Off Topic
well I have a sort of suggestion and
that is this that before we decide
either to save the planet or to destroy
it we pause for a moment of silence I
don't mean that kind of grim silence
which one observes when somebody says
such-and-such a famous person has just
died and will observe a moment of
silence in his honor
and everybody frowns and thinks very
serious thoughts
that's not silence at all I mean real
silence in which we stop thinking and
experience reality as reality is because
after all if I talk all the time I can't
hear what anyone else has to say and if
I think all the time and by that I mean
specifically talking to yourself sub
vocally inside your skull if I think all
the time I have nothing to think about
except thoughts and so I'm never in
touch with the real world now what is
the real world some people have the
theory that the real world is material
or physical as say it's made a kind of a
stuff other people have the theory that
the real world is spiritual or mental
but I want you to point out that both
those theories of the world are concepts
of words and the real world is not an
idea it is not words
reality is
you will find therefore that if you get
with reality all sorts of illusions
disappear and I will mention several
illusions that have not this kind of
existence let's begin with some very
down-to-earth ones like money money is a
very useful method of accounting it is a
measure of wealth in the same way as
inches are measures of length and grams
measures of weight you cannot eat money
you could have a fantastic quantity of
dollar bills and stock certificates on a
desert island and they would be useless
to you what you would need would be food
and animals and companions money simply
represents wealth in rather the same way
that the menu represents the dinner only
we are psychologically perverted in such
a way that we would some of us would
rather have money than real wealth but
you know you cannot drive in five cars
at once even though they be Cadillacs
you cannot live simultaneously in six
houses or eat twelve roasts of beef at
one meal there is a limit to what one
can consume so that's
one of the sort of confusions I'm
talking about another is that we confuse
ourselves as living organisms with our
idea of ourselves that is to say with a
conception of myself which is called the
personality or ego we that is what we
have been told we are and it's an
extremely crude and limited conception
of oneself of the actual unique living
organism and we get unhappy because we
are thinking of ourselves in this way
because we think well gee I'm gonna die
I once talked to a woman who came to me
and said she was afraid of death and we
went into it in a long conversation I
said what are you really afraid of and
she thought it over and thought it over
and he said do you know what I'm going
to be afraid of is what other people are
gonna say they're gonna say poor old
Gert she couldn't last it through
because you see who you think you are is
entirely dependent on who people have
told you you are you're not that then
another thing that bothers our bothers
us is time but most people nowadays say
I have no time course you don't because
you are not aware of the present you
know the present is represented on your
watch by a hairline that is as thin as
possible as is consistent with
visibility and so everybody thinks the
present is instead of
[Music]
now the present is the only real time
there is no past and there isn't a
future and there never will be we think
ordinarily of the present as an
infinitesimal point at which the future
changes into the past and we also do a
terrible thing we imagine ourselves to
be results of the past and we're always
passing the buck over our shoulders like
when God approached Adam in the Garden
of Eden and said hast thou eaten of the
fruit of the tree we're off I told thee
thou should not eat and Adam said this
woman thou gave us me she tempted me and
I did eat and God looked at he even said
hast thou eaten of the fruit of the tree
wear off I told thee thou shalt not eat
and she said the serpent beguiled me and
I did eat and guard out of the corner of
his eye looked at the serpent certainly
said nothing
so you see we're always passing the buck
and don't realize that the past is
caused by the present as the wake of a
ship flows back from the prow
now the wake doesn't drive the ship
anymore than the tail wags the dog but
we've all got excuses and my mother had
a fit while she was carrying me in the
womb they didn't bring me up right and
then they go to the mother and say how
is it that you could have been so
irresponsible with your children and she
says well it was my parents didn't bring
me up right even though everybody passes
the buck but the truth of the matter is
it all begins here this is where the
creation begins and you're doing it and
won't admit it because of course you're
all God in disguise Jesus found that out
and they crucified him for saying so
because the Jewish people had a sense of
God as the cosmic King the boss it was
modeled on pharaoh on cyrus of persia
the king of kings and the Lord of lords
was Cyrus's title Kira a Eleison means
Cyrus have mercy on us but you don't
have to think of God in that image when
modern Protestant theologians of the
