in the West we inherit the idea of law
from those ancient conceptions of God
and it is even passed down into science
where we discuss laws of nature but one
recognizes more and more in the sciences
that what we call laws of nature are
simply observed regularities in the way
things behave and you in order to
observe regularities you must look at
things through something regular that is
to say you must lay a ruler alongside
them or compare their behavior with the
regular behavior of a clock the clocks
and rulers are human inventions they are
regular measures which we use for
comparing the rates of change say a
clock is a measure of a rate of change
it’s quite arbitrary but we very easily
compare our regulation measuring devices
with what makes things happen as if the
Sun rises because it 6:00 in the morning
I left being completely backwards in
one’s thinking and we get into the same
confusion when we imagine for example
that money is wealth here we have
fantastic wealth you know and we have
the technological possibility of making
everybody on earth the enjoyer of an
independent income we can’t do it
because people say where’s the money
going to come from well as they think
money makes prosperity it’s the other
way around
it’s it’s it’s physical property of a
prosperity which has money as a way of
measuring it but people think money has
to come from somewhere
like hydroelectric power or lumber or
iron and it doesn’t money is something
we invent like inches so you remember
the Great Depression when it was a slump
and what do we have a slump of money
there was no less wealth no less energy
no less raw materials in the world
before but it’s like you came to build
work on building a house one day and
they said sorry you can’t build this
house today
no inches you mean no inches not just
inches we don’t mean that we got inches
of lumber yes we got inches of metal
we’ve even got tape measures but there’s
a slump in inches as such you see and
people are that crazy but they they can
have a depression because they got no
interest to go around no dollars that’s
all a lot of nonsense but you see
because we get thinking backwards and
making the metaphysical tale met wag the
dog making the law rule think this
whereas it doesn’t it Smithee of a way
of measuring what happens and so you see
when you get into Buddhistic thoughts
you don’t get that confusion the other
way or the other way round so you’re
looking at a system where to go back to
the Buddha’s words this arises that
becomes which is a way of saying you
can’t have this without that you can’t
have here without there you wouldn’t
know where he was unless you knew where
there was and they come into being
together you don’t get first here and
then there or first there and then here
these arise interdependently that’s the
meaning of inter dependent origination
and to grasp the idea of inter dependent
origination is as important as the idea
about seeing how things are related by
space and intervals and seeing therefore
that you tend to look at life from a
myopic point of view and see details see
the trees and not the forest see
yourself as something loosely related to
everything else that’s going on and not
integral to it you see the the figure
but ignore the background but the figure
in the background arise mutually they
are to each other as this is to that
and so we really have to rid our brains
of the notion of causality the notion of
causality being that present sets of
circumstances are the result of past
sets of circumstances and that therefore
certain events which are called causes
are responsible for following events
called effects and all this is an
enormous piece of mumbo-jumbo because
what is not seen and what is not clear
in thinking that way is that in physical
nature there are no separate events so
startling to people but it’s really
quite easy to see that there are no
events in nature because you can ask
very simply let’s take something called
an event how do we Demark it from other
events at what point shall we say were
you born were you born at parturition or
when the doctor slapped you on the
bottom or cut the umbilical cord or when
you were conceived or when your father
and mother were first attracted to each
other when was it when did you begin
there’s no way of deciding except
arbitrarily and for legal purposes we
say you were born at parturition and
that’s when the astrologer casts your
horoscope accept that other astrologers
disagree and want the conception time
they say that’s the real beginning there
isn’t a real beginning it goes back and
back and back in an inseparable
continuity whether you did that’s
another big argument and you couldn’t
all you can get all kinds of ideas about
that so what once you see that an event
is a term
in an intellectual calculus calculus
being the way of measuring say curved
formations by reducing them to point
instance and counting it you see but
actually the point instance our
imaginary the curve Wiggles along and it
doesn’t start from point to point but in
calculus you make it do that so just as
there are no point instance in the curve
so there are no events in nature nature
is a constantly fluctuating pattern you
can only designate particular Wiggles in
a pattern arbitrarily you can count a
convex formation as one wiggle or a
concave formation as one wiggle then you
decide if you call it one way well if
you give the convex properties the title
of wiggle you have to deny it to the
concave properties and vice versa so
when you see that what we call separate
events don’t exist
it becomes nonsense to speak of one
event causing another what you really
mean is that the two events which you
speak of as being causally related are
simply two parts of the same event they
go with each other in the same way as
this with that the relationship is not
causal it is mutual and it works two
ways in time because future so-called
are not merely passive to past events
but you could easily see when for
you can reason just as well from the
future to the past is from the past of
the future why do two mammals have
sexual intercourse well it isn’t just
that they enjoy it it’s also that
they’re a very complex system which does
this because it makes babies and the
prospect of baby works in Reverse and
creates desire you can reason that way
or it’s silly because the whole process
is one and when we speak humanly and
purposively I am going downtown to buy
groceries then your future event could
be said to be the cause of why you’re
now starting out to get into the car
buying groceries and the the difficulty
we have in seeing this to be so is that
we think in an either/or way which is
what is called dualism in Hindu Buddhist
thought and that liberation is being
free from dualism so when you think in
an either/or way you see the figures in
the background as moving and therefore
being responsible for their action but
if somebody argues the other way around
say the figures are just following lines
of force in a field gravitational
principles say we’re all in human beings
you see we’re all concentrated on our
fact that we’re individually rattling
around and doing this and that but we
don’t see that we’re equally sucked and
that we move around in response to all
sorts of stimuli but neither position is
adequate you have to see that our being
sucked by all sorts of stimuli is
exactly the same thing as our apparently
volunteer
and deliberate action because what we’re
looking at is not this Newtonian game of
billiards where balls roll because they
are hit by cues what we’re involved in
is a dance where for example watch a
snake when a snake swims there’s nothing
more beautiful than watching a snake
swim in water
lovely motion but you see it Wiggles
along and it’s wiggle is conceivable you
see as convex or was it concave this way
and that way and this way and that way
now which side of the snake moves first
when it Wiggles so it’s very easy to see
there now when we Bay act interact with
the world what moves first who starts it
the objective world or the subjective
world but they are related as this to
that you can’t have an object without a
subject or a subject without an object
kind of something known without the Noah
and that gives the show away there isn’t
any real distinction between the knower
and the known there’s two ways of
looking at something yes two poles of a
single process but the knower and the
known are subsumed as the knowing and
all life is knowing being becoming and
it isn’t something in other words that
works by the idea of all this happens
because someone shoves it now you see
the idea all this happens because
someone shoves it is basic to western
thinking there is the Lord God who’s the
boss and he sloshes this universe into
being and shoves it and sets it going
and you better obey that shove because
he’s introduced into it some
recalcitrance by giving to human beings
what the Hebrews called the yet Sahara
the wayward spirit so that they shall be
able to play certain games on their own
because nothing very interesting would
happen if everybody obeyed God the whole
world would be like a lifeless thing so
they had to reason that into it in order
to save face for God practically
because otherwise he could be blamed for
all the catastrophes that happened
instead of our being able to say to each
other well it’s our fault but then you
see you you you do the flip deep in
giving away the control you got it you
got the kind of control you wanted
that’s to say where you had a loving
relationship to the world but you didn’t
have to make up your mind what it should
do you let it decide now do you see
that’s how your bodies work you don’t
have to make up your mind
what your nerve cells are gonna do
you’ve delegated all that authority if
the president the United States has to
lay awake at nights thinking what every
official under his command is going to
do he can’t be President he’s got to
make an act of trust in all those
subordinates to be responsible and carry
on their things in just the same way as
you make an act of trust to all your
subordinate organs to carry on their
functions without you having to tell
them what to do and this is the secret
of what we will call organic power as
distinct from political power loud sir
puts it in this way the great Dow flows
everywhere both to the left and to the
right it loves and nourishes all things
but does not lord it over them and when
merits are accomplished it lays no claim
to them the more therefore you
relinquish power trust others
the more powerful you become but in such
a way that instead of having to lie
awake nights controlling everything you
do it beautifully by trusting the job to
everyone else and they carry it on for
you so you can go to sleep at night and
trust your nervous system to wake you up
in the morning you can even tell it I
want to wake up at 6 o’clock and it will
this seems a sort of paradox to say this
but the principle of unity of coming to
a sense of of oneness with the whole of
the rest of the universe is not to try
to be obtained power over the rest of
the universe that will only disturb it
and antagonize it and make it seem less
one with you than ever
the way to become one with the universe
is to trust it as another as you would
another and say let’s see what you’re
going to do but in doing that you see in
saying that to everything else that you
have been taught to think is not you you
are also saying it to yourself because
finally as I pointed out you do not know
where your decisions come from they pop
up like hiccups and when you make a
decision people have a great deal of
anxiety about making decisions he’s this
guy who farmer who ordered a help man
come in and family was an
extraordinarily efficient worker was the
first day he put him on sawing logs and
he saw more logs than anybody had ever
saw it was fantastic but he were all
done in one day
so the next day putting on put him on to
mending fences and there were all kinds
of broken fences around the farm and in
one day he had the whole thing done so
he thought what am I gonna do this guy
so he took him down into a basement and
said look here all out all the potatoes
that have come in from this harvest and
I want you to sort them into three
groups those that we sell those that we
use for seeding and those that we throw
away so he left him at that at the end
of the day the laborer came back and
said well that’s enough mister I quit no
he said you can’t quit I’ve never had
such an excellent weather I’ll raise
your salary I’ll do anything to keep you
around it I said no it’s all right
mending fences and chopping wood with
this potato business is decision after
decision after decision of this so when
we decide we’re always worrying did I
think this over long enough did I take
enough data into consideration and if
you think it through you’ll find you
never could take enough data into
consideration the data for a decision in
any given situation is infinite so what
you do is you go through the motions of
thinking out what you will do about this
and then when the time comes to act you
make a snap judgment
I mean I’m speaking a little extremely
making some fun of it and so on because
after all we do occasionally get the
vague outlines of things and make a
right decision on rational grounds but
