WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.399 --> 00:00:05.480 So this particular seminar is devoted to the subject of 2 00:00:05.559 --> 00:00:11.960 flow and its relation to meditation. And therefore I have 3 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:20.079 to talk first about certain characteristics of energy, because this 4 00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:27.120 world is energy E equals mc squared, and if there 5 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:31.399 is nothing except energy, we cannot of course say what 6 00:00:31.640 --> 00:00:39.759 energy is, because if everything is energy, then there is 7 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:45.520 no class of events or things outside energy, and you 8 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:49.520 can only describe something that you can put into a class, 9 00:00:49.679 --> 00:00:51.759 that is to say, something that you can put into 10 00:00:51.799 --> 00:00:57.560 an intellectual box. But although you can't describe energy, or 11 00:00:57.600 --> 00:01:01.200 you can't even describe reality, every body knows perfectly well 12 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:07.079 what it is. You simply feel it, and you feel 13 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:13.560 energy in terms of a multiplicity of vibrations. And those 14 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:21.280 vibrations can of course be measured as we measure light, sound, heat, weight, 15 00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:29.799 and so forth. But we cannot experience all the vibrations 16 00:01:29.799 --> 00:01:33.519 of energy at the same time. That would be the 17 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:37.120 same sort of confusion as if you slam down all 18 00:01:37.159 --> 00:01:41.719 the notes on the piano at once, or plucked all 19 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:43.319 the strings of a harp at. 20 00:01:43.239 --> 00:01:43.879 The same time. 21 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:51.120 What we do, therefore, is we select. First of all, 22 00:01:51.159 --> 00:01:57.280 our senses are selective. The eye does not record the 23 00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:01.959 whole spectrum of light vibrations. The ear does not receive 24 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:07.000 the whole spectrum of sound vibrations. They restrict themselves to 25 00:02:07.079 --> 00:02:15.080 a narrow band, and beyond that we select in various 26 00:02:15.120 --> 00:02:20.919 other ways. There are certain vibrations which we consider noteworthy 27 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:25.360 and important and worth paying attention to, and others which 28 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:31.360 we overlook as being insignificant and unimportant and us A 29 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:39.719 child will very often select experiences that adults deem ridiculous, 30 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:43.960 because a child has not yet been taught how to 31 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:47.759 select according to our preconceived notions of what should be 32 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:55.120 picked out. And so children will cherish rubbish, for example, 33 00:02:55.840 --> 00:02:59.240 which adults think should be thrown away. They will notice 34 00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:02.199 features of people faces which are not supposed to be noticed. 35 00:03:03.759 --> 00:03:05.879 They will do all lots of funny things like that. 36 00:03:08.400 --> 00:03:13.240 And furthermore, a child will be taught which of these 37 00:03:13.360 --> 00:03:26.400 vibrations are good and which are bad, and the bad 38 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:29.639 ones are of course to be avoided if possible, but 39 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:34.039 inevitably they come up, because if you have a good 40 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:38.879 bad valuation of these various spectra, if you're going to 41 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:40.879 have the good end of the spectrum, you also got 42 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:44.319 to have the bad end, no matter how far you 43 00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:51.159 succeed in making life comfortable and pleasurable. You are looking 44 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:55.599 at it with a scale, and at this end of 45 00:03:55.639 --> 00:03:58.919 the scale are the things called good. Therefore, at this 46 00:03:59.039 --> 00:04:01.680 end of the scale things called bad. Now, you may 47 00:04:01.719 --> 00:04:04.560 push the scale in the direction of good, you see, 48 00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:07.680 but there's always going to be a bad end, because 49 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:09.080 it wouldn't be a good end if there weren't a 50 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:13.280 bad end. Sometimes we feel the scale is going this way, 51 00:04:13.479 --> 00:04:15.719 and then we say things are getting worse and worse, 52 00:04:16.360 --> 00:04:17.920 because that's the way the scale's moving. 