sort of liberal type how saying God is
dead they mean not that literally they
mean a certain image of God is dead out
worn because it was after all an idol
and when it says thou shalt not make to
thyself any graven image it doesn't mean
merely images of wood
in stone which nobody took seriously
anyway it means above all images made of
imagination the image is made of
concepts and that one had feet of clay
but it doesn't mean that God is dead
that life is nothing more than a trip
from the maternity ward to the
crematorium it's much more spooky than
that
much more wonderful but you see
you can't conceive reality we could say
God is reality but if I call this the
sound of a gong it isn't the same as
this you see the sound of a gong is a
different sound from that sound the
sound of a gong the sound of a gong the
sound of a gong the sound of gong is not
[Music]
so then there is practiced throughout
the world rather more in Asia than here
although always by a minority of people
a discipline called meditation which is
to get in touch with reality the word
meditation in English doesn't have quite
the same meaning because when we talk of
someone meditating we think of deeply
pondering about something when the
Orientals are asked what do you meditate
on they look slightly puzzled
we don't meditate on anything we just
meditate in sanskrit it is called jhana
in Chinese it is called Chun in Japanese
it is called Zen and it means very
simply to stop thinking temporarily not
again that thinking is something bad
but if you don't you have to stop
thinking at certain times once you get
the knack of that you can do it even
while you're thinking so you can be a
scholar and practice meditation this is
not an anti intellectual point of view I
imagine that most of you here are either
in college or college educated and the
foundation of the intellectual life good
scholarship requires that you meditate
but in saying that I have got myself
into a linguistic trap because you see I
seem to be pitching it to you as if it
was something good for you as if it
would give you a better future as if it
would improve you now so long as such
motivations and considerations exist
you're not meditating we talk sometimes
about the practice of meditation as if
it were like practicing the piano
preparing for a concert it's much more
like the practice of medicine as when
you say well I practice medicine means
you do it every day it's your way of
life so you would this is a very odd
thing for Westerners to understand and
particularly for Americans because we
are so fixated on the future when we say
we want to put something down we say it
has no future well do you much better to
have a present because if you don't
it's useless to make plans because when
they work out you won't be there to
enjoy them you'll be thinking of
something else
so this is one activity which is
curiously different from all others it
has no purpose
it's rather like music or dancing in
that respect why do you listen to music
supposing there would be a culture with
no music would you consider that a high
culture but why do you do it well some
people say what we go to the concert to
improve our minds well if you do it that
you're not listening as you see music is
peculiar in that it is a marvelous
pattern of sounds that doesn't mean
anything
there is some inferior music that means
something what we call prog music like
the Tchaikovsky 1812 overture or some of
Debussy 's perpetration such as the in
glutted Cathedral where it's creating
visual pictures or imitating natural
noises the beat of horses hooves or
Rowling's of military drums and the
sound of the waves etc just imitation
now great music as composed by Bach or
Mozart or the Hindu music or some of the
great contemporary composers doesn't
mean anything except itself it isn't
going anywhere
otherwise the fastest orchestras would
be considered the best
so we in music become centered we come
into the present not a hairline present
mind you it's an expanded present
because if you had a hairline present
you wouldn't be able to hear one note
after another you wouldn't know what
note you'd heard before so you couldn't
hear melody
but in this you are released into
reality that's why it is said that the
angels in heaven have harps and why they
circle the throne of God and sing
alleluia alleluia alleluia which
although who does mean hail to the Lord
doesn't really mean anything when you
really get swinging with an Alleluia
it's just an Aloha you don't think of
the meaning of it you see because you
can't think of the meaning of God what
does God mean what is God useful for and
so in the same way you can ask what does
a tree mean what does a cloud mean what
does a fern mean what's it all about
well we've got on all kinds of weird
theories that the ferns exists in a
certain way in order to propagate
themselves like birds do all this thing
in order to lay eggs so more birds come
out and the whole point of that is that
there shall be more bird still this is a
purely engineering approach to life
which is completely senseless things
don't mean anything birds don't mean
anything trees don't mean anything words
mean something yes because they point to
something beyond themselves they're
signs but if you take words too
