about 1100 years ago, I've heard that about 1100 years ago, a monk asked a Zen teacher, what was the teaching of Buddha's whole lifetime? And the Zen teacher said, an appropriate response. A more literal translation of what he said was, facing each and teaching. First character is like facing and the next character is one, and the next character is to teach.

[01:05]

So the Buddha's, according to this teacher, the Buddha's activity was meeting each thing, each person, each animal, each situation, meet each situation and teach. That was the Buddha's teaching. That was the Buddha's teaching. responding appropriately to each thing he met. He didn't have a set program. He would just teach the current needs of the situation. He would respond appropriately. And so I would say, appropriate to what? The teaching would be appropriate to what? Appropriate, I would say, appropriate to Liberation, appropriate to helping people become liberated from bondage and suffering.

[02:09]

Appropriate to helping people become free in life's constantly changing situations. And when I first heard the Zen stories, the Zen stories that attracted me to the stories were stories of freedom, stories of people, not so much stories of the Buddha Shakyamuni who lived in India, but stories of Zen monks who in various situations, in situations of being attacked, of being insulted, of being praised, of being ignored, of being recognized, of being treated in all the different ways that the world like treats us, that there were stories of them responding with freedom, or responding freely to what was offered, demonstrating the ability of being free no matter what happens.

[03:23]

The Buddha also did demonstrate that. The Buddha could be free when people were being respectful. The Buddha could be free when being attacked. And these Zen stories also, the disciples were able to be free. At least in the stories, that's what it looked like to me. And when I heard those stories, I read those stories, I thought, I want to be like that. I wouldn't say that, and so then for about 40 years I've been practicing Zen. I wouldn't say I got there yet, but I feel a little closer, a little closer to being . Watch out. This is not urine, don't worry.

[04:28]

I was attracted to these people, these stories of freedom. So that was nice, but how do you become free? And then I found out that most of the people in these stories were people who had been trained in a certain way. They weren't just lucky. they had all entered a training program, a Buddha training program or a Zen training program. Maybe it's possible for you to be a Buddha, for you to be a Zen master or a Zen mistress without entering a training program. Maybe for you to be able to demonstrate freedom without entering a training program. If you can, I would say great. I don't think can realize freedom without entering into some kind of training.

[05:47]

And all the people I heard about so far who attained freedom did enter a training program. But you might be an exception. I'm not. But you might be. Maybe you don't have to. But maybe you do have to. Maybe you have to enter a training program if you want to be free. If you don't want to be free, you don't have to enter a training program. You're free to not enter a training program to become free. However, most people who are free not to enter a training program do not feel free. Most people I've met do not feel free except when they're stoned or drunk. They say, I'm free. There's a country western song, and one of the lines goes, when I drink a six-pack of beer, I think I'm 10 foot tall and bulletproof.

[06:54]

Maybe people never drank a six-pack. But I would say if you drink a six-pack, you might say, hey, man, nothing can hurt me. Or if you're a teenager, you might think, nothing can hurt me. On Friday night, I gave a little talk at the yoga lounge in Sacramento. the yoga lounge. They have a lounge at this yoga place. Very nice floor and also they have a nice lounge. And I gave a talk about it. It's called Commitment and Freedom in Yoga Practice. But tonight I could say, I just mention a little bit to you about commitment and freedom in Zen practice, or commitment and freedom in marriage, or commitment in parent-child relationships, or commitment and freedom at work, or commitment and freedom any place, any time.

[08:12]

Two key terms are commitment and the word commit means to do something, like to commit a deed, to do something. But another meaning of commit is to entrust, like commit somebody to prison, high school, a mental health clinic, an operating room, commit to confinement. So I propose to you that this anyway, which may be necessary for you to become free, there is a commitment or an entrusting of ourselves to some kind of confinement or a constraint. We put ourselves in a constraint, a straitjacket, in order to become free.