53 00:04:18.079 --> 00:04:19.600 But there's always the good end of it. 54 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.600 So that when you're starving in a concentration camp, there 55 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:26.279 are always certain events to which you look forward and 56 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:30.879 which sort of brighten things up. You simply cannot have 57 00:04:31.800 --> 00:04:35.399 a continuous experience of life in which everything is completely bad, 58 00:04:35.879 --> 00:04:39.879 or an experience of life in which everything is completely good. 59 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:44.360 But we are under the illusion that that could be arranged, 60 00:04:45.920 --> 00:04:48.240 and it gives us a great deal of trouble being 61 00:04:48.319 --> 00:04:54.279 under that illusion. Anyhow, it makes sense, Indeed, in a 62 00:04:54.360 --> 00:04:58.240 very literal sense, it makes sense that we should be selective. 63 00:04:58.920 --> 00:05:00.560 Just in the same way as where we play the 64 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:03.439 piano or play the harp, we pick out all these 65 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.800 vibrations in different orders, and that's the fun of it, 66 00:05:07.240 --> 00:05:13.959 that's the game of existence. However, you can get hung 67 00:05:14.040 --> 00:05:19.639 up on your game. You can get into a fixed, 68 00:05:20.240 --> 00:05:24.959 rigid feeling that those vibrations which you were taught to 69 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:28.040 select when you were a child, and that's the way 70 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:32.319 you find out how to select, it's what people tell you. You 71 00:05:31.519 --> 00:05:34.079 can get hung up onto the idea that that way 72 00:05:34.120 --> 00:05:37.959 of selecting things is the way, and that there are 73 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:42.560 not possible alternatives. And furthermore, that you could get into 74 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:47.560 a state of consciousness where you could experience all vibrations 75 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:52.879 simply as vibrations and not deem them either good or bad. 76 00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:55.839 And that would be the point of view which Buddhists 77 00:05:55.879 --> 00:05:59.199 speak of as seeing the suchness of things. 78 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:03.600 That is zen is to dig. 79 00:06:03.519 --> 00:06:08.439 Whatever vibration happens and feel it simply as something going. 80 00:06:13.160 --> 00:06:17.160 When we are little babies, we don't know how to 81 00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:22.319 interpret these vibrations because the world is something like. 82 00:06:22.199 --> 00:06:23.040 A raw schap plot. 83 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:30.920 It is a wiggly patterning of energy, and the energy 84 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:33.759 is the same as the patterning. There is no kind 85 00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:37.639 of stuff called energy which is formed into patterns. Just 86 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:40.360 there's no kind of stuff called matter which is formed 87 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:45.720 into things. The things the shapes are the matter you 88 00:06:45.759 --> 00:06:49.160 see matter simply. The word matter is the same as 89 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:53.160 the word meter. Does it matter? Does it amount to anything? 90 00:06:53.600 --> 00:06:56.000 That is to say, is it solid? We say something 91 00:06:56.040 --> 00:06:58.160 solid really amounts to something because you can't shove your 92 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:00.439 finger through it, and it might shove itself through you. 93 00:07:01.160 --> 00:07:05.759 That matters. I mean, it measures up. It's important. But 94 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:08.920 it isn't made of some kind of stuff. It's simply 95 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:14.360 an intense concentration of energy, and it always is on 96 00:07:14.399 --> 00:07:20.079 the move. Everything is flux. Like you see a candle 97 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:25.600 burning and you say there's a flame. Now, a flame 98 00:07:25.639 --> 00:07:30.800 is a noun, but if I say the candle is burning, 99 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:34.360 I'm using a verb, and that's a little bit I 100 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:37.680 think more accurate. Because the flame is a stream of 101 00:07:37.720 --> 00:07:47.000 hot gas, and it moves with tremendous rapidity, so there 102 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:50.040 is no as it were, gas permanently in the flame. 103 00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:55.720 It keeps running, but the shape stays for a while. 