seriously or like a person who climbs a
signpost instead of going where it
points and so if you suddenly say but my
life has no meaning you're identifying
yourself with a word and that's what we
do when we are when if I would identify
myself with Alan Watts that would be
identifying myself with a concept with
words in a rather complicated mess of
words to be sure
but still I would have made that mistake
so then it has to be understood about
meditation that it's not an exercise
it's not a gymnastic it's not the
ordinary sort of self-improvement
procedure and one does it not to be good
for you but just because you dig it
because at last you find yourself in the
center the eternal now in which past and
future drop away in which divisions
created by words drop away can you point
to the division between my four by five
fingers can you
in other words touch the difference
between them can't be done because the
difference is conceptual true they can
all move independently but only because
yeah one with the body when the body is
one with its environment you cannot
separate those like bees and flowers
where there are no flowers there are no
bees where there are no bees there are
no flowers they look very different but
they are essentially one organism the
head and the feet look very different
but they are parts of one organism not
really parts parts is a mechanical word
like got any spare parts the organism
doesn't have parts it has features
now there's not very much a point in
merely talking about this you can
understand it only by doing it and I'm
sorry that our facilities do not allow
you to sit on the floor and to get a
sort of in the right relaxed awake
position but before we go into that I
just want to know if there are any
questions if I've made myself clear and
if there are any of you who find me
utterly unintelligible so if you wave a
hand at me I'll recognize you
you must be careful about that you
cannot smooth rough water with a flat
iron so don't try not to think you just
allow your thoughts to do whatever they
want to do but you listen to them like
you listen to birds chattering outside
the window
it would be the question is it sounds
like Brett brainwashing we're like when
in Vietnam they put prisoners of war in
front of blank walls and of course that
would be brainwashing to a person who
didn't know how to meditate and they
recognize perfectly well that we don't
and therefore forced you see it's forced
meditation which would be the horrors
the form of torture that's like people
don't like silence of the radio on or
something is he all the time have a
radio in your car and everywhere all
this chatter chatter chatter chatter we
don't like silence and therefore they
know it's a torture for us
it is for them for that matter - there's
not many of them are experienced
meditators they were they wouldn't be
involved in this mess
yes
yes
yes
well now you see you've got to realize
that we think of the world largely in
terms of Newtonian mechanics and that
goes back to Greek philosophy and all
their ideas of nature and by and large
these people were always thinking about
nature by analogy with the game of
billiards and so when a ball moves it
was hit by a cue and we say the ball
moves because it was hit by the cue so
when you do something people ask what
hit you what was your motivation that
caused you to behave in this way but you
must understand that cause and effect is
a defective way of describing nature
what happened was this that when we
separated events into separate bits you
see we forgot that we had done that in
order to talk about the event like when
you separate a wiggle and you give names
to different say Bay's or capes or
mountains on a territory that naming
doesn't actually separate them so when
you get motion time is only a measure of
motion we begin to think about bits of
motion and we forget we did that then we
suddenly asked the question but how did
this bit get there and then we say oh it
was because of that bit that came before
it
we don't see that it's all one after all
when a cat walks along its head comes
first and its tail follows now is the
head the cause of the tail or is the
tail the cause of the head well it's all
one cat the whole cat moves when a snake
moves which side moves first the left or
the right say it all goes together but
if you want to define yourself as a
billiard ball then you will play life
like the past was responsible for you
and if you believe it hard enough you'll
feel it and that's what's happened to
practically all of us so we don't leave
we realize that we are living out of now
and throwing the past behind us yes in
the back
I'm leery of ask answering such a
question
because I seem to be living in an area
where there is incomplete freedom of
speech yes sure I've made it pretty
clear and I think sober statement of the
powers and dangers of these things in
that book now it is due to the fact that
the meditator meditates and has
liberated himself from his past which
was an idea in his head
it's a little bit like that but language
is so structured that I cannot talk
without this implication we can practice
we can enter into the meditation state
and see why that would be so but we
would see it directly from that state
not from any explanation
