Subtitles
[Music] 00:00:00
[Music] the object of Buddhist 00:00:09
discipline 00:00:14
[Music] 00:00:15
methods of psychological training is as 00:00:21
it work bring about a state of affairs 00:00:24
in which the individual feels himself to 00:00:30
be everything that there is the whole 00:00:36
cosmos focused expressing itself here 00:00:42
[Music] 00:00:44
now 00:00:44
in that way your sense of identity would be turned inside out you wouldn't forget 00:00:52
who you were you wouldn't forget your 00:00:58
name and address your telephone number 00:01:00
your social security number and what 00:01:02
sort of role you're supposed to occupy 00:01:04
in society but you would know that this 00:01:10
particular role that you play this 00:01:12
particular personality that you are is 00:01:16
superficial and the real you is all that 00:01:20
there is and that inversion turning 00:01:25
upside down of the sense of identity of 00:01:29
the state of consciousness which the 00:01:31
average person has is the objective of 00:01:35
Buddhistic disciplines 00:01:37
[Music] 00:01:40
the method of teaching something in 00:01:44
Buddhism is rather different from 00:01:46
methods of teaching which we use in the 00:01:49
Western world in the Western world a 00:01:52
good teacher is regarded as someone who 00:01:56
makes the subject matter easy for the 00:01:58
student the person who explains things 00:02:02
cleverly and clearly so you can take a 00:02:06
course in mathematics without tears in 00:02:13
the oriental world they have them almost 00:02:16
exactly opposite conception and that is 00:02:20
that a good teacher is a person who 00:02:23
makes you find out something for 00:02:24
yourself in other words learn to swim by 00:02:28
throwing the baby into the water there's 00:02:33
a story used in Zen about how a burglar 00:02:36
taught his child to burgle 00:02:36
he took him one night on a Bergling expedition 00:02:44
and locked him up in the chest in the 00:02:50
house that he was Bergling and left him 00:02:53
and the poor little boy was all alone 00:02:56
locked up in the chest and he began to 00:02:59
think how on earth am I going to get out 00:03:01
so he suddenly called out fire fire and 00:03:06
everybody began running all over the 00:03:07
place and they heard this shriek coming 00:03:09
in from inside the chest they unlocked 00:03:11
it he rushed out and she shut out into 00:03:14
the garden and just then he everybody 00:03:18
was in hot pursuit calling out thief 00:03:19
thief and he went by a well he picked up 00:03:23
a rock dropped it in the world and 00:03:26
everybody thought the poor fellow has 00:03:28
jumped into the well and committed 00:03:30
suicide and he got away got home and 00:03:35
your fire his father said 00:03:36
congratulations who have learned the art 00:03:40
so do you see William Blake once said a 00:03:44
fool who persists in his folly will 00:03:46
become wise 00:03:48
and so the method of teaching used by 00:03:52
these Great Eastern teachers is to make 00:03:54
fools persist in their folly but very 00:03:58
rigorously and very consistently and 00:04:00
very hard so then if I may now having 00:04:05
given you the analogy the image let's go 00:04:07
to the specific situation supposing you 00:04:10
want to study Buddhism under is n master 00:04:14
what will happen to well first of all 00:04:18
let's ask the question why would you 00:04:19
want to do this anyway 00:04:21
if I mean I can make the situation 00:04:24
fairly universal it might not be a Zen 00:04:26
master that you go to it might be a 00:04:28
Methodist minister it might be a 00:04:31
Catholic priest it might be a 00:04:33
psychoanalyst but what's the matter with 00:04:36
you 00:04:37
why do go 00:04:37
and surely the reason that we all would be seekers is that we feel some disquiet 00:04:44
about ourselves many of us want to get 00:04:52
rid of ourselves we can't stand 00:04:56
ourselves so we watch television and go 00:04:59
to the movies and read mystery stories 00:05:02
and join churches in order to forget 00:05:04
ourselves in order to merge with 00:05:07
something greater than ourselves we want 00:05:10
to get away from this ridiculous thing 00:05:12