104 00:07:58.639 --> 00:08:01.560 In the same way, an eddy or whirlpool in water 105 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:05.439 may stay constantly in the same place in a stream 106 00:08:05.839 --> 00:08:10.240 for years, although the water is passing through it all 107 00:08:10.279 --> 00:08:13.000 the time. But every time we come back and sit 108 00:08:13.079 --> 00:08:15.680 on that particular bank of the stream, we see the 109 00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:24.399 same old whirlpool as in the near Niagara Falls. Well, 110 00:08:24.480 --> 00:08:31.360 we are just the same as that. We are like flames, 111 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:37.879 like whirlpools, and we are a stream, a very complex stream, 112 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:46.360 consisting not only our electrical energy, which constitutes our nuclear shapes, 113 00:08:47.519 --> 00:08:58.840 but we are also a stream of water, milk, cereal vegetables, leaf, steak, medicine, vitamins, heat, 114 00:09:00.080 --> 00:09:03.960 cosmic rays. Heaven only knows all these things are pouring 115 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:07.360 through us all the time. But we recognize each other 116 00:09:08.279 --> 00:09:11.279 because the way in which it's playing, the way in 117 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:17.799 which this energy is dancing, keeps a fairly consistent form, 118 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:21.639 and we recognize those forms, and we say John Doe, 119 00:09:21.720 --> 00:09:22.279 Mary Smith. 120 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:31.240 But eventually, of course it gives out the form does 121 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:34.639 what we call get old. 122 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:39.399 Although we have ideas about that. You see, again, according 123 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:42.559 to the way we've been brainwashed, we say, well, getting 124 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:50.159 old isn't so good, but it's very beautiful. If you 125 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:53.080 get your head right, that's a very grand. 126 00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:53.360 Thing to do. 127 00:09:55.519 --> 00:10:00.720 You can completely readjust your thinking about this, just as 128 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:05.600 we accept the beautifully colored leaves in autumn, and as 129 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:09.679 we say we like a well aged whiskey or a 130 00:10:09.759 --> 00:10:13.039 mature cheese. See, it's all the same kind of a thing. 131 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:16.360 So then. 132 00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:21.919 If you've been brainwashed into certain fixed opinions or life long, 133 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:32.240 there is some importance perhaps into becoming more flexible, especially 134 00:10:32.279 --> 00:10:35.159 when a certain set of opinions that we call a 135 00:10:35.240 --> 00:10:42.080 culture or a way of life shows clear evidence of 136 00:10:42.120 --> 00:10:45.960 not working or of criminy. We're in that situation today, 137 00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:50.679 the situation where we see that the view of the 138 00:10:50.840 --> 00:10:58.519 universe which is fundamental to Western civilization, the Jewish picture 139 00:10:58.519 --> 00:11:02.360 of the world, the Christian picture the world, even the 140 00:11:02.440 --> 00:11:06.679 nineteenth century materialistic picture of the world, all these things 141 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:12.480 are not working. And people get terribly anxious when their 142 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.240 basic view of how you should play the harp of 143 00:11:15.279 --> 00:11:23.799 life is not holding up. And therefore, under such circumstances 144 00:11:25.759 --> 00:11:31.879 we have to readjust our consciousness and reset and find 145 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:36.840 perhaps a new way of plucking the strings or of 146 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:40.919 structuring the world. But in order to do that, we 147 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:44.240 have to pass through an intermediate state. 148 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:49.279 In which we. 149 00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:51.720 Learn to experience the vibrations without putting values on them, 150 00:11:54.799 --> 00:12:01.120 experiencing them without describing them, naming them, or trying to 151 00:12:01.159 --> 00:12:05.879 fit them into some system of concepts good and bad, 152 00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:11.519 high class and low class, refined or crude or whatever, 153 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:18.320 healthy or sick. We have to take right off all 154 00:12:18.399 --> 00:12:21.600 this thing and learn to have what is called in 155 00:12:21.720 --> 00:12:24.840 zen moushin, meaning no mind. 156 00:12:25.039 --> 00:12:26.480 That means not no. 157 00:12:26.519 --> 00:12:34.519 Consciousness, but no conceptions, no fixed ideas, no one sided 158 00:12:34.600 --> 00:12:44.120 view of things. It's really easy to do that, but 159 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:46.120 everybody wants to try and make it difficult. 