[09:24]

Not so much now, actually, but like 10, 15 years ago, from some of my Zen friends about their visit to Poland. And when they went to Poland to teach Zen, the people received them very enthusiastically. Large groups of people came to meet and practice Zen with them. why are the Polish people so interested in Zen? And someone said, it's because they know they're not free. You know, when Russia was dominating them, the Polish people knew they weren't free. See ya? But not all Americans know they're free. No, they're not free. This is the land of the free, which is filled with people who aren't free. And not all of them know they aren't.

[10:36]

The ones who are in prison have a slight advantage because they And the ones who are in Zen monasteries also have an advantage because they know, usually before they go in, that they're not free. They go into the monastery, they go into the meditation intensive because they know they're not free and they think if they go into this trap, this monastic trap, this yoga trap, that they might become free because they look at the past and they notice that most sages who have become liberated voluntarily entered into constraint, voluntarily took on confining precepts of training. Like, we're going to have a period of meditation from seven to like 7.15 or 7.30 or, you know, would you like to come? Would you like to come and sit here for half an hour?

[11:37]

And you say, okay, and you enter. You commit. You confine yourself to that structure. Of course you can run away, just like you can escape from prison, but still you voluntarily enter into the constraint, and in the constraint you discover the details, the texture, the experience of the experience of not being free. And the more thoroughly you experience not being free, the closer you are to experiencing liberation. I say that to you. I might be right, I might be wrong, but I did say that. Guess what? Guess. This is not urine. This is mountain spring water. Would you like some? No, really? How about you?

[12:37]

You want some? Where were you today? You didn't show up for your appointment. Did you make a commitment? She made a commitment, but she didn't show up. I was there, where were you?" She's on the verge of . So anyway, the story that I tell you now is that there's this possibility free and actually actually we really are free but we feel that we're not free but we really are free and we feel we're not free but we need to intensify our error in some sense our mistake that we're free we need to get more familiar with the error that we're not free we can realize that we are free so the first step in some ways in becoming free is to voluntarily enter into

[13:49]

a training trap. It's like a sound bite, right? Training trap. You can actually tentatively enter into a training trap. You don't have to barge in there. You can carefully go into the training trap. And you can limit the time you're in the training trap. You can say, okay, I'll go in the training trap for five minutes. I'll sit and meditate. That's all I can meditate right now because I have other things to do with my life. But I could, maybe for five minutes, I'll just like sit here. Okay, it's over. I did it. Okay. And someone said, well, I'll try 10 minutes sometimes or half an hour. Okay. Or how about several periods? How about a day? Okay. How about a week? All right.

[14:53]

And little by little you learn that the more time you to being confined, the more opportunity you have to understand that you're not confined. Once you enter the commitment, once you enter the confinement, once you entrust yourself to some form of practice, and you specify clearly with yourself and maybe with some other people you're practicing with so they can help you remember your commitment, once you make that firm entry, Then the next step is you can relax with, even though you're in confinement, now that you're in confinement, now that you're in prison, now that you're in the monastery, now that you're in the yoga posture, now that you're in the period of meditation, okay?

[15:53]

Relax. By the way, another confinement you could make is if you feel any fear, you could commit, you could entrust yourself to the fear. Why would anyone want to entrust themselves to fear? Anybody want to suggest why anybody would entrust themselves to fear their feeling? It's a great source of energy. Anything else? What? Yeah, it's what's happening, yes. Come to know it, and then when you know it, then what? Huh? Then you'll be free of it, yeah. So, of course, usually when we face fear and entrust ourselves to it, that's pretty hard to do that.

[16:59]

But when we do that, great, you did that. Now, relax with the fear. Relax with the fear, relax with the anxiety, relax with the pain, relax with the marriage, relax with the meditation period, relax with the training program, relax with your parents, relax with your children that you're committed to, relax with your parents that you're committed to, relax with your spouse that you're committed to, relax with what you have firmly, unwaveringly committed yourself to. Relax with the ethical precepts which you have firmly committed yourself to. Does that make sense? Then relax. And then after you relax with these confinements, with these precepts, after you relax with these confinements, these commitments, then you can play with them. And when you can play with them, you can be creative with them.