we fortunately forget the variables that
could have interfered with this coming
out right it’s amazing how often it
who think of all the variables beyond
their control and what might happen so
then when you make a decision and it
works out all right I think they’re
little of it has much to do with your
conscious intent and control but somehow
or other you are able to decide and
control things more harmoniously if you
delegate authority it’s why very great
businessmen others who can delegate
authority trust others to work for them
because those are people developing
businesses on the same basic structure
that is fundamental to a living organism
delegation of authority it loves and
nourishes all things but does not lord
it over them and you see then or what is
happening is this the more you let go of
it and Trust it as if it were quite
the more you realize the inseparable
identity of self and other to go back if
you try to find the identity of self and
other by subjecting other to self no-go
if on the other hand you find it through
giving self that is control over to
other and trusting that you may make a
mistake you may make a bad gamble but in
the long run you are acting on a
principle which has the backing of
evolution this is the way biological
evolution goes on constant delegation of
authority that’s why of obviously the
democracy is superior to the monarchy
mister Tocqueville who said that
democracy is always right but for the
wrong reasons because there is operating
in a democracy the principle the
Buckminster Fuller called synergy and
synergy is the intelligence of a highly
complex system the nature of which is
because that’s goes back again to this
point that we are always entering a new
environment we don’t ever know fully
what the new environment is because the
only environments we know the past ones
there is always an operating in the
development of cellular life on any
level a new way of organization higher
than any existing forms
and we’re not aware of it until after
it’s happened if you ever saw for
example the film kontiki and this man
figured out a few things as to how to
make a balsa wood raft to sail from
South America to the Pacific Islands but
once he had set this in motion he
discovered that all sorts of unexpected
factors cooperated with him that when
the wood got wet it expanded so that the
ties bit into it and held it completely
secure
he’d never expected that and he found
that as he sailed along a flying fish
would simply alight flat on the deck
every morning for breakfast that all
kinds of natural factors it was just he
that he had touched the key where he was
flowing with the course of nature and
everything cooperated with him because
he attached the key he had made the act
of faith and he was just picking up in
other words the practice which had been
hundreds and hundreds of years ago had
been followed by others who had worked
it out by their great ecological
so we do come out of this way of
thinking to something which has I would
say the most enormous ly creative and
revolutionary social consequences that
Eden has become not virtuous not
self-sacrificing and not anything like
that it has become the hardest practical
politics to let go control to others to
also in a parallel way it has become at
this time in our history very much hard
practical politics and to learn how to
enjoy ourselves you can go to the
Protestant people with their Protestant
ethic who are against this kind of thing
and now say to them with great Glee it
is your solemn duty to learn how to
enjoy yourself why because in an age of
leisure people have really got to know
how to enjoy themselves because if they
don’t
they’ll smash the whole future of the
human race so you a utopia has become
not some sort of a dream but an urgent
necessity we can’t do without it because
if we try to do without it what’s going
to happen is that we are going to
terminate our race in a mutual Massacre
of scapegoats and so the present
paranoia in the United States that is
going on where everybody is thinking up
a new scapegoat and how great it will be
to demolish them I’ll get them out of
power or all this kind of bickering and
right and left politics has become
irrelevant because we now have the
opportunity of trusting our own
intelligence our own technology to take
the risk of doing what we want which
will work to the extent that we realize
that what I want basically what I really
want is what you want and I don’t know
surprised me but that’s my that’s the
kinship between irons ow so when I ask I
go right down to the question should be
started with what do I want the answer
is I don’t know when bodhidharma was
asked who are you which is another form
of the same question he said I don’t
know planting flowers to which the
butterflies come
Bodhidharma says I know not I don’t know
what happened well when you don’t know
what you want you’ve really reach the
state of desirelessness when you really
don’t know
did you see there’s a there’s a
beginning stage of not knowing and
there’s an ending stage of not knowing
in the beginning stage you don’t know
what you want because you haven’t
thought about it or you’ve only thought
superficially then when you have
somebody forces you to think about it
and go through and say yeah I think I
like this I think I like that I think
I’d like the other as the middle stage
then you get beyond that say is that
what I really want the end you say no I
don’t think that’s it I might be
satisfied with it for a while and I
wouldn’t turn my nose up at it but it’s
not really what I want why don’t you
really know what you want two reasons
that you don’t really know what you want
number one you have it number two you
don’t know yourself because you never
can the Godhead is never an object of
its own knowledge just as a knife
doesn’t cut itself fire doesn’t burn
itself light doesn’t illumine itself
it’s always an endless mystery to itself
I don’t know and this I don’t know
uh turd in the infinite interior of the
spirit this I don’t know is the same
thing as I love I let go I don’t try to
force or control it’s the same thing as
humility and so the Upanishads say if
you think that you understand brahmana
you do not understand and you have yet
to be instructed further if you know
that you do not understand then you
truly understand for the brahmana is
unknown to those who know it unknown to
those who know it not and the principle
is that anytime you as it were
voluntarily let up control in other
words cease to cling to yourself you
have an access of power because you’re
wasting energy all the time in
self-defence trying to manage things
trying to force things to conform to
your will the moment you stop doing that
that wasted energy is available
therefore you are in that sense having
that energy available you are one with
the Divine Principle you have the energy
when you’re trying however to act as if
you were God that is to say you don’t
trust anybody and you’re the dictator
and you have to keep everybody in line
you lose the divine energy because what
you’re doing is simply defending
yourself so then the principle is the
what we’ve been talking about is not so
much a set of ideas as an experience or
shall we say experiencing and this kind
of seminar in comparison with the
encounter groups or workshops of various
kinds or experiments in sensory
awareness is now being called a
conceptual seminar although I’m not
talking about concepts but the crucial
question arises that an understanding a
real feeling understanding of the polar
relationship between the individual and
the world is something that operates as
we say in your bones and isn’t just a
view that you hold or a belief that you
hold it’s so curious that the emphasis
of the Western tradition in religion is
primarily upon right belief do you
believe in the right dogmas and the
right doctrines and only secondarily
upon right action because what you
believe is in Christianity at any rate
far more important than what you do
because one is saved through faith not
by works and early in its history the
Christian Church rejected the movement
in the church which had been known as
canastas ISM from the Greek gnosis which
and in a way there were some sound
reasons for doing so because the ganache
sticks were what I would call anti
materialists they divided human beings
into three classes that were called
respectively pneumatic psychic and Hayek
last one being H Y L IC from the Greek
Haile or they would call it now la e Li
meaning wood so the people were
spiritual psychological and wooden and
that is to say the wooden people were
those most absorbed in materiality and
most closely identified with their
bodies and Orthodox Christianity
rejected this sort of distinction
because of the perfectly correct idea
that material existence is not
inconsistent with spirituality this is
something which most Christians have
forgotten but they do believe as the
central principle of Christianity in
what’s called the Incarnation that in
the Jesus of Nazareth Almighty God did
in fact become material become human and
by this process initiated a
transformation of the cosmos in the
words of Saint Athanasius God became man
that man might become God and you don’t
hear that from the pulpit very often the
Christian Church therefore emphasized
pista soar faith as against gnosis or
because they said you can never know God
God could never become an object of
knowledge and in this funny roundabout
way the Christian theologians were
saying exactly the same thing as the
Hindus only the Hindus do call this
knowledge of God through faith they call
it in Yana which is the same as the
Greek word gnosis but just to give you a
little sidelight on how words get mixed
up in their meanings we now have a class
of person called an agnostic and an
agnostic generally means a person who
doesn’t commit himself to any beliefs
about the ultimate nature of things he
just says he doesn’t know but the
original word agnosia in greek meant a
special kind of knowledge it was called
the dark knowledge of God the knowledge
of God in the Cloud of Unknowing to use
the title of a mystical treatise written
by an anonymous 14th century English
monk this monk derived his ideas from a
very mysterious figure who wrote under
Dionysus was a 5th or 6th century
syrian monk who had learned his
mysticism from porphyry who got it from
plutinos who was a neoplatonist and who
probably got a great deal of stimulation
from the intellectual world of
alexandria and alexandria in the early
years of the Christian era was a
tremendous exchange place between east
Buddhist monks visited Alexandria it was
one of the great centers of trade
between Rome and India and as you may
know all Rome’s gold eventually went to
India for the purchase of pepper and as
a result of this the Roman economy
collapsed they bought too much luxury
from India India in exchange got Roman
architecture and you’ll see a lot of
Roman architecture in Indian temples but
Alexandria was the great Center for the
Gnostics and for Christian theology and
some of the greatest theologians Clement
Origen Athanasius Saint Cyril all worked
out of Alexandria we’re now going back
to this strange monk dionysius it was he
who first put around the idea in
Christian circles that there was such a
thing of the knowledge as the knowledge
of God by faith by agnosia really by
unknowing and he in a book which he
wrote very short book called the
theologian Mystica he wrote a treatise
on the higher knowledge of God which
might be quoted directly from the
Upanishads in certain parts of it the
last section of it reads like the man do
kill punish honor because it’s a series
of negations it says what God is not and
he goes very far because he says that
God is not one this is our idea of unity
falls far short of what God is so does
our idea of Trinity so does our idea of
spirit our idea of mind of justice of
love all these things
ah not really God and he says in another
place if anybody having seen God
understood what he had seen what he
would have seen would not have been God
but some creature of God less than God
some sort of angel or something like
that it’s perfectly amazing to consider
the influence that this man had for
writing under the name of dionysius the
areopagite he became identified you see
with Saint Paul’s first convert in
Athens and legend has it that he was the
first bishop of Athens and was martyred
in Gaul now where he’s known as son
Dennis but son Thomas Aquinas looked
upon the writings of dionysius the
areopagite as having the highest
authority and you could if all the text
of Dionysus his work had been lost
you could restore most of it from
quotations in some Thomas he wrote
really two very important books one was
the one I said that the theologian
Mystica the other was called the divine
names and these two books presented the
two phases of his theology the book
called the divine names was a discussion
on the nature of God in terms of what
God is like by analogy and this kind of
knowledge of God he called catyph attic
from the Greek
Femi to speak or say Qatar meaning to
say according to that is to say to speak
by analogy where he used there entirely
negative language about God this sort of
discourse was called apophatic and the