that's merely an illusion of grammar
it's because there's certain languages
have the rule that all verbs have to
have subjects like in the sentence it is
raining what is the zip so how on earth
can one get a verb out of a noun a
process out of a thing so you just can't
do it it's the old problem - of spirit
and matter how can you get a spirit to
influence matter all good ghosts walk
straight through brick walls without
disturbing the bricks so how can a ghost
in your body lift an arm but I'm not
saying that there is no ghost I'm also
saying well if I'm saying there is no
ghost I'm also saying there is no body
it's just process or call it pattern
moving pattern pattern patterns of
motion patterning zuv motions patterning
zuv motioning x' so we are always you
see language keeps creating ghosts and
like the lightning flashed
well obviously the flashing was the same
as the lightning so we divided a single
process into two pieces one something
called lightning which does something
called flashing
yes gentleman in the white shirt
yes it is of course possible to meditate
without intending to do so but it's also
possible in retrospect to realize that
you were meditating you don't lose the
Faculty of discursive thought you don't
get your mind permanently wiped out in
that sense you still remember your name
address and telephone number your social
security number and who you're supposed
to be in what role you're supposed to be
playing but you know that's a big act
that's the difference between a crazy
person and an enlightened person a crazy
person might get by accident into some
of these states and get so lost that he
wouldn't know how to come back to the
world of ordinary normal conventions but
when meditation is properly practiced
you can also operate in the conventional
world yes the red arm I see over there
does the concept of will fit in not
really no I will try to show you
practically why it is an unnecessary
concept how you can have far more energy
without using your will than you can
with using it see the will implies a
separation of man and nature and
therefore we asked the question do we
have free will or are we determined that
means are you a bus or a tram and both
concepts are off the point because both
of them presuppose a fundamental
separation of the individual from the
universe does it kick you around or do
you kick it around and if you think in
that way you lose energy just as my
finger would lose energy if I separated
it from the hand
well now look we're going to take an
intermission for five minutes in case
any of you have to leave or tired or
bored and then we'll come back to the
real business of this gathering within
that time
that is this that before we decide
either to save the planet or to destroy
it we pause for a moment of silence I
don't mean that kind of grim silence
which one observes when somebody says
such-and-such a famous person has just
died and will observe a moment of
silence in his honor
and everybody frowns and thinks very
serious thoughts
that's not silence at all I mean real
silence in which we stop thinking and
experience reality as reality is because
after all if I talk all the time I can't
hear what anyone else has to say and if
I think all the time and by that I mean
specifically talking to yourself sub
vocally inside your skull if I think all
the time I have nothing to think about
except thoughts and so I'm never in
touch with the real world now what is
the real world some people have the
theory that the real world is material
or physical as say it's made a kind of a
stuff other people have the theory that
the real world is spiritual or mental
but I want you to point out that both
those theories of the world are concepts
of words and the real world is not an
idea it is not words
reality is
you will find therefore that if you get
with reality all sorts of illusions
disappear and I will mention several
illusions that have not this kind of
existence let's begin with some very
down-to-earth ones like money money is a
very useful method of accounting it is a
measure of wealth in the same way as
inches are measures of length and grams
measures of weight you cannot eat money
you could have a fantastic quantity of
dollar bills and stock certificates on a
desert island and they would be useless
to you what you would need would be food
and animals and companions money simply
represents wealth in rather the same way
that the menu represents the dinner only
we are psychologically perverted in such
a way that we would some of us would
rather have money than real wealth but
you know you cannot drive in five cars
at once even though they be Cadillacs
you cannot live simultaneously in six
houses or eat twelve roasts of beef at
one meal there is a limit to what one
can consume so that's
one of the sort of confusions I'm
talking about another is that we confuse
ourselves as living organisms with our
idea of ourselves that is to say with a
conception of myself which is called the
personality or ego we that is what we
have been told we are and it's an
extremely crude and limited conception
of oneself of the actual unique living
organism and we get unhappy because we
are thinking of ourselves in this way
because we think well gee I'm gonna die
I once talked to a woman who came to me