[18:05]

You can be creative with your commitments. You can be creative with your prisons. You can be creative with your pain. You can be creative with your fear. Creative with my fear? What? Yes. But you can't be creative with your neighborhood. You can't have a fear way over there, I'm not getting near it, and then be creative with it. The fear doesn't believe you're being creative with it. The fear just sits there. When will he come over and meet me? I'm going to give it to him in the back. Because he doesn't respect me and I am powerful and I'm going to push him all over the place for the rest of his life until he entrusts himself to me and starts relaxing with me and starts playing with me and starts being creative with me. Everything in the universe that we run away from creates, not the thing doesn't create, but the running away from, everything we don't entrust ourselves to, everything we don't meet fully becomes a prison, becomes a chain that binds us.

[19:22]

Everything is calling out to us to meet it. And then it's not just calling out to us to meet it, everything is calling us out to relax with it. Everybody wants us to relax with them. Everybody wants us to play with them. Everybody wants us to be creative with them. I say that. Then after you enter, voluntarily enter the confinement of training, after you voluntarily enter a marriage, after you've experienced some difficulty, and trust yourself, and then relax with it, and play with it, and create with it, then you understand it. Then you understand commitment, what you committed to. You understand fear. You understand pain. You understand the precepts of marriage. You understand your partner. You understand your children. You understand your parents.

[20:24]

And once you understand them, you understand freedom. So that's my story about that. Yeah, I could stop here and see what you think of my response to that. Oh, by the way, I mentioned to Miriam, I asked for your feedback. Please give me your feedback about anything, but you could also give me feedback about Yes. Any example of how I played with fear? Gee, I mean, I'm and when I feel it, I face it. And when I face it, then I try to relax with it.

[21:27]

I mean, that's my program, that's my intention. So, for example, one example is I was driving a bicycle on this bumpy street in Houston four years ago, just about four years exactly. It was on October 1st, four years ago, October 1st, 2001. Is that right? The road was bumpy, and these trucks were getting close to me, kind of crowding me over the edge of the road. And I thought, I'm a little bit afraid of the trucks and so on. So I thought, maybe I'll pull over and drive on the sidewalk for a while. But in the transition between the road and the sidewalk, the tire of the bicycle hit something, and the wheel turned. Very rapidly, I found myself smashed into the sidewalk on my right hip. And the first thing I said was not, relax. The first thing I said was, in a Buddhist temple, excuse me, chai tea.

[22:41]

That was the first thing I said. But the second thing I said was, relax. And then my body was like, you know, moved around various places around Houston with the aid of many people, and I just kept practicing trying to relax with it. And I'm continuing to try to relax with this situation. And I also have, you know, other problems in my life. And I just, as soon as I, if it's fear, if I feel fear, try to find out where in my body or mind it is, and I try to go there and enter it. I feel better being real close to it. In The Godfather, they had this thing, you know, this guy, this Corleone brother sitting next to this guy, and he says, my parents told me, be close, but keep your enemies closer.

[23:43]

So you keep your family close, commit to your family, right? And then try to relax with them. But really keep the troublemakers in your family closer because those are the ones we try to push away. If you don't confine yourself, if you don't accept the constraint of the people who are giving you a hard time and the other circumstances like health problems and so on that are challenging you, if you push them away, that's not good. You've got to get close to them. And then once you're close, you relax. So I tried to relax with this broken leg in the hospital and so on. And I'm still trying to relax with this leg all these years. And I also try to be playful with this leg and creative with this leg. I'm still in the process of this leg and become free of this leg and the other one. So I actually do do this practice with all the little fears that come up, and big fears in my life.

[24:55]

And sometimes I slip, you know, shrink back from the fear. But I have never found that really helpful. And so far I haven't found it, I haven't regretted entering the fear. I have never regretted entering it. And then once I enter it, I haven't regretted relaxing with it. And of course I haven't regretted when I feel being creative with it. And also the creativeness isn't one-sided and the playing isn't one-sided. It means you let the fear do something with you and you do something with the fear. And that can happen when you're relaxed. But if you're tense, you know, you want the fear to hold still and you don't want to move and everything gets locked into it. That's the first step. Even while you get close, you still may be tense.