word appo meaning away from to talk away
from just as a sculptor when he makes an
image reveals the image by removing
stone and so Don Isis explained that one
attains the knowledge of God by
discarding
concepts which is exactly what the
Hindus mean when they say of God one can
only say neti neti not this not this not
any conception
thus in Hindu philosophy the highest
state of consciousness in Samadhi is
called nirvikalpa samadhi which means
literally non conceptual vikalpa means a
concept near is a negation so the non
conceptual knowledge now people have
greatly misunderstood this they have
imagined that unknowing the state of the
highest contemplation was the
acquisition of a blank mind from which
you first discarded thought you went on
to discard perception he went on to
discard any kind of sensory content in
awareness until you were so far as
anyone could say aware of nothing and
they supposed that this kind of
catatonic state was mystical
consciousness this is often believed in
India if you go to the Vedanta Society
and asked what do you mean by nearly
culpa Samadhi they will tell you that
the one in that state has no
consciousness whatsoever of the sensory
world that he is completely absorbed as
you sometimes see Hindu holy men sitting
in a state where they are blind and deaf
to everything going on around them the
founder of Chinese then known as hainan
described people like that as no better
than pieces of rock and lumps of wood he
said it’s a very serious mistake indeed
to confuse
Tsun yatta the sanskrit word for the
great void which is both the ultimate
reality and the consciousness thereof it
is a great mistake to confuse it with
nothingness it is rather to be thought
of as space or like space because space
is not empty it contains the whole
universe and so in the same way the
State of Mind of a person who is truly
enlightened is not empty it contains
everything but like space it is not
stained by what it contains and it’s
often said in Zen imagery you can’t
hammer a nail into space you can’t spit
on the sky and soil it if you try the
spit will just return and hit your own
faith so they go on to say the
consciousness in all of us
your basic mind is like space it is
completely pure but of course by purity
they don’t mean unsexual which is of
course what purity generally means in
the Western world blessed are the pure
in heart for they shall see God
a person who’s pure in heart has
generally understood as one who never
has any naughty thoughts you know what
not he means means vain negative empty a
naughty person therefore as one who
doesn’t amount to anything was just
nothing that’s the real meaning but this
misunderstanding of the nature of
contemplation existed not only in India
from which it was transmitted to China
but also in the West you read many
treatises on Western mysticism
and the still the feeling that getting
into a deep deep trance sometimes called
rapture again the word rapture has
undergone some transformations we talk
about raptures people being beside
themselves with pleasure but to be
wrapped means to be taken away from the
body so also ecstasy we now interpret as
meaning in a state of high pleasure but
it means to be outside yourself to stand
outside yourself your soul has left you
it is with God as Arabs say of all crazy
people be kind to them they are not here
their soul is with God but actually if
it can be true as Buddhists say that
Nirvana and sansara are one and if it
can be true as Christians say that the
spirit can be made flesh the word can be
made flesh then obviously the highest
form of man is not sitting in a trance
like a lump on a log with a perfectly
blank mind because if that were the
highest state of consciousness it would
be an exclusive state of mind a state of
mind that shuts out life and in that
sense it could not qualify for being
what the Hindus call non-dualistic they
always speak of the highest reality as
being not one because one excludes many
not nothing because nothing excludes
something not being because being
excludes non being and vice versa and so
they use this word non dual to mean that
which doesn’t exclude anything which as
it were has no outside as we say space
has no outside you can only have
outsides inside space you can’t have any
outsides outside space there is no
outside space even though space may be
so if you want to think incidentally of
that curved space go and take a look at
a photograph in the life a book on
mathematics well there’s a picture of a
Klein bottle which is a three
dimensional mobius strip there’ll be a
strip you know is a piece of paper that
is twisted once and then joined and it
has only one side and only one edge now
our tine bottle is a three dimensional
mobius strip and it only has one inside
it has no outside you can say it has an
inside and no outside or it has an
outside of no inside it’s a fabulous
little little trick but there’s
something like that would be the nature
of space as that which does indeed
trilliant transcend the opposites mm not
quite now we’d have to do one extra move
on a serpent to make it into a Klein
bottle you’d have to tuck its head
through the inn’s through the side of
its skin and make the aperture through
the mouth continuous with the inside of
the serpent towards the tail you see
what I’m getting to I’m giving you
something out of the general history of
religions to show that what has been
meant by the mystical state the state of
Samadhi or awakening in certain
traditions is not this state of trance
about a state of consciousness in which
you can perfectly well carry on your
daily affairs and of course what is
meant by a bodhisattva as the ideal type
of Buddhist person is that he is not
wrapped that he is actively engaged in
the life of the world because he has
gone beyond the illusion
that nirvana is to be found away from
everyday life so what is then the point
of meditation
why meditate why do you have to crawl
off into a hole or go to a Zen monastery
or retire and be quiet when this is only
a withdrawal is there anything to be
said for it our meditation is in there
in that sense as a practice as a
discipline is a very curious problem
because from one point of view it’s a
help and from another point of view a
hindrance and I think we have to
understand first of all that meditation
exercises are medicinal rather than
dietary the same could be said of LSD a
medicine not a diet something that is
described in Zen as when you want to
open a door or summon someone to open
the door for you you pick up a brick and
you knock on the door but you don’t
carry the brick into the house when you
need a raft for crossing a stream you
cross the stream on the raft but you
leave the raff on the bank at the other
side you don’t go carrying it around but
a lot of people when they get into
meditation or they get into religion or
into any kind of exploration of this
sort turn the door into a revolving door
and keep on going round and round and
round and never get through they say
what a gasp it is to be in this
revolving door there anything a good
definition of a parasite is the person
who goes through a revolving door on
so there are all sorts of people in the
religious racket who are going through
revolving doors and they’re very bitter
about people who walk right through and
leave the door behind because they say
well you haven’t paid enough respect you
must really understand religious
one-upmanship it’s a tremendously
important thing and don’t be caught out
by this because what happens is there’s
a little game going on which I’m going
to initiate you into and it’s played in
Zen which is it works like this if you
go to a teacher and ask for its
spiritual instruction or even if you
come to a seminar like this you are by
doing that confusing yourself because
you are looking for what you’re asking
for outside as if someone else could
give it to you as if you didn’t have it
so the teacher knows that as long as you
do that you haven’t understood but he
doesn’t just tell you to go away oh he
may sometimes to say go away I’m too
busy and I’m any in any case I can’t
tell you anything
well people won’t take that for an
and furthermore if he just said go away
they would just find some other teacher
who would exploit them and maybe keep
them as followers for years and acquire
a great deal of money by so doing what
he does is another thing he tries to
your attainment is not at all perfect
and where they they’re always talking
about other sects and other schools and
saying well they haven’t really got the
point you see so that you keep losing
faith in yourself and feeling my
goodness I haven’t yet attained this
thing and that keeps you working but all
the time
you’re being talked out it’s like
someone who’s a pickpocket and he’s
stolen your own watch and is selling it
to you but just so long as you can be
talked out of yourself
you deserve to be now you become very
aware of this if you ever do momentarily
slip into some sort of a mystical
experience you become aware of this
tremendous gamesmanship going on and you
see it is sort of continuous with with
all sorts of cosmic games that are going
on of creatures eating other creatures
up and the creatures that get eaten
of course transform themselves into the
creatures that eat them and then in turn
eat other creatures and that you you see
the whole hide-and-seek game going on
and then you realize very clearly that
the state of development that you are in
is no better and no worse than anybody
else’s state because it’s like space
again which planet is an or which star
is in the best position well it’s all
equal they’re all in the middle anyone
can be considered as the center one any
point on a sphere is the center of the
surface of the sphere so you know that
in the same way everybody in all his
behavior whatever he’s doing whether we
call him from a certain point of view
sick or whether we call him healthy
whether we call him good or bad neurotic
normal psychotic sane all the
manifestations are just like the leaves
on the trees and in each being in a
unique way these as Christians would say
manifesting the will of God so there
really it from that point of view there
is nothing to do to attain Buddhahood
nothing at all but you see that’s very
difficult to understand because a lot of
people when they hear that there’s
nothing to do try to do nothing and you
can’t because you are karma and karma
means action you can’t do nothing but
the thing you’re looking for or think
you’re looking for is what you’re doing
is what’s called you only of course as
we all know we’ve got ourselves into the
because it’s like as I’ve often said
trying to bite your own teeth or look
into your own eyes and you can’t find it
it’s always behind it’s like your head
is from the optical point of view a
blank space neither law and light nor
dark it’s right in the middle of
everything and so one of the great
tricks of gurus is to set people looking
for their heads there’s a famous story
of a king in India in ancient times
called yajna Dutta and one morning he
woke up and reached out for his mirror
and brought it over no head he was
looking in the wrong side of the mirror
you know he’s kind of Leary eyed and had
a hangover so he summoned servants and
said he God’s I’ve lost my head find it
and they said but your majesty it’s
there on your shoulders he said it is
not I can’t see it in the mirror nobody
can show me my head so they were rushing
now the trick to that is of course that
you are perfectly well aware of your
head only not in a form in which you
expect to be aware of it you expect to
be aware of your own head in the same
way as you’re aware of other people’s
heads but that wouldn’t be true of you
because you’ve got an inside view on
your head you have an outside view one
of other people’s heads because of
course you’re taking an inside point of
view but the way in which you are aware
of your head is in terms of what you are
seeing and hearing because all sites and
all sounds are what the nerves inside
your head are doing that’s how to be
aware of one’s head you are aware
therefore of yourself
the mysterious self that you have in
terms of experience because there isn’t
but that always escapes people to see
so perpetually so long as you don’t
understand that you can be talked into
going onto all kinds of weird excursions
and just so long as you believe it
you’re a sucker you’re hooked and it
takes a tremendous inner confidence and
nerve finally to say I mean it don’t
pull that stunt on me anymore
I see through your game and because guru
is a very clever putting you down but
they’re just trying to see how strong
you are testing you out see if they can
hoodwink you so long as they can you see
they’re going to go on doing it because
they’ve got to get you to the point
where they can’t do it to you anymore
then they’ll graduate and so one of RINs
eyes students after he saw through it
said well it wasn’t much in RINs eyes
Buddhism after all course there wasn’t
he said boldly and straight out my
teaching is just like using an empty
fist to deceive a child you know when
you play games with a child and pretend
you’ve got something here and the child
goes into all kinds of tizzy to get you
to open your hand and show what it is
and then there’s nothing fooled see you