and said she was afraid of death and we
went into it in a long conversation I
said what are you really afraid of and
she thought it over and thought it over
and he said do you know what I'm going
to be afraid of is what other people are
gonna say they're gonna say poor old
Gert she couldn't last it through
because you see who you think you are is
entirely dependent on who people have
told you you are you're not that then
another thing that bothers our bothers
us is time but most people nowadays say
I have no time course you don't because
you are not aware of the present you
know the present is represented on your
watch by a hairline that is as thin as
possible as is consistent with
visibility and so everybody thinks the
present is instead of
[Music]
now the present is the only real time
there is no past and there isn't a
future and there never will be we think
ordinarily of the present as an
infinitesimal point at which the future
changes into the past and we also do a
terrible thing we imagine ourselves to
be results of the past and we're always
passing the buck over our shoulders like
when God approached Adam in the Garden
of Eden and said hast thou eaten of the
fruit of the tree we're off I told thee
thou should not eat and Adam said this
woman thou gave us me she tempted me and
I did eat and God looked at he even said
hast thou eaten of the fruit of the tree
wear off I told thee thou shalt not eat
and she said the serpent beguiled me and
I did eat and guard out of the corner of
his eye looked at the serpent certainly
said nothing
so you see we're always passing the buck
and don't realize that the past is
caused by the present as the wake of a
ship flows back from the prow
now the wake doesn't drive the ship
anymore than the tail wags the dog but
we've all got excuses and my mother had
a fit while she was carrying me in the
womb they didn't bring me up right and
then they go to the mother and say how
is it that you could have been so
irresponsible with your children and she
says well it was my parents didn't bring
me up right even though everybody passes
the buck but the truth of the matter is
it all begins here this is where the
creation begins and you're doing it and
won't admit it because of course you're
all God in disguise Jesus found that out
and they crucified him for saying so
because the Jewish people had a sense of
God as the cosmic King the boss it was
modeled on pharaoh on cyrus of persia
the king of kings and the Lord of lords
was Cyrus's title Kira a Eleison means
Cyrus have mercy on us but you don't
have to think of God in that image when
modern Protestant theologians of the
sort of liberal type how saying God is
dead they mean not that literally they
mean a certain image of God is dead out
worn because it was after all an idol
and when it says thou shalt not make to
thyself any graven image it doesn't mean
merely images of wood
in stone which nobody took seriously
anyway it means above all images made of
imagination the image is made of
concepts and that one had feet of clay
but it doesn't mean that God is dead
that life is nothing more than a trip
from the maternity ward to the
crematorium it's much more spooky than
that
much more wonderful but you see
you can't conceive reality we could say
God is reality but if I call this the
sound of a gong it isn't the same as
this you see the sound of a gong is a
different sound from that sound the
sound of a gong the sound of a gong the
sound of a gong the sound of gong is not
[Music]
so then there is practiced throughout
the world rather more in Asia than here
although always by a minority of people
a discipline called meditation which is
to get in touch with reality the word
meditation in English doesn't have quite
the same meaning because when we talk of
someone meditating we think of deeply
pondering about something when the
Orientals are asked what do you meditate
on they look slightly puzzled
we don't meditate on anything we just
meditate in sanskrit it is called jhana
in Chinese it is called Chun in Japanese
it is called Zen and it means very
simply to stop thinking temporarily not
again that thinking is something bad
but if you don't you have to stop
thinking at certain times once you get
the knack of that you can do it even
while you're thinking so you can be a
scholar and practice meditation this is
not an anti intellectual point of view I
imagine that most of you here are either
in college or college educated and the
foundation of the intellectual life good
scholarship requires that you meditate
but in saying that I have got myself
into a linguistic trap because you see I
seem to be pitching it to you as if it
was something good for you as if it
would give you a better future as if it
would improve you now so long as such
motivations and considerations exist
you're not meditating we talk sometimes
about the practice of meditation as if
it were like practicing the piano
preparing for a concert it's much more
like the practice of medicine as when
you say well I practice medicine means
you do it every day it's your way of
life so you would this is a very odd
thing for Westerners to understand and
particularly for Americans because we
are so fixated on the future when we say
we want to put something down we say it
has no future well do you much better to