[26:00]

Can you imagine, like, getting close to someone? Okay, I'll get close to you, but, okay, you're getting awfully close. Oh, my God, you're close. Oh, geez. Okay, you're close. Okay, now relax. Okay. Oh, yeah, you're close, and it's kind of, I guess I could relax. No, maybe not. It's a long time to relax, sometimes. And that's what I'm suggesting. Yes? So how does that affect outcomes? If you go into a process where you have some kind of problem that creates fear or anxiety or whatever, then you say, do you relax around it? Does that mean you don't anticipate or work toward any particular outcome? Yes, thank you for asking that. No, actually, it doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that you don't work towards outcomes, but I think you used the word, did you use the word expectation before?

[27:08]

I was thinking it. Yeah. What word did you use? You used some word like that before. Didn't you? Did I? Yeah. Did you hear him say expectation or something like that? No. What? Outcome. Yeah. So we do want to work for, we are working for outcomes. We want to work for the outcome of freedom. And if you want to work for the outcome of freedom, then you might commit and entrust yourself to a process that at least is being proposed to you as a process of freedom. And I'm suggesting, anyway, that you have to commit to a process, I'm just saying, you commit to the process that has the outcome of freedom. And I'm suggesting that one of the ways that makes sense to me is that if you don't feel free, to the sense of not being free. And there's some wholesome ways of doing that. Like take a yoga posture. And then you can feel, if you sit still, you can feel that you don't feel free.

[28:15]

You can identify and experience your sense of not being free posture, which is quite good for your health and all that, it's not really dangerous, but you start feeling not free and you start feeling uncomfortable with the not freedom. That's the first step. Okay? But you are working for an outcome, which is freedom. One yoga teacher, I was in a yoga class one time, and actually I was lying on my back in what's called a corpse pose, which is kind of a restorative, restful pose. You know, like lying, ever lying at back? It's kind of restful, right? And the teacher said, no matter what posture you're in, If you stay in it long enough, and I thought she was going to say, you know, like the typical thing you might think a yoga teacher would say, you will attain supreme bliss. She didn't say that though. She said, no matter what posture you're in, if you stay in it long enough, you'll become uncomfortable. She said, even if you're lying down or sitting in a really uncomfortable chair, after a while you start wiggling because you get uncomfortable.

[29:23]

Even when you're lying in a comfortable bed, at a certain point you get uncomfortable and you want to move. So to commit yourself to be still in some posture, even a posture that's perfectly restorative and restful, like the cross-legged posture, very good for your health to sit in this posture, commit to it, you start to feel not free after a while. So you get your freedom, your lack of freedom starts to present itself to you. So it's the idea of not being free that... is the problem, not being free. Well, it's the idea of being free, and it's actually the feeling of not being free, it's the experience of not being free, and it's also not just the experience of not being free, it's the pain of not being free. Because it's painful to feel not free if you're free. If we weren't free, we'd be perfectly comfortable being free, because it would be what we are. We are comfortable. When we're in accord with truth, we don't feel so bad. We feel perfectly in accord.

[30:26]

The fact is we are free beings, that's why we're alive. If we weren't alive, we wouldn't... If we weren't free, we wouldn't be alive. Because our blood's circulating and we're all warm and 98.6 and all that, because of our nervous system working, it's actually working freely. And it's also working freely that we can imagine all kinds of things inappropriately and feel not free, like we can feel separate from people. But we believe that a certain state is not free at a certain time. Like if you're sitting in a very comfortable wheelchair and you want to move, you were free up to the point that you wanted to move, and then you suddenly start to feel constrained, like, oh, I've got to move. That's the point where if you say to yourself that you make a commitment to not move... If you had made a commitment not to move... Before you felt like moving, you wouldn't feel the constraint. You could say, I'll sit down here, and I'm not going to move, and you feel, I feel kind of free.