so you can be fooled as long as you can
be fooled when you can’t be fooled you
don’t ask the question anymore because
it’s all become clear it’s all become
clear that there is no puzzle about this
universe what makes you think little
puzzles about this universe very simple
and when you explain things what you
there are several meanings of
explanation there is really one basic
meaning but first of all to be able to
translate what is happening into terms
of words or numbers in other words to
describe but a real explanation is not
just the description
it’s the description which enables us to
control what we are describing but
didn’t we see in the last session that
to control the world is not really what
we want to do so that if all
explanations have as their function
enabling us to control things then maybe
an explanation isn’t what we wanted and
furthermore you can very simply see that
what makes things complicated is
explaining them when somebody explains
to you how a flower works and he’s a
great botanist and analyzes all the
innards of the flower and shows the
channels the fibers the processes of
reproduction and so on that go on in it
everybody stands fascinated see how
complicated that is how clever God must
have been to create that flower to have
all that complexity going it seemed
complicated at all it’s only complicated
when you start thinking about because
the vehicle of words is a very clumsy
one and when you try to talk about the
processes of nature
what is complicated is not the processes
of nature but trying to put them into
words that’s as complicated as trying to
drink up the ocean with a fork it takes
forever and so this intense complexity
that we see in everything is created by
our attempt to analyze it all and so
what we do is you see when we analyze we
use our eyes and ears
as scalpers and we deceptively and we
have to put a label on every piece we
chop off and so we scalpel eyes and we
get it right down to Adams getting finer
and finer and we suddenly thought well
we’ve got to the end of it because the
word Adam means what is not cuttable our
Thomas but any family could cut the Adam
and lo and behold big fleas had little
fleas upon their backs to buy them and
it goes on forever there is no end to
the minutest which you can unveil
through physical investigation for the
simple reason that the investigation
itself is what is chopping things into
pieces and the sharper you can sharpen
your knife the finer you can cut it and
the knife of the intellect is very sharp
indeed and the sophisticated instruments
that we can now make that was probably
no limit to it but in a way all that is
vain knowledge in a way because you see
it what it does is it gives you the
illusion but you’ve solved your problem
when you have control certain things and
you have solved certain problems
practical problems and say fine more of
that please let’s go on solving problems
and then you do and you create a world
of people as we are today far more
comfortable than people who lived in the
19th century just remember the troubles
of going to a dentist when you were
children or some of you when you were
children of medicine of badly heated
homes of all sorts of things that we
don’t put up with anymore
but the problem is we keep running into
this thing that all constant
stimulations of consciousness become
unconscious
and when we take it as a matter of
course to have certain comforts
then we switch the level on which we
worry when you solve a whole set of
problems people find new ones to worry
about and after a while you begin to get
that haven’t we been here before feeling
aren’t we just going round on a cycle
and doing the same old thing over and
over and over again because we don’t
realize that we’re tape chasing our own
tails by an eternally recurrent process
of not knowing who you are
that is the hide-and-seek that is the
nature of what the hindus call the
manvantara and the prior the period of
the man mantra in which the worlds are
manifested and the period of the pralaya
in which the worlds are withdrawn from
manifestation in and out in and out ever
more came out by the same door as in I
went and the thing is to get to the
point where you can see that you are
doing that in every moment of your
existence with every tiny little atom of
your body you now at this minute you see
are the whole the whole system are
leaning and outing
in other words you often think perhaps
maybe a long long time ahead I shall
reach the point where I wake up from
manifestation and overcome the world
illusion and discover that I am the
supreme reality behind all this
diversification my friends there is no
diversification in other words what you
call diversification is your game in the
same way as you chop the thing and then
you say it is made of pieces when you
forget that you cut it and so when you
see the world is complicated and that
there are life problems and that you
might one day succeed see hundreds and
hundreds of people are running like mad
after something that they thought that
is success and they have no idea what it
is so in exactly the same way that Lulu
is keeping you running and running after
spiritual attainment you don’t know what
you want see where Krishnamurti served
clever because he says if you ask me for
enlightenment how can you ask me to
enlightenment if you don’t know what it
is how do you know you want it is it any
concept you have of it will be simply a
way of trying to perpetuate the
situation you’re already in if you think
you know what you’re going out for all
you’re doing is you’re seeking the past
what you already know what you’ve
already experienced therefore that’s not
it is it because you say you’re looking
for something quite new but what do you
mean new what’s your conception of
something new well you figure I can only
think about it and turn to something old
something I once had so he doesn’t say
he doesn’t indicate anything positively
everybody says why are you so negative
why don’t you give us something to hang
on to well if these simple answer is it
would be spurious you don’t need
anything to hang on to your it you don’t
well what is all this religious stuff
about then why don’t we just forget it
you can try by all means go away don’t
go to gurus don’t go to church don’t
enter philosophical discussions forget
it but then you’ll realize that by
having consented to forget it you’re
still seeking what a trap what can you
do you see if you stay here and listen
to me or to anyone else who comes around
here you’re fooling yourself but if you
go away you’re fooling yourself too
because you still think that’s going to
improve your situation it won’t and
therefore when you discover that it
doesn’t you’ll think well maybe it was a
mistake to go away and you come back to
the guru and he looks at you and says
uh-uh-uh-uh
you are very undisciplined very very
inferior student and you you need to
apply yourself well as I explained I
explained what he’s doing but it comes
down in a way to a sort of contest with
a guru you see will you call his bluff
you’re afraid to because you might
discover that if you do call his bluff
he’s no better than you are
well that’s what you’re supposed to find
out but without being cynical about it
these as divine as you are but you’ve
got to call the bluff there’s going to
be a showdown and it’s it’s a double
bind the whole situation is a double
bind because it doesn’t do any good to
stay here it doesn’t do any good to go
away either to do something about it or
to do nothing about it now then there’s
something else when you understand that
and when you realize that there’s
nothing to realize and it’s all here and
then what are you gonna do well of
course this is the sense of Zen poem
supernatural activity and marvelous
power drawing water carrying fuel no do
whatever one does as a human being but
there’s a little element of philistinism
in that it’s like when a child is
pestering father or mother with all
sorts of questions they finally get down
to the deepest metaphysical problems
they say oh shut up and eat your
doughnut and I wouldn’t say that you see
at this point because life as one looks
at it you see is in fact a celebration
of itself when you look out at night at
the Stars and you really want a good God
what is all that about well it’s a
firework display and it’s celebrating
High Holy Day as Whoopie and the whole
world is Whoopie
it’s a kind of exuberance and therefore
the proper function of religion is
digging this it’s not seeking it’s not
seeking anything but is in a way
Thanksgiving that’s why of course the
Christians were right in calling the
mass T of the Eucharist the Thanksgiving
only they had such a complicated way of
thinking about it and nobody could
understand it so they’re in in religion
or religious exercises whether they are
meditative or whether they are
ritualistic ah Whoopie they are not
something you do in order to attain
anything they are like art forms like
dancing
they are expressive of attainment of the
obtain less attainment so here’s another
hang-up for you when you go through mr.
Suzuki run to Zen Center he’s a good
disciple of dog M who brought them a
certain school of Zen to Japan in the
Dogen said you can’t sit and meditate
unless you’re already a Buddha in which
case why meditate well meditation is
just the way a Buddhist sits and he
called this sitting just to sit not to
obtain enlightenment as the minute you
do that you see you’re not meditating so
you only become a good meditator if
you’re not looking for anything
[Applause]
therefore you as worried things be able
to and what a great fist to dissect
older than elliptical lint to be able to
talk to her all the trees floor on the
light of Ronda hue without calling it
light or floor or trees or thing that it
has parts or thinking that it’s
so when you can sit without thinking not
with an empty mind mind you I’m going
back to that point not with an empty
mind but just a non analytic mind a non
probing mind where you’re not problems
on and on an on analytic mind a non
probing mind where you’re not creating
problems all the time by trying to
control it by trying to control your
mind by trying to control your
experience what you see in here you then
just simply discover that there is no
way of controlling what you’re
experiencing because what you’re
experiencing is you and to try and
really fundamentally control that this
is going around the circle so if I would
say to you now what you have to learn is
to let it happen that’s wrong – there’s
no one to let it happen if I say to you
accept your experience be calm and open
to things that again perpetuates the
illusion that you’re something different
from so we go round and round but if
there are some people who want to get
together and like we would get together
to play poker or to have a walk go
fishing or sail a boat if there are some
people who want to get together to
meditate and have rituals and to chant
great it’s an art form and you can only
use it and make it a good art form if
you’re not using it to get something and
this is what really is the bane of
temples all over the world you go into
Buddhist temples where they
theoretically don’t believe in any God
but there are the people praying and
they’re all doing it in order that we
get a male child next time around or
that the horse recover from a disease or
that mama gets cured of the dropsy and
all these petitions are going on and on
people always coming to the temple to
ask for something
lowbrow people for lowbrow things
highbrow people for highbrow things and
there all the vendors sit outside and
sell souvenirs and magic and charms and
all the people go in and do this and all
these serious priests sitting there
really having to keep up face and say
yes we can’t provide these services on
the other hand if you go in to one these
temples along with all the faithful
followers and have a bowl by a by a bead
by a candle by a this father by seven
cents go in and dig this great thing
going on salute the Buddha’s or the
crystal waters or the crucifixes or what
you will but don’t take it seriously and
this is one of the great important
transformations of today in our
consciousness is that a great many
people are finding out that religion is
not supposed to be taken seriously this
is a shocking thing to many people or
those used to be an old saying that a
religion is dead when the priests laugh
across the altars that’s true in one
sense when the priests know that they’ve
got a racket going and they don’t
believe one word of it and they’re
laughing across the altar because of all
these suckers around doing it then it’s
true the religion is dead but when the
priests laugh at the audience because
they’re having such fun because this
whole scene is so beautiful well it’s
the difference between some stuffy old
Buddhist priest humming a Sutra and
Allen Ginsberg chanting a Sutra that’s
no they gone for interminably moon it’s
a ball they’re sick of it but they get
paid for it this is magical but when our
ginsburg johnson super everybody gets in
the circle he gets these little bells
and they kept going it’s just like a
it’s like a jam session where everybody
is absolutely delighted well that’s the
way to do it and if you can’t do it that way forget it