locked up in a bag of skin so I have a 00:05:17
problem I heard I suffer I'm neurotic or 00:05:20
whatever it is someone goes to the 00:05:22
teacher and say my problems me change me 00:05:22
now if you go to a Zen teacher you will say I have nothing to teach there is no 00:05:33
problem everything's perfectly tell 00:05:39
you think that one of them you say he's probably being cagey 00:05:48
[Music] 00:05:57
[Applause] 00:05:58
he's testing me out to see if I really 00:06:03
want to be his student 00:06:06
so I know according to everybody else 00:06:08
who's been through this that in order to 00:06:10
get this man to take me on 00:06:12
I must assist 00:06:12
do you know our saying anybody who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head 00:06:17
examined 00:06:19
[Music] 00:06:19
that's a very there's a double-take in that saying is he so in the same way 00:06:27
anybody who goes with a spiritual 00:06:33
problem to a Zen master defines himself 00:06:37
as a nut and the teacher does everything 00:06:43
possible to make him as naughty as 00:06:47
possible but the teacher says quite 00:06:53
honestly I haven't anything to tell you 00:06:57
I don't teach anything I have no 00:07:01
doctrine as I said to you in the 00:07:02
beginning of this talk I have nothing 00:07:04
whatsoever to sell 00:07:07
for the student thinks this is very deep 00:07:12
because this nothing what he's talking 00:07:15
about 00:07:16
there's nothing that he teaches is what 00:07:19
they call in Buddhism Shunyata misciagna 00:07:22
toss the Sanskrit for nothingness but 00:07:25
and it's supposed to be the ultimate 00:07:26
reality but as you know if you know 00:07:29
anything about these doctrines 00:07:31
this doesn't mean real nothingness not 00:07:33
kind of just nothing there at all not 00:07:34
just blank but it means no things 00:07:37
it's the transcendental reality behind 00:07:40
all separate and individual things and 00:07:43
that's something very deep and profound 00:07:45
so he knows that when the teacher said I 00:07:47
have nothing to teach he meant this very 00:07:49
he satiric no thing 00:07:49
well he might also say then if you have nothing to teach what are all these 00:07:55
students doing around here 00:07:58
[Music] 00:08:01
and the teacher says they are not doing 00:08:03
anything they are just there they're 00:08:06
just a lot of stupid people who live 00:08:08
here and he knows again you see this 00:08:12
stupid doesn't means just straight 00:08:14
stupid but the highest stupidity of 00:08:17
being people are humble and don't have 00:08:20
intellectual pride so finally the 00:08:27
student having gone out of his way to 00:08:30
define himself as a damn fool in need of 00:08:33
help 00:08:34
he absolutely worked himself into this 00:08:38
situation 00:08:39
he's defined himself as a nut and then 00:08:42
the teacher accepts the teacher says now 00:08:46
I'm going to ask you a question I want 00:08:52
to know who you are before your father 00:08:56
and mother can see you 00:08:56
that is to say you've come to me with a problem and you said I have a problem I 00:09:03
want to get one up on this universe 00:09:08
who is it that wants to get one up who 00:09:12
are you who is this thing called your 00:09:15
ego your soul your eye or identity for 00:09:19
whom your parents provided a bun 00:09:22
show me that and he says further I'm 00:09:24
from Missouri and I don't want any words 00:09:26
I want to be shown so the student may 00:09:33
open his mouth to make an answer but the 00:09:35
teacher says oh not yet you're not ready 00:09:40
he takes it back and introduces him to 00:09:43
the Chiefs student all those so-called 00:09:45
Zen monks who live together and the 00:09:49
chief student says now what we do here 00:09:52
so and so we have this discipline but 00:09:54
the main part of the discipline is 00:09:55
meditation and we all sit cross-legged 00:10:00
in a row and that we do that and you sit 00:10:06
cross-legged and you learn how to 00:10:08
breathe and be still in other words to 00:10:13
do nothing 00:10:14
[Music] 00:10:15
not but you mustn't go to sleep 00:10:18
and you mustn't get into a trance we 00:10:21