160 00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:50.039 People are. 161 00:12:51.399 --> 00:12:56.840 Compulsively complicated, and so you might say in an inverse way, 162 00:12:56.879 --> 00:13:03.799 there is a certain difficulty in not the becoming compulsively complicated, 163 00:13:04.840 --> 00:13:09.200 because that requires a certain kind of intelligence, not what 164 00:13:09.240 --> 00:13:13.559 we call intellectuality in the ordinary way, not verbal intelligence, 165 00:13:14.919 --> 00:13:19.080 because that's not the only kind of intelligence. It requires 166 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:28.240 organic intelligence. And that's the intelligence that you have in 167 00:13:28.279 --> 00:13:35.360 your organism that is responsible for your fantastically beautiful nervous system, 168 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:42.240 or your veins, or your elementary tract or your glands, 169 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:49.279 and for the color of your eyes. But we are 170 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:57.919 not ordinarily aware of being in any way responsible for that. 171 00:13:57.919 --> 00:13:59.759 That's something that seems to happen. 172 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:07.559 To us, just as for example, we always think of 173 00:14:07.600 --> 00:14:14.039 gravity as something that just happens and on the whole 174 00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:15.120 is not a very good thing. 175 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:19.200 In a way, mankind has been engaged in a struggle 176 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:23.799 against gravity. He thinks the bird. He looks at the 177 00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:29.519 bird with envy, and tries to conquer the sky, you see, 178 00:14:29.639 --> 00:14:32.559 by fosse of some kind, to get up into the air. 179 00:14:36.919 --> 00:14:40.679 You know, in aeronautical theory, we don't yet know how 180 00:14:40.759 --> 00:14:50.559 bees fly. Bees theoretically can't fly, but they do. And 181 00:14:50.600 --> 00:14:55.799 the reason for the magnificent flight of birds and bees 182 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:03.639 is that they are not fighting gravity, because actually everything 183 00:15:03.639 --> 00:15:05.480 in this universe is falling. 184 00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:11.440 The Earth is falling, but it falls in a circle. 185 00:15:12.320 --> 00:15:15.679 The Sun is fall and it falls around some other 186 00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:19.879 star way way off. Every object is moving because it's 187 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:30.799 falling responding to gravity. And gravity is the nature of energy. 188 00:15:32.120 --> 00:15:36.519 Energy is gravity because energy invariably takes the line of 189 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:45.559 least resistance. When you experience using energy not taking the 190 00:15:45.600 --> 00:15:49.000 line of least resistance, you are not really using energy. 191 00:15:49.039 --> 00:15:53.519 You are using force. And force and energy are different. 192 00:15:55.120 --> 00:16:00.399 Force is the unintelligent use of energy. It is not 193 00:16:00.559 --> 00:16:05.000 following the easy cause. As so, when you force a 194 00:16:05.080 --> 00:16:07.159 key in a lock, you're liable to bend the key 195 00:16:07.399 --> 00:16:08.080 or break the lock. 196 00:16:08.440 --> 00:16:09.200 It does no good. 197 00:16:11.559 --> 00:16:16.559 Sometimes, indeed, yes we use strength. But there's a funny 198 00:16:16.679 --> 00:16:19.679 little old man. Some of you know called Suzuki Roshi, 199 00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:25.600 who amazes very strong young men at his ability to 200 00:16:25.600 --> 00:16:31.279 move rocks, and they swear he moves them by leaning 201 00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:38.000 on them. It's uncanny what he does when he works 202 00:16:38.039 --> 00:16:46.879 in the building the garden at Tasahara. That's judo, you see, 203 00:16:46.960 --> 00:16:50.759 and zen very often involves the study of j judo, 204 00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:57.399 meaning the gentle way of finding out how the rock 205 00:16:57.480 --> 00:17:03.480 will respond to gravity and helping it along those lines 206 00:17:04.359 --> 00:17:07.079 with your own gravity. That is to say, with your 207 00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:13.480 weight you use muscle, you see very sparingly, but you 208 00:17:13.680 --> 00:17:17.720 use your weight in the right place, and that moves 209 00:17:17.720 --> 00:17:22.960 all sorts of things. So in life, in all one's doings, 210 00:17:24.400 --> 00:17:27.920 have the sense of that everything you do is falling. 211 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:33.720 Even when you are climbing the stairs, you are falling up. 212 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:39.599 And you will discover a very interesting thing that people 213 00:17:39.640 --> 00:17:42.720 who know this in a natural way. People who haven't 214 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:45.039 been taught know it naturally. 