from those ancient conceptions of God
and it is even passed down into science
where we discuss laws of nature but one
recognizes more and more in the sciences
that what we call laws of nature are
simply observed regularities in the way
things behave and you in order to
observe regularities you must look at
things through something regular that is
to say you must lay a ruler alongside
them or compare their behavior with the
regular behavior of a clock the clocks
and rulers are human inventions they are
regular measures which we use for
comparing the rates of change say a
clock is a measure of a rate of change
it’s quite arbitrary but we very easily
compare our regulation measuring devices
with what makes things happen as if the
Sun rises because it 6:00 in the morning
I left being completely backwards in
one’s thinking and we get into the same
confusion when we imagine for example
that money is wealth here we have
fantastic wealth you know and we have
the technological possibility of making
everybody on earth the enjoyer of an
independent income we can’t do it
because people say where’s the money
going to come from well as they think
money makes prosperity it’s the other
way around
it’s it’s it’s physical property of a
prosperity which has money as a way of
measuring it but people think money has
to come from somewhere
like hydroelectric power or lumber or
iron and it doesn’t money is something
we invent like inches so you remember
the Great Depression when it was a slump
and what do we have a slump of money
there was no less wealth no less energy
no less raw materials in the world
before but it’s like you came to build
work on building a house one day and
they said sorry you can’t build this
house today
no inches you mean no inches not just
inches we don’t mean that we got inches
of lumber yes we got inches of metal
we’ve even got tape measures but there’s
a slump in inches as such you see and
people are that crazy but they they can
have a depression because they got no
interest to go around no dollars that’s
all a lot of nonsense but you see
because we get thinking backwards and
making the metaphysical tale met wag the
dog making the law rule think this
whereas it doesn’t it Smithee of a way
of measuring what happens and so you see
when you get into Buddhistic thoughts
you don’t get that confusion the other
way or the other way round so you’re
looking at a system where to go back to
the Buddha’s words this arises that
becomes which is a way of saying you
can’t have this without that you can’t
have here without there you wouldn’t
know where he was unless you knew where
there was and they come into being
together you don’t get first here and
then there or first there and then here
these arise interdependently that’s the
meaning of inter dependent origination
and to grasp the idea of inter dependent
origination is as important as the idea
about seeing how things are related by
space and intervals and seeing therefore
that you tend to look at life from a
myopic point of view and see details see
the trees and not the forest see
yourself as something loosely related to
everything else that’s going on and not
integral to it you see the the figure
but ignore the background but the figure
in the background arise mutually they
are to each other as this is to that
and so we really have to rid our brains
of the notion of causality the notion of
causality being that present sets of
circumstances are the result of past
sets of circumstances and that therefore
certain events which are called causes
are responsible for following events
called effects and all this is an
enormous piece of mumbo-jumbo because
what is not seen and what is not clear
in thinking that way is that in physical
nature there are no separate events so
startling to people but it’s really
quite easy to see that there are no
events in nature because you can ask
very simply let’s take something called
an event how do we Demark it from other
events at what point shall we say were
you born were you born at parturition or
when the doctor slapped you on the
bottom or cut the umbilical cord or when
you were conceived or when your father
and mother were first attracted to each
other when was it when did you begin
there’s no way of deciding except
arbitrarily and for legal purposes we
say you were born at parturition and
that’s when the astrologer casts your
horoscope accept that other astrologers
disagree and want the conception time
they say that’s the real beginning there
isn’t a real beginning it goes back and
back and back in an inseparable
continuity whether you did that’s
another big argument and you couldn’t
all you can get all kinds of ideas about
that so what once you see that an event
is a term
in an intellectual calculus calculus
being the way of measuring say curved
formations by reducing them to point
instance and counting it you see but
actually the point instance our
imaginary the curve Wiggles along and it
doesn’t start from point to point but in
calculus you make it do that so just as
there are no point instance in the curve
so there are no events in nature nature
is a constantly fluctuating pattern you
can only designate particular Wiggles in
a pattern arbitrarily you can count a
convex formation as one wiggle or a
concave formation as one wiggle then you
decide if you call it one way well if
you give the convex properties the title
of wiggle you have to deny it to the
concave properties and vice versa so
when you see that what we call separate
events don’t exist
it becomes nonsense to speak of one
event causing another what you really
mean is that the two events which you
speak of as being causally related are
simply two parts of the same event they
go with each other in the same way as
this with that the relationship is not
causal it is mutual and it works two
ways in time because future so-called
are not merely passive to past events
but you could easily see when for
you can reason just as well from the
future to the past is from the past of
the future why do two mammals have
sexual intercourse well it isn’t just
that they enjoy it it’s also that
they’re a very complex system which does
this because it makes babies and the
prospect of baby works in Reverse and
creates desire you can reason that way
or it’s silly because the whole process
is one and when we speak humanly and
purposively I am going downtown to buy
groceries then your future event could
be said to be the cause of why you’re
now starting out to get into the car
buying groceries and the the difficulty
we have in seeing this to be so is that
we think in an either/or way which is
what is called dualism in Hindu Buddhist
thought and that liberation is being
free from dualism so when you think in
an either/or way you see the figures in
the background as moving and therefore
being responsible for their action but
if somebody argues the other way around
say the figures are just following lines
of force in a field gravitational
principles say we’re all in human beings
you see we’re all concentrated on our
fact that we’re individually rattling
around and doing this and that but we
don’t see that we’re equally sucked and
that we move around in response to all
sorts of stimuli but neither position is
adequate you have to see that our being
sucked by all sorts of stimuli is
exactly the same thing as our apparently
volunteer
and deliberate action because what we’re
looking at is not this Newtonian game of
billiards where balls roll because they
are hit by cues what we’re involved in
is a dance where for example watch a
snake when a snake swims there’s nothing
more beautiful than watching a snake
swim in water
lovely motion but you see it Wiggles
along and it’s wiggle is conceivable you
see as convex or was it concave this way
and that way and this way and that way
now which side of the snake moves first
when it Wiggles so it’s very easy to see
there now when we Bay act interact with
the world what moves first who starts it
the objective world or the subjective
world but they are related as this to
that you can’t have an object without a
subject or a subject without an object
kind of something known without the Noah
and that gives the show away there isn’t
any real distinction between the knower
and the known there’s two ways of
looking at something yes two poles of a
single process but the knower and the
known are subsumed as the knowing and
all life is knowing being becoming and
it isn’t something in other words that
works by the idea of all this happens
because someone shoves it now you see
the idea all this happens because
someone shoves it is basic to western
thinking there is the Lord God who’s the
boss and he sloshes this universe into
being and shoves it and sets it going
and you better obey that shove because
he’s introduced into it some
recalcitrance by giving to human beings
what the Hebrews called the yet Sahara
the wayward spirit so that they shall be
able to play certain games on their own
because nothing very interesting would
happen if everybody obeyed God the whole
world would be like a lifeless thing so
they had to reason that into it in order
to save face for God practically
because otherwise he could be blamed for
all the catastrophes that happened
instead of our being able to say to each
other well it’s our fault but then you
see you you you do the flip deep in
giving away the control you got it you
got the kind of control you wanted
that’s to say where you had a loving
relationship to the world but you didn’t
have to make up your mind what it should
do you let it decide now do you see
that’s how your bodies work you don’t
have to make up your mind
what your nerve cells are gonna do
you’ve delegated all that authority if
the president the United States has to
lay awake at nights thinking what every
official under his command is going to
do he can’t be President he’s got to
make an act of trust in all those
subordinates to be responsible and carry
on their things in just the same way as
you make an act of trust to all your
subordinate organs to carry on their
functions without you having to tell
them what to do and this is the secret
of what we will call organic power as
distinct from political power loud sir
puts it in this way the great Dow flows
everywhere both to the left and to the
right it loves and nourishes all things
but does not lord it over them and when
merits are accomplished it lays no claim
to them the more therefore you
relinquish power trust others
the more powerful you become but in such
a way that instead of having to lie
awake nights controlling everything you
do it beautifully by trusting the job to
everyone else and they carry it on for
you so you can go to sleep at night and
trust your nervous system to wake you up
in the morning you can even tell it I
want to wake up at 6 o’clock and it will
this seems a sort of paradox to say this
but the principle of unity of coming to
a sense of of oneness with the whole of
the rest of the universe is not to try
to be obtained power over the rest of
the universe that will only disturb it
and antagonize it and make it seem less
one with you than ever
the way to become one with the universe
is to trust it as another as you would
another and say let’s see what you’re
going to do but in doing that you see in
saying that to everything else that you
have been taught to think is not you you
are also saying it to yourself because
finally as I pointed out you do not know
where your decisions come from they pop
up like hiccups and when you make a
decision people have a great deal of
anxiety about making decisions he’s this
guy who farmer who ordered a help man
come in and family was an
extraordinarily efficient worker was the
first day he put him on sawing logs and
he saw more logs than anybody had ever
saw it was fantastic but he were all
done in one day
so the next day putting on put him on to
mending fences and there were all kinds
of broken fences around the farm and in
one day he had the whole thing done so
he thought what am I gonna do this guy
so he took him down into a basement and
said look here all out all the potatoes
that have come in from this harvest and
I want you to sort them into three
groups those that we sell those that we
use for seeding and those that we throw
away so he left him at that at the end
of the day the laborer came back and
said well that’s enough mister I quit no
he said you can’t quit I’ve never had
such an excellent weather I’ll raise
your salary I’ll do anything to keep you
around it I said no it’s all right
mending fences and chopping wood with
this potato business is decision after
decision after decision of this so when
we decide we’re always worrying did I
think this over long enough did I take
enough data into consideration and if
you think it through you’ll find you
never could take enough data into
consideration the data for a decision in
any given situation is infinite so what
you do is you go through the motions of
thinking out what you will do about this
and then when the time comes to act you
make a snap judgment
I mean I’m speaking a little extremely
making some fun of it and so on because
after all we do occasionally get the
vague outlines of things and make a
right decision on rational grounds but
we fortunately forget the variables that