have a present because if you don't
it's useless to make plans because when
they work out you won't be there to
enjoy them you'll be thinking of
something else
so this is one activity which is
curiously different from all others it
has no purpose
it's rather like music or dancing in
that respect why do you listen to music
supposing there would be a culture with
no music would you consider that a high
culture but why do you do it well some
people say what we go to the concert to
improve our minds well if you do it that
you're not listening as you see music is
peculiar in that it is a marvelous
pattern of sounds that doesn't mean
anything
there is some inferior music that means
something what we call prog music like
the Tchaikovsky 1812 overture or some of
Debussy 's perpetration such as the in
glutted Cathedral where it's creating
visual pictures or imitating natural
noises the beat of horses hooves or
Rowling's of military drums and the
sound of the waves etc just imitation
now great music as composed by Bach or
Mozart or the Hindu music or some of the
great contemporary composers doesn't
mean anything except itself it isn't
going anywhere
otherwise the fastest orchestras would
be considered the best
so we in music become centered we come
into the present not a hairline present
mind you it's an expanded present
because if you had a hairline present
you wouldn't be able to hear one note
after another you wouldn't know what
note you'd heard before so you couldn't
hear melody
but in this you are released into
reality that's why it is said that the
angels in heaven have harps and why they
circle the throne of God and sing
alleluia alleluia alleluia which
although who does mean hail to the Lord
doesn't really mean anything when you
really get swinging with an Alleluia
it's just an Aloha you don't think of
the meaning of it you see because you
can't think of the meaning of God what
does God mean what is God useful for and
so in the same way you can ask what does
a tree mean what does a cloud mean what
does a fern mean what's it all about
well we've got on all kinds of weird
theories that the ferns exists in a
certain way in order to propagate
themselves like birds do all this thing
in order to lay eggs so more birds come
out and the whole point of that is that
there shall be more bird still this is a
purely engineering approach to life
which is completely senseless things
don't mean anything birds don't mean
anything trees don't mean anything words
mean something yes because they point to
something beyond themselves they're
signs but if you take words too
seriously or like a person who climbs a
signpost instead of going where it
points and so if you suddenly say but my
life has no meaning you're identifying
yourself with a word and that's what we
do when we are when if I would identify
myself with Alan Watts that would be
identifying myself with a concept with
words in a rather complicated mess of
words to be sure
but still I would have made that mistake
so then it has to be understood about
meditation that it's not an exercise
it's not a gymnastic it's not the
ordinary sort of self-improvement
procedure and one does it not to be good
for you but just because you dig it
because at last you find yourself in the
center the eternal now in which past and
future drop away in which divisions
created by words drop away can you point
to the division between my four by five
fingers can you
in other words touch the difference
between them can't be done because the
difference is conceptual true they can
all move independently but only because
yeah one with the body when the body is
one with its environment you cannot
separate those like bees and flowers
where there are no flowers there are no
bees where there are no bees there are
no flowers they look very different but
they are essentially one organism the
head and the feet look very different
but they are parts of one organism not
really parts parts is a mechanical word
like got any spare parts the organism
doesn't have parts it has features
now there's not very much a point in
merely talking about this you can
understand it only by doing it and I'm
sorry that our facilities do not allow
you to sit on the floor and to get a
sort of in the right relaxed awake
position but before we go into that I
just want to know if there are any
questions if I've made myself clear and
if there are any of you who find me
utterly unintelligible so if you wave a
hand at me I'll recognize you
you must be careful about that you
cannot smooth rough water with a flat
iron so don't try not to think you just
allow your thoughts to do whatever they
want to do but you listen to them like
you listen to birds chattering outside
the window
it would be the question is it sounds
like Brett brainwashing we're like when
in Vietnam they put prisoners of war in
front of blank walls and of course that
would be brainwashing to a person who
didn't know how to meditate and they
recognize perfectly well that we don't
and therefore forced you see it's forced
meditation which would be the horrors
the form of torture that's like people
don't like silence of the radio on or
something is he all the time have a
radio in your car and everywhere all
this chatter chatter chatter chatter we