215 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:46.400 Babies know it. 216 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:51.680 Many of our American Indians know this, and you will discover, 217 00:17:51.799 --> 00:17:53.960 for example, they don't make a noise when they walk. 218 00:17:56.680 --> 00:17:58.079 So many people when they walk. 219 00:17:57.880 --> 00:17:59.200 You get done. 220 00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:01.240 Well. 221 00:18:01.359 --> 00:18:04.279 They must be something wrong with him, because if you 222 00:18:04.319 --> 00:18:07.240 walked like that in a forest, everything would run away 223 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:10.039 or run after you or something. You'd believe they'd know 224 00:18:10.079 --> 00:18:10.559 you were there. 225 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:16.160 And in the forest, you must be anonymous. You must 226 00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:20.440 be one with the forest. So it instead of the 227 00:18:20.559 --> 00:18:27.119 expert in Taoism entering the forest, he does not disturb 228 00:18:27.160 --> 00:18:30.599 a blade of grass. Entering the water, he doesn't make 229 00:18:30.599 --> 00:18:34.440 a ripple. And you can watch some of those south 230 00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:38.519 Sea island swimmers dive. They seem to go into the 231 00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:45.599 water like a knife, making no splash. You see, we 232 00:18:45.960 --> 00:18:48.279 like when we die, you know, shop on the end 233 00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:50.599 of the spring water, go zooming up and then flip 234 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:53.880 over and in a jackknife way and come down splash, with. 235 00:18:54.000 --> 00:19:00.000 The great commotion all over the place. They just fall. 236 00:19:00.400 --> 00:19:06.559 We'll just cut the water. So they are following the 237 00:19:06.599 --> 00:19:12.480 line of least resistance. Now the thing, the warning here 238 00:19:13.799 --> 00:19:22.359 it is again to do with preconceptions. When we think 239 00:19:22.519 --> 00:19:26.559 of following the line of least resistance, what would it 240 00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:27.400 be like to do that. 241 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:34.920 We have a notion in our minds that that would 242 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:36.279 mean becoming. 243 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:46.079 Droopy, improvident, feckless, or as we would say, behaving like 244 00:19:46.119 --> 00:19:55.440 an animal. Well, now animals are much better behaved than 245 00:19:55.440 --> 00:19:59.200 we are, much better. 246 00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:03.440 We are the. 247 00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:08.680 World's greatest predators. Even sharks don't fly out of the 248 00:20:08.680 --> 00:20:13.680 water to heat does or catch birds. They stay in 249 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:21.000 the water. And if you really observe animal behavior, you 250 00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:23.119 will see that although they have fights, and although they 251 00:20:23.119 --> 00:20:27.880 eat other things like we do, they are very, very 252 00:20:27.960 --> 00:20:32.599 orderly in their behavior. And there are very few species 253 00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:37.279 of animals which practice torture on their own species, very few. 254 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:45.599 But human beings are impossible. They are so fouled up 255 00:20:46.680 --> 00:20:51.039 by the confusion of their concepts with their organic life, 256 00:20:52.079 --> 00:20:55.720 which never can come to any reason, because you cannot, 257 00:20:55.759 --> 00:21:00.160 for example, arrange a compromise between black and white, and 258 00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:02.440 white are abstract conceptions. 259 00:21:02.480 --> 00:21:02.960 In nature. 260 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:07.440 There is no black and there is no white. There 261 00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:13.519 are colors, and both the black and the white worlds 262 00:21:13.559 --> 00:21:25.680 are discolored worlds. So the line of least resistance Lautsa 263 00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:30.200 says of water, water seeks the low level which men abhor. 264 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:37.119 Nothing in the world is weaker than water, and yet 265 00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:42.200 it can overcome the hardest things. And when you watch 266 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:46.599 water flowing over dry ground, you see it moving along, 267 00:21:46.640 --> 00:21:48.440 and then it suddenly puts out a lot of finger 268 00:21:50.319 --> 00:21:53.200 and then only one of those fingers continues, because that's 269 00:21:53.240 --> 00:21:57.880 found out it's feeling out the path, and it gradually 270 00:21:57.920 --> 00:21:59.720 goes down and down, and if it gets into a 271 00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:03.240 place where it forms into a pool, it waits there 272 00:22:04.079 --> 00:22:07.079 and then it rises, and then it finds a place 273 00:22:07.079 --> 00:22:12.319 where it can go over and it goes on. So 274 00:22:12.599 --> 00:22:18.160 the use of energy is the same. That then is 275 00:22:18.200 --> 00:22:25.559 a secret in the art of meditation, which means that 276 00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:39.680 you don't force things. You don't try to meditate, because 277 00:22:39.799 --> 00:22:48.720 what meditation consists of, essentially, is being aware without conceptualizing. 