could have interfered with this coming
out right it’s amazing how often it
who think of all the variables beyond
their control and what might happen so
then when you make a decision and it
works out all right I think they’re
little of it has much to do with your
conscious intent and control but somehow
or other you are able to decide and
control things more harmoniously if you
delegate authority it’s why very great
businessmen others who can delegate
authority trust others to work for them
because those are people developing
businesses on the same basic structure
that is fundamental to a living organism
delegation of authority it loves and
nourishes all things but does not lord
it over them and you see then or what is
happening is this the more you let go of
it and Trust it as if it were quite
the more you realize the inseparable
identity of self and other to go back if
you try to find the identity of self and
other by subjecting other to self no-go
if on the other hand you find it through
giving self that is control over to
other and trusting that you may make a
mistake you may make a bad gamble but in
the long run you are acting on a
principle which has the backing of
evolution this is the way biological
evolution goes on constant delegation of
authority that’s why of obviously the
democracy is superior to the monarchy
mister Tocqueville who said that
democracy is always right but for the
wrong reasons because there is operating
in a democracy the principle the
Buckminster Fuller called synergy and
synergy is the intelligence of a highly
complex system the nature of which is
because that’s goes back again to this
point that we are always entering a new
environment we don’t ever know fully
what the new environment is because the
only environments we know the past ones
there is always an operating in the
development of cellular life on any
level a new way of organization higher
than any existing forms
and we’re not aware of it until after
it’s happened if you ever saw for
example the film kontiki and this man
figured out a few things as to how to
make a balsa wood raft to sail from
South America to the Pacific Islands but
once he had set this in motion he
discovered that all sorts of unexpected
factors cooperated with him that when
the wood got wet it expanded so that the
ties bit into it and held it completely
secure
he’d never expected that and he found
that as he sailed along a flying fish
would simply alight flat on the deck
every morning for breakfast that all
kinds of natural factors it was just he
that he had touched the key where he was
flowing with the course of nature and
everything cooperated with him because
he attached the key he had made the act
of faith and he was just picking up in
other words the practice which had been
hundreds and hundreds of years ago had
been followed by others who had worked
it out by their great ecological
so we do come out of this way of
thinking to something which has I would
say the most enormous ly creative and
revolutionary social consequences that
Eden has become not virtuous not
self-sacrificing and not anything like
that it has become the hardest practical
politics to let go control to others to
also in a parallel way it has become at
this time in our history very much hard
practical politics and to learn how to
enjoy ourselves you can go to the
Protestant people with their Protestant
ethic who are against this kind of thing
and now say to them with great Glee it
is your solemn duty to learn how to
enjoy yourself why because in an age of
leisure people have really got to know
how to enjoy themselves because if they
don’t
they’ll smash the whole future of the
human race so you a utopia has become
not some sort of a dream but an urgent
necessity we can’t do without it because
if we try to do without it what’s going
to happen is that we are going to
terminate our race in a mutual Massacre
of scapegoats and so the present
paranoia in the United States that is
going on where everybody is thinking up
a new scapegoat and how great it will be
to demolish them I’ll get them out of
power or all this kind of bickering and
right and left politics has become
irrelevant because we now have the
opportunity of trusting our own
intelligence our own technology to take
the risk of doing what we want which
will work to the extent that we realize
that what I want basically what I really
want is what you want and I don’t know
surprised me but that’s my that’s the
kinship between irons ow so when I ask I
go right down to the question should be
started with what do I want the answer
is I don’t know when bodhidharma was
asked who are you which is another form
of the same question he said I don’t
know planting flowers to which the
butterflies come
Bodhidharma says I know not I don’t know
what happened well when you don’t know
what you want you’ve really reach the
state of desirelessness when you really
don’t know
did you see there’s a there’s a
beginning stage of not knowing and
there’s an ending stage of not knowing
in the beginning stage you don’t know
what you want because you haven’t
thought about it or you’ve only thought
superficially then when you have
somebody forces you to think about it
and go through and say yeah I think I
like this I think I like that I think
I’d like the other as the middle stage
then you get beyond that say is that
what I really want the end you say no I
don’t think that’s it I might be
satisfied with it for a while and I
wouldn’t turn my nose up at it but it’s
not really what I want why don’t you
really know what you want two reasons
that you don’t really know what you want
number one you have it number two you
don’t know yourself because you never
can the Godhead is never an object of
its own knowledge just as a knife
doesn’t cut itself fire doesn’t burn
itself light doesn’t illumine itself
it’s always an endless mystery to itself
I don’t know and this I don’t know
uh turd in the infinite interior of the
spirit this I don’t know is the same
thing as I love I let go I don’t try to
force or control it’s the same thing as
humility and so the Upanishads say if
you think that you understand brahmana
you do not understand and you have yet
to be instructed further if you know
that you do not understand then you
truly understand for the brahmana is
unknown to those who know it unknown to
those who know it not and the principle
is that anytime you as it were
voluntarily let up control in other
words cease to cling to yourself you
have an access of power because you’re
wasting energy all the time in
self-defence trying to manage things
trying to force things to conform to
your will the moment you stop doing that
that wasted energy is available
therefore you are in that sense having
that energy available you are one with
the Divine Principle you have the energy
when you’re trying however to act as if
you were God that is to say you don’t
trust anybody and you’re the dictator
and you have to keep everybody in line
you lose the divine energy because what
you’re doing is simply defending
yourself so then the principle is the
what we’ve been talking about is not so
much a set of ideas as an experience or
shall we say experiencing and this kind
of seminar in comparison with the
encounter groups or workshops of various
kinds or experiments in sensory
awareness is now being called a
conceptual seminar although I’m not
talking about concepts but the crucial
question arises that an understanding a
real feeling understanding of the polar
relationship between the individual and
the world is something that operates as
we say in your bones and isn’t just a
view that you hold or a belief that you
hold it’s so curious that the emphasis
of the Western tradition in religion is
primarily upon right belief do you
believe in the right dogmas and the
right doctrines and only secondarily
upon right action because what you
believe is in Christianity at any rate
far more important than what you do
because one is saved through faith not
by works and early in its history the
Christian Church rejected the movement
in the church which had been known as
canastas ISM from the Greek gnosis which
and in a way there were some sound
reasons for doing so because the ganache
sticks were what I would call anti
materialists they divided human beings
into three classes that were called
respectively pneumatic psychic and Hayek
last one being H Y L IC from the Greek
Haile or they would call it now la e Li
meaning wood so the people were
spiritual psychological and wooden and
that is to say the wooden people were
those most absorbed in materiality and
most closely identified with their
bodies and Orthodox Christianity
rejected this sort of distinction
because of the perfectly correct idea
that material existence is not
inconsistent with spirituality this is
something which most Christians have
forgotten but they do believe as the
central principle of Christianity in
what’s called the Incarnation that in
the Jesus of Nazareth Almighty God did
in fact become material become human and
by this process initiated a
transformation of the cosmos in the
words of Saint Athanasius God became man
that man might become God and you don’t
hear that from the pulpit very often the
Christian Church therefore emphasized
pista soar faith as against gnosis or
because they said you can never know God
God could never become an object of
knowledge and in this funny roundabout
way the Christian theologians were
saying exactly the same thing as the
Hindus only the Hindus do call this
knowledge of God through faith they call
it in Yana which is the same as the
Greek word gnosis but just to give you a
little sidelight on how words get mixed
up in their meanings we now have a class
of person called an agnostic and an
agnostic generally means a person who
doesn’t commit himself to any beliefs
about the ultimate nature of things he
just says he doesn’t know but the
original word agnosia in greek meant a
special kind of knowledge it was called
the dark knowledge of God the knowledge
of God in the Cloud of Unknowing to use
the title of a mystical treatise written
by an anonymous 14th century English
monk this monk derived his ideas from a
very mysterious figure who wrote under
Dionysus was a 5th or 6th century
syrian monk who had learned his
mysticism from porphyry who got it from
plutinos who was a neoplatonist and who
probably got a great deal of stimulation
from the intellectual world of
alexandria and alexandria in the early
years of the Christian era was a
tremendous exchange place between east
Buddhist monks visited Alexandria it was
one of the great centers of trade
between Rome and India and as you may
know all Rome’s gold eventually went to
India for the purchase of pepper and as
a result of this the Roman economy
collapsed they bought too much luxury
from India India in exchange got Roman
architecture and you’ll see a lot of
Roman architecture in Indian temples but
Alexandria was the great Center for the
Gnostics and for Christian theology and
some of the greatest theologians Clement
Origen Athanasius Saint Cyril all worked
out of Alexandria we’re now going back
to this strange monk dionysius it was he
who first put around the idea in
Christian circles that there was such a
thing of the knowledge as the knowledge
of God by faith by agnosia really by
unknowing and he in a book which he
wrote very short book called the
theologian Mystica he wrote a treatise
on the higher knowledge of God which
might be quoted directly from the
Upanishads in certain parts of it the
last section of it reads like the man do
kill punish honor because it’s a series
of negations it says what God is not and
he goes very far because he says that
God is not one this is our idea of unity
falls far short of what God is so does
our idea of Trinity so does our idea of
spirit our idea of mind of justice of
love all these things
ah not really God and he says in another
place if anybody having seen God
understood what he had seen what he
would have seen would not have been God
but some creature of God less than God
some sort of angel or something like
that it’s perfectly amazing to consider
the influence that this man had for
writing under the name of dionysius the
areopagite he became identified you see
with Saint Paul’s first convert in
Athens and legend has it that he was the
first bishop of Athens and was martyred
in Gaul now where he’s known as son
Dennis but son Thomas Aquinas looked
upon the writings of dionysius the
areopagite as having the highest
authority and you could if all the text
of Dionysus his work had been lost
you could restore most of it from
quotations in some Thomas he wrote
really two very important books one was
the one I said that the theologian
Mystica the other was called the divine
names and these two books presented the
two phases of his theology the book
called the divine names was a discussion
on the nature of God in terms of what
God is like by analogy and this kind of
knowledge of God he called catyph attic
from the Greek
Femi to speak or say Qatar meaning to
say according to that is to say to speak
by analogy where he used there entirely
negative language about God this sort of
discourse was called apophatic and the
word appo meaning away from to talk away