[31:28]

But then you realize, I'm going to move now, but I said I wasn't. And then you feel constrained by that commitment. So traditional Zen practice is to be still, to sit still for a while. And if you try that, you're constrained by that commitment. So you entrust yourself to the commitment so you can feel what not being free is like. You put yourself in a confinement in order to actually experience what it's like to feel not free. But you do that voluntarily to get in touch with what not being free is. And then, if you want to work towards the outcome of becoming free, then you relax with the feeling of not being free. And when you relax with the feeling of not being free, then you can give up your expectation that you'll become free. If you want to be free, the expectation throws you back into feeling not free. But if you start relaxing with not being free, you're actually starting to become free.

[32:36]

People that are relaxed, they're almost free. Like some people in prison are relaxed and they're quite free in prison after a while. And some of them can even become playful and creative in prison and understand in prison that they're free. And then when they get out, they actually can go back perhaps continue to make commitments so that they can continue to realize their freedom. But not everybody that goes to prison becomes free. Malcolm X did, I think. And some other people have. Yes? How about in situations like where a person is emotionally confused, like a battered wife, things of that nature, or situations such as that, where a person has the ability or the option to walk away. And here, you know, I guess one of the questions that's always puzzling is how do Blacks think when they can walk away?

[33:44]

Now, how do you how would you advise someone like that in a situation where you know it is not it is it is both physically and emotionally an abusive situation yet they have should they stay to when they don't have any ability to control the other person who is beating them abusing them things of that nature how does how does that person If the person wishes to become free, if that's what they want to do, then I would think about what commitment can you make in the situation you're in that would help you become free. I'm not saying stay before you become free. So let's say you're in a situation where somebody, like right now, let's say somebody was about to hit you, and you might say to me, what should I do?

[34:51]

And I say, what do you want? Do you want to become free? And if you said yes, I would say, well, let's commit to meet this person. And you might say, well, I think if I meet this person, they might hurt me. I might say, hmm. What should we do now? Now, could I go talk to the... Are you going to hurt this guy? And he says, I intend to. And I might say to you, maybe we could find some other commitments you could make to become free. Because I don't think this is a good setup because he wants to hurt you and it wouldn't be good for him or you for him to hurt you. So why don't we try to find some situation where you can make a commitment and that through that commitment you would be able to become free. Because that's what you want, right?

[35:51]

Yes, I want to become free. Okay, let's find some other situation where you can make a commitment. Well, what's wrong with that situation? I mean, ultimately, what's the matter? I'm talking about hitting him, okay? Well, yeah, yeah. So, anyway, I'm just saying that for me, I'm committed to talk to him about this person. That's my advice now. So I'm committing to talk to him and meet him. And so my way of relaxing with him is to consider that maybe I could talk to this other person. And if I'm relaxed, and not to mention if I'm playful and so on, I would not be afraid of this other guy. So I maybe could help him. He's asking my advice. And if I'm the advisor about how to become free, then I think I should see if I'm afraid of a guy. And can I go talk to him? And so in this story I did. I went and talked to him and I found out he was going to hurt him.

[36:53]

And I don't particularly, I want to help him not do that unskillful thing. So, but he's afraid now. So I talked to the other person and say, maybe we can find some other situations. But he might say to me, no, actually, I want to be here and commit to meeting this dangerous situation. I want to commit to meeting him. And he might say, would you stay here with me while I do that? To watch me. And I might say to him, do you think now you're ready to make the commitment? Are you relaxed? And he might say, no. And I might say to the other guy, can you wait a little longer before you hit him? You know, I want him to be relaxed. So we work a little longer, we warm up, and now he says, I feel more relaxed now. I said, okay, now do you think you can play with him? And he might say, well, how could I play with him? And I might say, well, let's go talk to him, you know. And you want to hit him, would it be all right with you if we kind of like played with you? And the guy might say, no. And then we might say, you know, we're already playing with you.