278 00:22:51.880 --> 00:22:56.400 In other words, learning to get rid of the verbal 279 00:22:56.519 --> 00:22:59.799 chatter that goes on constantly inside one's head, and that 280 00:22:59.839 --> 00:23:08.599 I call thinking temporarily stop that. It isn't that thinking 281 00:23:08.720 --> 00:23:12.680 is bad. It's only that thinking all the time is bad. 282 00:23:14.960 --> 00:23:17.480 That would be like talking all the time and never 283 00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:23.359 listening to anyone else. So the problem for many people, 284 00:23:23.400 --> 00:23:27.920 you see, is how to stop thinking, because it's become 285 00:23:27.960 --> 00:23:33.519 a habit. It's a nervous quick to think all the time, 286 00:23:36.799 --> 00:23:40.599 and so we create endless problems by doing this. Because 287 00:23:40.640 --> 00:23:45.880 people who have various miseries, they lie awake nights thinking 288 00:23:45.920 --> 00:23:48.680 about them. That means they are chattering to themselves. 289 00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:50.160 Over and over and over and over and over. 290 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.319 Again about their problems and don't know how to stop it. 291 00:23:58.359 --> 00:24:02.640 So in the course of this weekend, we are going 292 00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:12.240 to explore experimentally various ways of me enabling our awareness 293 00:24:12.359 --> 00:24:16.880 or our minds to be quiet. You know, Tim Leary 294 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:20.480 made the famous remark that to come to your senses, 295 00:24:20.559 --> 00:24:27.160 you must go out of your mind, where mind means 296 00:24:27.200 --> 00:24:34.559 certain fixed thought patterns, certain fixed valuations of how one 297 00:24:34.599 --> 00:24:39.359 ought to select experience. And Ronald Lang, in his book 298 00:24:39.400 --> 00:24:46.039 The Politics of Experience, has pointed out that we have 299 00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:51.000 an etiquette concerning what experiences are legitimate in just the 300 00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:53.160 same way that we have an etiquette as to what 301 00:24:53.279 --> 00:24:57.160 gestures are legitimate. You know, you're not supposed to put 302 00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:00.279 out your tongue with people, except in Tibet. It's a 303 00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:04.519 remark of respect. You're not disposed to cock a snoop 304 00:25:04.519 --> 00:25:09.400 at people. You're not supposed to be what they call 305 00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:16.400 an exhibitionist. You're not supposed to do all sorts of 306 00:25:16.400 --> 00:25:18.960 things that are taboo gestures. See. 307 00:25:20.079 --> 00:25:23.440 Well, in exactly the same way, there are taboo experiences 308 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:28.119 which you really aren't allowed to have. And if you. 309 00:25:28.119 --> 00:25:30.559 Start having tabo experiences, they're going to put you in 310 00:25:30.599 --> 00:25:33.359 the nuthouse. They're going to call you a. 311 00:25:33.319 --> 00:25:39.279 Schizophrenic, a psychotic, a paranoid, a psychopath, and all sorts. 312 00:25:39.039 --> 00:25:42.960 Of bad names, because you see, these are the new, 313 00:25:43.640 --> 00:25:45.160 up to date forms of heresy. 314 00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:51.799 And just as a heresy was a taboo form of 315 00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:52.920 religious belief at. 316 00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:56.759 One time, nobody takes religion seriously today, so we don't. 317 00:25:56.559 --> 00:25:57.799 Have the inquisition anymore. 318 00:25:58.839 --> 00:26:01.559 The not having an po is a function of not 319 00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:06.640 taking religion seriously. If we did take it seriously, we'd 320 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:12.599 have an inquisition because we would think it was terribly 321 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:17.160 important that we saved people from going to hell, I 322 00:26:17.200 --> 00:26:19.279 mean the kind of religion in which you have heaven 323 00:26:19.359 --> 00:26:24.319 and hell. So today though, what we take seriously is 324 00:26:24.359 --> 00:26:30.960 people's psychiatric state. See, so you can, in other words, 325 00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:37.200 be imprisoned without due process of law, confined under unspeakable circumstances, 326 00:26:37.240 --> 00:26:41.640 and literally torture for your own good, just as the 327 00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.319 inquisitors of the Catholic Church tortured heretics for their own good. 328 00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:50.599 It's the same old thing all over again, only it 329 00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:55.519 keeps changing its place in the spectrum, you see, so 330 