from just as a sculptor when he makes an
image reveals the image by removing
stone and so Don Isis explained that one
attains the knowledge of God by
discarding
concepts which is exactly what the
Hindus mean when they say of God one can
only say neti neti not this not this not
any conception
thus in Hindu philosophy the highest
state of consciousness in Samadhi is
called nirvikalpa samadhi which means
literally non conceptual vikalpa means a
concept near is a negation so the non
conceptual knowledge now people have
greatly misunderstood this they have
imagined that unknowing the state of the
highest contemplation was the
acquisition of a blank mind from which
you first discarded thought you went on
to discard perception he went on to
discard any kind of sensory content in
awareness until you were so far as
anyone could say aware of nothing and
they supposed that this kind of
catatonic state was mystical
consciousness this is often believed in
India if you go to the Vedanta Society
and asked what do you mean by nearly
culpa Samadhi they will tell you that
the one in that state has no
consciousness whatsoever of the sensory
world that he is completely absorbed as
you sometimes see Hindu holy men sitting
in a state where they are blind and deaf
to everything going on around them the
founder of Chinese then known as hainan
described people like that as no better
than pieces of rock and lumps of wood he
said it’s a very serious mistake indeed
to confuse
Tsun yatta the sanskrit word for the
great void which is both the ultimate
reality and the consciousness thereof it
is a great mistake to confuse it with
nothingness it is rather to be thought
of as space or like space because space
is not empty it contains the whole
universe and so in the same way the
State of Mind of a person who is truly
enlightened is not empty it contains
everything but like space it is not
stained by what it contains and it’s
often said in Zen imagery you can’t
hammer a nail into space you can’t spit
on the sky and soil it if you try the
spit will just return and hit your own
faith so they go on to say the
consciousness in all of us
your basic mind is like space it is
completely pure but of course by purity
they don’t mean unsexual which is of
course what purity generally means in
the Western world blessed are the pure
in heart for they shall see God
a person who’s pure in heart has
generally understood as one who never
has any naughty thoughts you know what
not he means means vain negative empty a
naughty person therefore as one who
doesn’t amount to anything was just
nothing that’s the real meaning but this
misunderstanding of the nature of
contemplation existed not only in India
from which it was transmitted to China
but also in the West you read many
treatises on Western mysticism
and the still the feeling that getting
into a deep deep trance sometimes called
rapture again the word rapture has
undergone some transformations we talk
about raptures people being beside
themselves with pleasure but to be
wrapped means to be taken away from the
body so also ecstasy we now interpret as
meaning in a state of high pleasure but
it means to be outside yourself to stand
outside yourself your soul has left you
it is with God as Arabs say of all crazy
people be kind to them they are not here
their soul is with God but actually if
it can be true as Buddhists say that
Nirvana and sansara are one and if it
can be true as Christians say that the
spirit can be made flesh the word can be
made flesh then obviously the highest
form of man is not sitting in a trance
like a lump on a log with a perfectly
blank mind because if that were the
highest state of consciousness it would
be an exclusive state of mind a state of
mind that shuts out life and in that
sense it could not qualify for being
what the Hindus call non-dualistic they
always speak of the highest reality as
being not one because one excludes many
not nothing because nothing excludes
something not being because being
excludes non being and vice versa and so
they use this word non dual to mean that
which doesn’t exclude anything which as
it were has no outside as we say space
has no outside you can only have
outsides inside space you can’t have any
outsides outside space there is no
outside space even though space may be
so if you want to think incidentally of
that curved space go and take a look at
a photograph in the life a book on
mathematics well there’s a picture of a
Klein bottle which is a three
dimensional mobius strip there’ll be a
strip you know is a piece of paper that
is twisted once and then joined and it
has only one side and only one edge now
our tine bottle is a three dimensional
mobius strip and it only has one inside
it has no outside you can say it has an
inside and no outside or it has an
outside of no inside it’s a fabulous
little little trick but there’s
something like that would be the nature
of space as that which does indeed
trilliant transcend the opposites mm not
quite now we’d have to do one extra move
on a serpent to make it into a Klein
bottle you’d have to tuck its head
through the inn’s through the side of
its skin and make the aperture through
the mouth continuous with the inside of
the serpent towards the tail you see
what I’m getting to I’m giving you
something out of the general history of
religions to show that what has been
meant by the mystical state the state of
Samadhi or awakening in certain
traditions is not this state of trance
about a state of consciousness in which
you can perfectly well carry on your
daily affairs and of course what is
meant by a bodhisattva as the ideal type
of Buddhist person is that he is not
wrapped that he is actively engaged in
the life of the world because he has
gone beyond the illusion
that nirvana is to be found away from
everyday life so what is then the point
of meditation
why meditate why do you have to crawl
off into a hole or go to a Zen monastery
or retire and be quiet when this is only
a withdrawal is there anything to be
said for it our meditation is in there
in that sense as a practice as a
discipline is a very curious problem
because from one point of view it’s a
help and from another point of view a
hindrance and I think we have to
understand first of all that meditation
exercises are medicinal rather than
dietary the same could be said of LSD a
medicine not a diet something that is
described in Zen as when you want to
open a door or summon someone to open
the door for you you pick up a brick and
you knock on the door but you don’t
carry the brick into the house when you
need a raft for crossing a stream you
cross the stream on the raft but you
leave the raff on the bank at the other
side you don’t go carrying it around but
a lot of people when they get into
meditation or they get into religion or
into any kind of exploration of this
sort turn the door into a revolving door
and keep on going round and round and
round and never get through they say
what a gasp it is to be in this
revolving door there anything a good
definition of a parasite is the person
who goes through a revolving door on
so there are all sorts of people in the
religious racket who are going through
revolving doors and they’re very bitter
about people who walk right through and
leave the door behind because they say
well you haven’t paid enough respect you
must really understand religious
one-upmanship it’s a tremendously
important thing and don’t be caught out
by this because what happens is there’s
a little game going on which I’m going
to initiate you into and it’s played in
Zen which is it works like this if you
go to a teacher and ask for its
spiritual instruction or even if you
come to a seminar like this you are by
doing that confusing yourself because
you are looking for what you’re asking
for outside as if someone else could
give it to you as if you didn’t have it
so the teacher knows that as long as you
do that you haven’t understood but he
doesn’t just tell you to go away oh he
may sometimes to say go away I’m too
busy and I’m any in any case I can’t
tell you anything
well people won’t take that for an
and furthermore if he just said go away
they would just find some other teacher
who would exploit them and maybe keep
them as followers for years and acquire
a great deal of money by so doing what
he does is another thing he tries to
your attainment is not at all perfect
and where they they’re always talking
about other sects and other schools and
saying well they haven’t really got the
point you see so that you keep losing
faith in yourself and feeling my
goodness I haven’t yet attained this
thing and that keeps you working but all
the time
you’re being talked out it’s like
someone who’s a pickpocket and he’s
stolen your own watch and is selling it
to you but just so long as you can be
talked out of yourself
you deserve to be now you become very
aware of this if you ever do momentarily
slip into some sort of a mystical
experience you become aware of this
tremendous gamesmanship going on and you
see it is sort of continuous with with
all sorts of cosmic games that are going
on of creatures eating other creatures
up and the creatures that get eaten
of course transform themselves into the
creatures that eat them and then in turn
eat other creatures and that you you see
the whole hide-and-seek game going on
and then you realize very clearly that
the state of development that you are in
is no better and no worse than anybody
else’s state because it’s like space
again which planet is an or which star
is in the best position well it’s all
equal they’re all in the middle anyone
can be considered as the center one any
point on a sphere is the center of the
surface of the sphere so you know that
in the same way everybody in all his
behavior whatever he’s doing whether we
call him from a certain point of view
sick or whether we call him healthy
whether we call him good or bad neurotic
normal psychotic sane all the
manifestations are just like the leaves
on the trees and in each being in a
unique way these as Christians would say
manifesting the will of God so there
really it from that point of view there
is nothing to do to attain Buddhahood
nothing at all but you see that’s very
difficult to understand because a lot of
people when they hear that there’s
nothing to do try to do nothing and you
can’t because you are karma and karma
means action you can’t do nothing but
the thing you’re looking for or think
you’re looking for is what you’re doing
is what’s called you only of course as
we all know we’ve got ourselves into the
because it’s like as I’ve often said
trying to bite your own teeth or look
into your own eyes and you can’t find it
it’s always behind it’s like your head
is from the optical point of view a
blank space neither law and light nor
dark it’s right in the middle of
everything and so one of the great
tricks of gurus is to set people looking
for their heads there’s a famous story
of a king in India in ancient times
called yajna Dutta and one morning he
woke up and reached out for his mirror
and brought it over no head he was
looking in the wrong side of the mirror
you know he’s kind of Leary eyed and had
a hangover so he summoned servants and
said he God’s I’ve lost my head find it
and they said but your majesty it’s
there on your shoulders he said it is
not I can’t see it in the mirror nobody
can show me my head so they were rushing
now the trick to that is of course that
you are perfectly well aware of your
head only not in a form in which you
expect to be aware of it you expect to
be aware of your own head in the same
way as you’re aware of other people’s
heads but that wouldn’t be true of you
because you’ve got an inside view on
your head you have an outside view one
of other people’s heads because of
course you’re taking an inside point of
view but the way in which you are aware
of your head is in terms of what you are
seeing and hearing because all sites and
all sounds are what the nerves inside
your head are doing that’s how to be
aware of one’s head you are aware
therefore of yourself
the mysterious self that you have in
terms of experience because there isn’t
but that always escapes people to see
so perpetually so long as you don’t
understand that you can be talked into
going onto all kinds of weird excursions
and just so long as you believe it
you’re a sucker you’re hooked and it
takes a tremendous inner confidence and
nerve finally to say I mean it don’t
pull that stunt on me anymore
I see through your game and because guru
is a very clever putting you down but
they’re just trying to see how strong
you are testing you out see if they can
hoodwink you so long as they can you see
they’re going to go on doing it because
they’ve got to get you to the point
where they can’t do it to you anymore
then they’ll graduate and so one of RINs
eyes students after he saw through it
said well it wasn’t much in RINs eyes
Buddhism after all course there wasn’t
he said boldly and straight out my
teaching is just like using an empty
fist to deceive a child you know when
you play games with a child and pretend
you’ve got something here and the child
goes into all kinds of tizzy to get you
to open your hand and show what it is
and then there’s nothing fooled see you
so you can be fooled as long as you can