have to stay wide-awake not thinking 00:10:24
anything but perfectly doing nothing and 00:10:28
there's a monk walking down all the time 00:10:31
the flatstick rather long about so long 00:10:33
and if you go to sleep or if you get 00:10:36
into a trance or if you get dreamy he 00:10:38
hits you on the back so that you'll stay 00:10:41
quite clear and wide awake but still 00:10:44
doing nothing and the idea is that out 00:10:47
of the state of profound ly doing 00:10:48
nothing you will be able to tell the 00:10:51
teacher who you really are in other 00:10:53
words the question who are you before 00:10:56
your father and mother conceived is a 00:10:59
request for an act of perfect sincerity 00:11:04
and spontaneity as if I were to say to 00:11:08
you 00:11:08
now will you be absolutely genuine with me 00:11:14
no deception please I want you to do 00:11:19
something that expresses you without the 00:11:21
slightest deception no more role acting 00:11:25
no more playing games with me I want to 00:11:28
see you 00:11:28
now imagine could you really be that honest with 00:11:34
somebody else especially a spiritual 00:11:41
teacher you know he looks right through 00:11:44
you he sees all your secret thoughts he 00:11:50
knows the very second when you've been a 00:11:54
little bit funny and that bugs you 00:11:58
just like the psychiatrist you're 00:12:02
sitting in there discussing your 00:12:03
problems with him and you start picking 00:12:04
your nose and the psychiatrist suddenly 00:12:07
says to you is your finger comfortable 00:12:10
there you like that 00:12:10
and you know you know your Freudian slip is showing what her fingers symbolize 00:12:20
what do nostrils symbolize oh oh and 00:12:30
then you said quickly tip put your hand 00:12:32
down 00:12:32
[Music] 00:12:35
and you say oh no it's nothing it's nothing I was just picking my nose and 00:12:42
the RT analyst says oh really then why 00:12:52
why are you justifying it why are you 00:12:56
trying to explain it away he has you 00:13:00
everywhere you turns it well that's the 00:13:03
whole art of psychoanalysis and it's 00:13:05
them it's the same thing 00:13:08
in other words when you're challenged to 00:13:12
be perfectly genuine it's like saying to 00:13:15
a child now darling come out here and 00:13:18
play don't be self-conscious or it's 00:13:21
like I would say to you now look if you 00:13:23
come here tonight at exactly midnight 00:13:25
put your hands on this stage you can 00:13:28
wish and have granted any wish you want 00:13:30
provided you don't think of a green 00:13:33
elephant and so everybody will come 00:13:39
they'll put their hands here and they 00:13:41
will be very careful not to think about 00:13:43
a green elephant well now do you see the 00:13:50
point 00:13:51
now everybody if we transfer this to the 00:13:54
dimension of spirituality where the 00:13:57
highest ideal is to be unselfish to let 00:14:02
go of oneself when you are trying to be 00:14:07
unselfish you're doing it for selfish 00:14:09
reasons you can't be unselfish by a 00:14:14
decision of the will any more than you 00:14:17
can decide not to think of a green 00:14:19
elephant 00:14:21
there is a story about Confucius one day 00:14:25
met loud sir who was the great Chinese 00:14:28
philosopher and loud sir said sir what 00:14:32
is your system then Confucius said it is 00:14:35
charity and love of one's neighbor and 00:14:38
elimination of self-interest loud sir 00:14:42
said stuff and nonsense your elimination 00:14:46
of self is a positive manifestation look 00:14:52
at the universe stars keep their order 00:14:56
the trees and plants grow upwards 00:14:58
without exception the waters flow be 00:15:02
like this all your nonsense about 00:15:05
elimination of self is like beating a 00:15:08
drum in search of a fugitive so in this 00:15:13
way these are all examples of the thing 00:15:16
that triggering the master is playing on 00:15:18
you you came to him with the idea in 00:15:23
your mind 00:15:24
that you are a separate independent 00:15:28
isolated individual and what he is 00:15:31
simply saying to you is show me this 00:15:33
individual 00:15:36
I had a friend who was studying Zen in 00:15:38