00:26:55.559 --> 00:26:58.920 that we suddenly are unaware where we are doing things 331 00:26:58.960 --> 00:27:05.440 like that, So we are watching the beginnings of a 332 00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:11.880 psychiatric revolution represented by people like Thomas Sass Ronald Lang, 333 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:19.880 to break up what they call psychiatric fascism and to 334 00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:24.960 ask for due rights for the so called insane. Just 335 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:30.720 as earlier in history the Protestants and religious libertarians were 336 00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:36.240 asking for due rights for freedom of religion, we will 337 00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:43.920 need a new magne carta for freedom of consciousness. And 338 00:27:44.039 --> 00:27:48.279 of course all the brue haha going on about psychedelic 339 00:27:48.319 --> 00:27:52.119 chemicals and marijuana and so on is a religious fight. 340 00:27:53.960 --> 00:27:56.559 It's all the same kind of thing as quarrels that 341 00:27:56.599 --> 00:28:02.279 we had in the past over sacraments, who had the 342 00:28:02.319 --> 00:28:06.480 true sacrament, whether this Catholic formula was the right way 343 00:28:06.599 --> 00:28:10.759 of transforming the sacrament, or whether the Protestant formula wasn't 344 00:28:10.839 --> 00:28:13.240 just as good, and all that kind of thing. It's 345 00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:19.319 all happening all over again, and it's just wonderful to 346 00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:24.720 see the repetitious patterns in man's history, sometimes rather depressing 347 00:28:24.759 --> 00:28:29.960 too so. 348 00:28:30.079 --> 00:28:36.799 Then, in meditation, the real art of. 349 00:28:36.759 --> 00:28:43.359 It is to be free from concepts, but that implies 350 00:28:43.400 --> 00:28:49.720 something else. Very difficult for Americans to understand that you 351 00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:53.279 are not meditating when you are meditating for a purpose. 352 00:28:56.680 --> 00:28:58.799 When you're doing it because you think it's good for you, 353 00:28:59.599 --> 00:29:02.000 because you think you're going to improve yourself. You can't 354 00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:07.759 improve yourself or anybody else for that matter, just as 355 00:29:07.759 --> 00:29:09.960 you can't lift yourself up by your own bootstrap. 356 00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:13.759 And when you give up trying to improve yourself. 357 00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:15.960 You have all that energy available for things that can 358 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:23.039 actually be done. So when there's no thought about self improvement, 359 00:29:23.119 --> 00:29:26.799 about going somewhere, about achieving a different state of consciousness, 360 00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:31.039 but being simply here, that's the only place you can be, actually, 361 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:37.720 because when you remember the past, your memories are present experiences. 362 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:42.039 When you anticipate the future, your anticipations are present experiences. 363 00:29:42.079 --> 00:29:43.160 There's nowhere else to be. 364 00:29:43.440 --> 00:29:48.599 Where's your hurry? 365 00:29:48.680 --> 00:29:51.640 So the art of meditation is essentially. 366 00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:58.519 Relaxing the verbal commentary on the world that constantly goes 367 00:29:58.519 --> 00:30:03.000 on coming to center, which is the present or coming 368 00:30:03.000 --> 00:30:08.400 to center in the sense that gravity teaches you to 369 00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:17.359 center yourself. Am of the windows here, he was asked, 370 00:30:17.799 --> 00:30:21.880 why do Tibetan but it's his prayer wheels. Isn't that superstition? 371 00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:30.920 And he said, no, this is a method of center. 372 00:30:35.279 --> 00:30:38.759 This little ball on the end of a chain revolves 373 00:30:38.799 --> 00:30:40.880 around the prayer wheel, just in the same way as 374 00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:44.799 the Earth goes around the sun. And when you get 375 00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:49.960 the neck of getting this thing going and keeping to that, 376 00:30:52.680 --> 00:30:56.200 it does things to me. You don't have to think 377 00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:00.440 about it. It's a kinesthetic experience. 378 00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:03.359 And you just keep it moving. Tlok. 379 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:12.000 Otherwise, the one wind, the prayer tape in the center. Yeah, 380 00:31:12.759 --> 00:31:15.400 this isn't prayers. It's a sutra. It's a it's a 381 00:31:15.440 --> 00:31:20.400 set of montrums, or of symbolic sounds, and you know 382 00:31:20.480 --> 00:31:22.440 you can keep us going in the day. And it's 383 00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:28.319 a gas because of what it does to your consciousness.