be fooled when you can’t be fooled you
don’t ask the question anymore because
it’s all become clear it’s all become
clear that there is no puzzle about this
universe what makes you think little
puzzles about this universe very simple
and when you explain things what you
there are several meanings of
explanation there is really one basic
meaning but first of all to be able to
translate what is happening into terms
of words or numbers in other words to
describe but a real explanation is not
just the description
it’s the description which enables us to
control what we are describing but
didn’t we see in the last session that
to control the world is not really what
we want to do so that if all
explanations have as their function
enabling us to control things then maybe
an explanation isn’t what we wanted and
furthermore you can very simply see that
what makes things complicated is
explaining them when somebody explains
to you how a flower works and he’s a
great botanist and analyzes all the
innards of the flower and shows the
channels the fibers the processes of
reproduction and so on that go on in it
everybody stands fascinated see how
complicated that is how clever God must
have been to create that flower to have
all that complexity going it seemed
complicated at all it’s only complicated
when you start thinking about because
the vehicle of words is a very clumsy
one and when you try to talk about the
processes of nature
what is complicated is not the processes
of nature but trying to put them into
words that’s as complicated as trying to
drink up the ocean with a fork it takes
forever and so this intense complexity
that we see in everything is created by
our attempt to analyze it all and so
what we do is you see when we analyze we
use our eyes and ears
as scalpers and we deceptively and we
have to put a label on every piece we
chop off and so we scalpel eyes and we
get it right down to Adams getting finer
and finer and we suddenly thought well
we’ve got to the end of it because the
word Adam means what is not cuttable our
Thomas but any family could cut the Adam
and lo and behold big fleas had little
fleas upon their backs to buy them and
it goes on forever there is no end to
the minutest which you can unveil
through physical investigation for the
simple reason that the investigation
itself is what is chopping things into
pieces and the sharper you can sharpen
your knife the finer you can cut it and
the knife of the intellect is very sharp
indeed and the sophisticated instruments
that we can now make that was probably
no limit to it but in a way all that is
vain knowledge in a way because you see
it what it does is it gives you the
illusion but you’ve solved your problem
when you have control certain things and
you have solved certain problems
practical problems and say fine more of
that please let’s go on solving problems
and then you do and you create a world
of people as we are today far more
comfortable than people who lived in the
19th century just remember the troubles
of going to a dentist when you were
children or some of you when you were
children of medicine of badly heated
homes of all sorts of things that we
don’t put up with anymore
but the problem is we keep running into
this thing that all constant
stimulations of consciousness become
unconscious
and when we take it as a matter of
course to have certain comforts
then we switch the level on which we
worry when you solve a whole set of
problems people find new ones to worry
about and after a while you begin to get
that haven’t we been here before feeling
aren’t we just going round on a cycle
and doing the same old thing over and
over and over again because we don’t
realize that we’re tape chasing our own
tails by an eternally recurrent process
of not knowing who you are
that is the hide-and-seek that is the
nature of what the hindus call the
manvantara and the prior the period of
the man mantra in which the worlds are
manifested and the period of the pralaya
in which the worlds are withdrawn from
manifestation in and out in and out ever
more came out by the same door as in I
went and the thing is to get to the
point where you can see that you are
doing that in every moment of your
existence with every tiny little atom of
your body you now at this minute you see
are the whole the whole system are
leaning and outing
in other words you often think perhaps
maybe a long long time ahead I shall
reach the point where I wake up from
manifestation and overcome the world
illusion and discover that I am the
supreme reality behind all this
diversification my friends there is no
diversification in other words what you
call diversification is your game in the
same way as you chop the thing and then
you say it is made of pieces when you
forget that you cut it and so when you
see the world is complicated and that
there are life problems and that you
might one day succeed see hundreds and
hundreds of people are running like mad
after something that they thought that
is success and they have no idea what it
is so in exactly the same way that Lulu
is keeping you running and running after
spiritual attainment you don’t know what
you want see where Krishnamurti served
clever because he says if you ask me for
enlightenment how can you ask me to
enlightenment if you don’t know what it
is how do you know you want it is it any
concept you have of it will be simply a
way of trying to perpetuate the
situation you’re already in if you think
you know what you’re going out for all
you’re doing is you’re seeking the past
what you already know what you’ve
already experienced therefore that’s not
it is it because you say you’re looking
for something quite new but what do you
mean new what’s your conception of
something new well you figure I can only
think about it and turn to something old
something I once had so he doesn’t say
he doesn’t indicate anything positively
everybody says why are you so negative
why don’t you give us something to hang
on to well if these simple answer is it
would be spurious you don’t need
anything to hang on to your it you don’t
well what is all this religious stuff
about then why don’t we just forget it
you can try by all means go away don’t
go to gurus don’t go to church don’t
enter philosophical discussions forget
it but then you’ll realize that by
having consented to forget it you’re
still seeking what a trap what can you
do you see if you stay here and listen
to me or to anyone else who comes around
here you’re fooling yourself but if you
go away you’re fooling yourself too
because you still think that’s going to
improve your situation it won’t and
therefore when you discover that it
doesn’t you’ll think well maybe it was a
mistake to go away and you come back to
the guru and he looks at you and says
uh-uh-uh-uh
you are very undisciplined very very
inferior student and you you need to
apply yourself well as I explained I
explained what he’s doing but it comes
down in a way to a sort of contest with
a guru you see will you call his bluff
you’re afraid to because you might
discover that if you do call his bluff
he’s no better than you are
well that’s what you’re supposed to find
out but without being cynical about it
these as divine as you are but you’ve
got to call the bluff there’s going to
be a showdown and it’s it’s a double
bind the whole situation is a double
bind because it doesn’t do any good to
stay here it doesn’t do any good to go
away either to do something about it or
to do nothing about it now then there’s
something else when you understand that
and when you realize that there’s
nothing to realize and it’s all here and
then what are you gonna do well of
course this is the sense of Zen poem
supernatural activity and marvelous
power drawing water carrying fuel no do
whatever one does as a human being but
there’s a little element of philistinism
in that it’s like when a child is
pestering father or mother with all
sorts of questions they finally get down
to the deepest metaphysical problems
they say oh shut up and eat your
doughnut and I wouldn’t say that you see
at this point because life as one looks
at it you see is in fact a celebration
of itself when you look out at night at
the Stars and you really want a good God
what is all that about well it’s a
firework display and it’s celebrating
High Holy Day as Whoopie and the whole
world is Whoopie
it’s a kind of exuberance and therefore
the proper function of religion is
digging this it’s not seeking it’s not
seeking anything but is in a way
Thanksgiving that’s why of course the
Christians were right in calling the
mass T of the Eucharist the Thanksgiving
only they had such a complicated way of
thinking about it and nobody could
understand it so they’re in in religion
or religious exercises whether they are
meditative or whether they are
ritualistic ah Whoopie they are not
something you do in order to attain
anything they are like art forms like
dancing
they are expressive of attainment of the
obtain less attainment so here’s another
hang-up for you when you go through mr.
Suzuki run to Zen Center he’s a good
disciple of dog M who brought them a
certain school of Zen to Japan in the
Dogen said you can’t sit and meditate
unless you’re already a Buddha in which
case why meditate well meditation is
just the way a Buddhist sits and he
called this sitting just to sit not to
obtain enlightenment as the minute you
do that you see you’re not meditating so
you only become a good meditator if
you’re not looking for anything
[Applause]
therefore you as worried things be able
to and what a great fist to dissect
older than elliptical lint to be able to
talk to her all the trees floor on the
light of Ronda hue without calling it
light or floor or trees or thing that it
has parts or thinking that it’s
so when you can sit without thinking not
with an empty mind mind you I’m going
back to that point not with an empty
mind but just a non analytic mind a non
probing mind where you’re not problems
on and on an on analytic mind a non
probing mind where you’re not creating
problems all the time by trying to
control it by trying to control your
mind by trying to control your
experience what you see in here you then
just simply discover that there is no
way of controlling what you’re
experiencing because what you’re
experiencing is you and to try and
really fundamentally control that this
is going around the circle so if I would
say to you now what you have to learn is
to let it happen that’s wrong – there’s
no one to let it happen if I say to you
accept your experience be calm and open
to things that again perpetuates the
illusion that you’re something different
from so we go round and round but if
there are some people who want to get
together and like we would get together
to play poker or to have a walk go
fishing or sail a boat if there are some
people who want to get together to
meditate and have rituals and to chant
great it’s an art form and you can only
use it and make it a good art form if
you’re not using it to get something and
this is what really is the bane of
temples all over the world you go into
Buddhist temples where they
theoretically don’t believe in any God
but there are the people praying and
they’re all doing it in order that we
get a male child next time around or
that the horse recover from a disease or
that mama gets cured of the dropsy and
all these petitions are going on and on
people always coming to the temple to
ask for something
lowbrow people for lowbrow things
highbrow people for highbrow things and
there all the vendors sit outside and
sell souvenirs and magic and charms and
all the people go in and do this and all
these serious priests sitting there
really having to keep up face and say
yes we can’t provide these services on
the other hand if you go in to one these
temples along with all the faithful
followers and have a bowl by a by a bead
by a candle by a this father by seven
cents go in and dig this great thing
going on salute the Buddha’s or the
crystal waters or the crucifixes or what
you will but don’t take it seriously and
this is one of the great important
transformations of today in our
consciousness is that a great many
people are finding out that religion is
not supposed to be taken seriously this
is a shocking thing to many people or
those used to be an old saying that a
religion is dead when the priests laugh
across the altars that’s true in one
sense when the priests know that they’ve
got a racket going and they don’t
believe one word of it and they’re
laughing across the altar because of all
these suckers around doing it then it’s
true the religion is dead but when the
priests laugh at the audience because
they’re having such fun because this
whole scene is so beautiful well it’s
the difference between some stuffy old
Buddhist priest humming a Sutra and
Allen Ginsberg chanting a Sutra that’s
no they gone for interminably moon it’s
a ball they’re sick of it but they get
paid for it this is magical but when our
ginsburg johnson super everybody gets in
the circle he gets these little bells
and they kept going it’s just like a
it’s like a jam session where everybody
is absolutely delighted well that’s the
way to do it and if you can’t do it that way forget it
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