that's why she survived. All that stuff, and prospered. She had enlightenment experiences. While these horrible things were going to her.

So eventually became evident while she had these.

This perspicacity to see through you literally so anyway. Apropos challenge, which you pointed out to me was that I didn't like People.

And then I withdrew from People and that I was going to have to learn to like being around People.

And it was true I had spent my entire life as a loner I was very uncomfortable around People.

Uh.

And.

What I have in her was a role model?

For what she was talking about, she was the first role model later on, I had others.

But.

What did she do well she just hung out in her house?

And Uhm.

Of.

People would come.

To be with her.

What kind of People?

Every kind of person.

And the entire spectrum of humanity.

From the best to the worst.

All the best being the Zen Masters and.

Catholic priests, she was friends with father Johnston for example, the worst being Yahoo some if you know what that is.

And left wing international terrorists.

Like the real deal.

Um.

And everything in between.

Ah.

Would pass through her living room and she give each one of them? What they needed.

So.

That was a big change in my habit patterns that I had to learn to love to be around People, and be with People might not seem like that big a deal, but apples challenge.