Japan and we got pretty desperate to 00:15:40
produce the answer of who he really is 00:15:44
and on his way to an interview with the 00:15:46
master to give an answer to the problem 00:15:49
he noticed a very common sight in Japan 00:15:52
a big bullfrog sitting around in the 00:15:54
garden and he swooped this bullfrog up 00:15:56
in his hand dropped it in the sleeve of 00:15:58
his kimono and then he went into the 00:16:01
master 00:16:02
and to give the answer of who he was he 00:16:05
suddenly produced the bullfrog the 00:16:07
master said to intellectual 00:16:07
[Applause] 00:16:12
in other words this answer is too contrived it's too much like Zam you've 00:16:20
been reading too many books it's not the 00:16:29
genuine thing 00:16:30
[Music] 00:16:31
so after a while and see what happens is 00:16:34
this when the student finds that there 00:16:38
is absolutely no way of being his true 00:16:44
self 00:16:44
not only is there no way of doing it there is also no way of doing it by not 00:16:51
doing it you can't do it by doing 00:16:56
something you can't do it by not doing 00:16:58
something there be to make this clearer 00:17:02
put it into Christian terms ow shouts 00:17:04
love the Lord thy God now what are you 00:17:07
going to do about that 00:17:07
if you try very hard to love God and you ask yourself why am I doing this you'll 00:17:15
find out you're doing it because you 00:17:19
want to be on the side of the big 00:17:20
battalions you want to be right after 00:17:26
all the Lord is the master of the 00:17:27
universe isn't he if you don't love him 00:17:30
you're going to be in a pretty sad state 00:17:33
so you realize I'm loving him just 00:17:35
because I'm afraid what will happen to 00:17:38
me if I don't then you think that's 00:17:40
pretty lousy love isn't it and you think 00:17:44
that's a bad motivation I wish I could 00:17:48
change that I wish I could love the Lord 00:17:50
out of a genuine heart why do you want 00:17:54
to change 00:17:54
I realize that the reason I want to have a different kind of motive is that I've 00:18:02
got the same 00:18:04
so I say Oh heaven's sakes god I'm a mess and will you help me out then he 00:18:12
reminds you why you why you're doing 00:18:22
that now you're you're just you just 00:18:25
giving up aren't you you're asking 00:18:26
someone else to take over your problem 00:18:30
so you suddenly find you see you're 00:18:32
stuck so in this way what is called the 00:18:36
Zen problem or Korn is likened to a 00:18:41
person who swallowed a ball of red-hot 00:18:43
iron 00:18:44
he can't gulp it down and he can't spit 00:18:47
it out or it's like a mosquito biting an 00:18:50
iron bull it's the nature of a mosquito 00:18:53
to bite and it's the nature of an eye on 00:18:55
the bull to be unbeatable and both go on 00:18:58
doing their thing that is their nature 00:19:01
so nothing can happen yes absolutely 00:19:05
you're up against it absolutely no 00:19:09
answer to this problem 00:19:11
no way out now what does that mean 00:19:11
if I can't do the right thing by doing and if I can't do the right thing by not 00:19:22
doing what does it mean it means of 00:19:27
course that I who decide to do all this 00:19:34
am a hallucination there is no 00:19:42
independent self to be produced there is 00:19:47
no way at all 00:19:49
of showing it it's built isn't there 00:19:53
so you recover from the illusion you 00:19:55
suddenly wake up with you 00:19:58
[Music] 00:20:00
what a relief 00:20:03
they call that Satori 00:20:05
that's awakening the first step in 00:20:07
awaken 00:20:07
[Music] let me try and translate this 00:20:12
when this kind of experience happens you 00:20:19
discover that what you are is no longer 00:20:26
this sort of isolated center of action 00:20:31
and experience locked up in your skin 00:20:31
that by being the teacher has asked you to produce that thing to show it to him 00:20:40
genuine and naked and you couldn't find 00:20:45
it 00:20:47
so isn't there 00:20:47
and when you see clearly that it isn't there you have a new sense of identity 00:20:55
and you realize that what you are is as 00:21:04
I said the whole world of nature 00:21:10
doing this 00:21:10