don't like silence and therefore they
know it's a torture for us
it is for them for that matter - there's
not many of them are experienced
meditators they were they wouldn't be
involved in this mess
yes
yes
yes
well now you see you've got to realize
that we think of the world largely in
terms of Newtonian mechanics and that
goes back to Greek philosophy and all
their ideas of nature and by and large
these people were always thinking about
nature by analogy with the game of
billiards and so when a ball moves it
was hit by a cue and we say the ball
moves because it was hit by the cue so
when you do something people ask what
hit you what was your motivation that
caused you to behave in this way but you
must understand that cause and effect is
a defective way of describing nature
what happened was this that when we
separated events into separate bits you
see we forgot that we had done that in
order to talk about the event like when
you separate a wiggle and you give names
to different say Bay's or capes or
mountains on a territory that naming
doesn't actually separate them so when
you get motion time is only a measure of
motion we begin to think about bits of
motion and we forget we did that then we
suddenly asked the question but how did
this bit get there and then we say oh it
was because of that bit that came before
it
we don't see that it's all one after all
when a cat walks along its head comes
first and its tail follows now is the
head the cause of the tail or is the
tail the cause of the head well it's all
one cat the whole cat moves when a snake
moves which side moves first the left or
the right say it all goes together but
if you want to define yourself as a
billiard ball then you will play life
like the past was responsible for you
and if you believe it hard enough you'll
feel it and that's what's happened to
practically all of us so we don't leave
we realize that we are living out of now
and throwing the past behind us yes in
the back
I'm leery of ask answering such a
question
because I seem to be living in an area
where there is incomplete freedom of
speech yes sure I've made it pretty
clear and I think sober statement of the
powers and dangers of these things in
that book now it is due to the fact that
the meditator meditates and has
liberated himself from his past which
was an idea in his head
it's a little bit like that but language
is so structured that I cannot talk
without this implication we can practice
we can enter into the meditation state
and see why that would be so but we
would see it directly from that state
not from any explanation
that's merely an illusion of grammar
it's because there's certain languages
have the rule that all verbs have to
have subjects like in the sentence it is
raining what is the zip so how on earth
can one get a verb out of a noun a
process out of a thing so you just can't
do it it's the old problem - of spirit
and matter how can you get a spirit to
influence matter all good ghosts walk
straight through brick walls without
disturbing the bricks so how can a ghost
in your body lift an arm but I'm not
saying that there is no ghost I'm also
saying well if I'm saying there is no
ghost I'm also saying there is no body
it's just process or call it pattern
moving pattern pattern patterns of
motion patterning zuv motions patterning
zuv motioning x' so we are always you
see language keeps creating ghosts and
like the lightning flashed
well obviously the flashing was the same
as the lightning so we divided a single
process into two pieces one something
called lightning which does something
called flashing
yes gentleman in the white shirt
yes it is of course possible to meditate
without intending to do so but it's also
possible in retrospect to realize that
you were meditating you don't lose the
Faculty of discursive thought you don't
get your mind permanently wiped out in
that sense you still remember your name
address and telephone number your social
security number and who you're supposed
to be in what role you're supposed to be
playing but you know that's a big act
that's the difference between a crazy
person and an enlightened person a crazy
person might get by accident into some
of these states and get so lost that he
wouldn't know how to come back to the
world of ordinary normal conventions but
when meditation is properly practiced
you can also operate in the conventional
world yes the red arm I see over there
does the concept of will fit in not
really no I will try to show you
practically why it is an unnecessary
concept how you can have far more energy
without using your will than you can
with using it see the will implies a
separation of man and nature and
therefore we asked the question do we
have free will or are we determined that
means are you a bus or a tram and both
concepts are off the point because both
of them presuppose a fundamental
separation of the individual from the
universe does it kick you around or do
you kick it around and if you think in
that way you lose energy just as my
finger would lose energy if I separated
it from the hand
well now look we're going to take an
intermission for five minutes in case
any of you have to leave or tired or
bored and then we'll come back to the
real business of this gathering within
that time