now that's a difficult thing for many Western people because it suggests to 00:21:17
them a kind of fatalism 00:21:23
it suggests that the individual is 00:21:25
nothing more than the puppet of cosmic 00:21:27
forces so in the same way when your own 00:21:33
in a sense of identity changes from 00:21:36
being the separate individual to being 00:21:40
what the entire cosmos is doing at this 00:21:43
place you become not a puppet but more 00:21:51
truly more expressively than individual 00:21:54
than ever 00:21:54
this is the same paradox which the Christian knows in the forum whosoever 00:22:00
would save his soul shall lose it 00:22:03
now I think that this is something of very great importance to the Western 00:22:13
world today because we have developed an 00:22:23
immensely powerful technology 00:22:23
we have stronger means of changing the physical universe than has ever existed 00:22:32
before how are we going to use it there 00:22:42
is a Chinese proverb that if the wrong 00:22:44
man uses the right means the right means 00:22:48
work in the wrong way let us assume that 00:22:51
our technological knowledge is the right 00:22:55
means 00:22:56
what kind of people are going to use 00:22:58
this knowledge are they going to be 00:23:00
people who hate nature and feel 00:23:02
alienated from it or people who love the 00:23:05
physical world and feel that the 00:23:07
physical world is their own personal 00:23:10
body 00:23:11
an extension the whole physical universe right out to the galaxies is simply once 00:23:17
extended body 00:23:20
now at the moment the general attitude of our technolog technologists who are 00:23:27
exploring space is represented in the 00:23:35
term the conquest of space and they are 00:23:39
building enormous shell-like Halleck 00:23:43
objects to go into the sky and this is 00:23:50
downright ridiculous because who is 00:23:54
going to get anywhere in a rocket 00:23:54
you know it takes terrible long time even to get to the moon and it's going 00:24:02
to take longer than anybody can live to 00:24:06
get outside the solar system just to 00:24:08
begin with proper way to study space is 00:24:11
not with rockets 00:24:12
but with Radio Astronomy instead of 00:24:17
going back tough issues the sky 00:24:21
[Music] 00:24:22
become more sensitive develop subtler 00:24:27
senses that's radio a strong and 00:24:29
everything will come to you be more open 00:24:33
be more receptive and eventually you 00:24:35
will develop an instrument that will 00:24:37
examine a piece of rock on Mars with 00:24:40
greater care than you could if you were 00:24:42
holding it in your own hand let it come 00:24:48
to you 00:24:48
but you see this whole attitude of using technology as a method of fighting the 00:24:54
world will succeed only in destroying 00:25:01
the world as we are doing with absurd 00:25:10
and uninformed and short-sighted methods 00:25:13
of getting rid of insect pests are 00:25:16
forcing our fruit and tomatoes to grow 00:25:19
of stripping our hills and trees and so 00:25:24
on and so on thinking with all this is 00:25:26
some kind of progress when actually it 00:25:28
is turning everything into a junkie 00:25:32
and said you know that Americans are in 00:25:36
the forefront of technological progress 00:25:38
our materialists nothing is further from 00:25:42
the truth 00:25:42
American culture is dedicated to the hatred of material and to its 00:25:47
transformation into junk look at Los 00:25:54
Angeles does it look as if it was made 00:25:59
by people who love the material it's all 00:26:01
made out of ticky tacky which is a 00:26:04
combination the plaster of Paris paper 00:26:07
mache the plastic glue and comes in any 00:26:09
flavor the important lesson and hug 00:26:17
worlds is technology and its power must 00:26:22
be handled by true materialists the true 00:26:25
materialists are people who love 00:26:27
material 00:26:30
cherish wood and stone and wheat the 00:26:35
eggs 00:26:35
[Music] 00:26:37
I'm above all of us 00:26:40
treat it with the reverence that is due 00:26:43
to one's own body 00:26:45
[Music] 00:27:04
[Applause] 00:27:04
[Music] 00:27:04
[Music] 00:27:39
[Music] 00:27:48
[Music] 00:29:27
[Music] 00:29:34