[37:55]

And he might say, oh, yeah? Yeah. And it might swing at me. But if we're relaxed, we might be able to move out of the way. It's possible. But the fact that I talk to you and you feel ready to make the commitment to meet this dangerous guy, and then I say, now you're kind of relaxed, I feel more confident that it's going to work out okay. And then we can talk to him a little bit because we're kind of relaxed and playful. And then he maybe does attack you, but maybe you can actually move with it. And he's going to feel differently because he's going to be transformed by your working with him that way. But I would have to make this commitment because I don't want you just to try to relax before you realize what you're getting into. So you're aware this is dangerous. It's a dangerous person, dangerous situation. But you say, I want to meet this thing and become free of this guy and the danger and my fear. And we talk about that and you start to be ready for it.

[39:00]

So we're actually, we're now in a martial arts class, actually. This guy maybe doesn't think that, but in fact he's helping us have a martial arts class with this dangerous situation. But if you don't feel ready to enter into this engagement, I would say, well, let's go someplace else and find some situations. One of the important principles here is don't take on too advanced a practice. We want to eventually be able to face all situations. The Buddha could face mass murderers. He actually was attacked by a mass murderer one time, and he was able to snap the guy out of it. But he was also attacked by one of his cousins who wanted to hurt him, and he couldn't turn the guy around. That guy was too advanced for the Buddha. So part of making a commitment is to make the commitment oftentimes with people who care about you and make sure you're not making a commitment that's over your head. Eventually we want to get in the ring with the bull.

[40:03]

We're not going to kill the bull, but we'd like to get in the ring with the bull with the most difficult challenges eventually. That's our vow for real total freedom. But it's good to start with some situation where you feel like, I'm willing to commit to this. I'm willing to commit to a habit. I'm willing to commit to a one-day retreat. I'm willing to commit to these precepts. If you talk about Buddhist precepts, we have like not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, not lying, not intoxicating. And some people say, I feel good about the first part, but I'm not ready for the fifth. I'm not ready to give up and talk. Say, okay, well, let's talk with the first part then. And work with the first part and say, now I'm ready to do the fifth. Or if he's not ready to meet this guy, he said, would you be willing to play with me? Would you be willing to commit? I might say to him, are you afraid of me? He says, I'm afraid of you too. But are you willing to commit? Yes, I'm willing to meet you. Some people are afraid to come to meet me.

[41:04]

And I don't think that's unwarranted. Some people do come to me and they say, I trust that you'll never hurt me. I say, don't trust that. I could hurt you, not necessarily, I don't imagine, but I know I can hurt people. I can hurt people by me thinking I'm playing with them, but they might feel like I'm being too much and being too heavy and being too intense. Or I could hurt people, sometimes I'm nice to one person and somebody else sees me and they feel hurt because they think I'm being nicer to that person and this person. They think it's good. They think, well, I don't think you'd do that for me. And they feel hurt imagining that I wouldn't be as nice to them. So I know that just the way I am hurts people. So when somebody says, I trust you'll never hurt me, I say, I might hurt you. Don't trust that. But what you can trust is not so much me, but you can trust my vow. My vow, even if I hurt you, I will be devoted to you for my whole life. And even if I don't hurt you, I'm devoted to you. That's my vow. But that doesn't mean I'll never hurt you.

[42:09]

So people are afraid of me, especially to come into a small room and meet me. They're afraid. And a lot of people come and meet me, they sit down in front of me and I say, how are you feeling? They say, I'm nervous. Usually when they first meet me they say, I'm nervous or I'm afraid. And they say, can I just sit here and let my heart, or they say, my heart's pounding. To go meet the teacher in a little room is sometimes pretty frightening. But they voluntarily do it. And if you keep going over and over, pretty soon you can meet very, very dangerous people, people that actually want to hurt you. But don't try that right away, maybe. But the long-range perspective is we want to be able to face all these abusive people and convert them to nonviolence. You can't convert violent people to non-violence if you're afraid of them, generally speaking. You can't convert them. And in order to be not afraid of them, you have to go face your fear of them, which is realistic, and relax with it and play with it, and once you start playing with them, they

[43:18]

That's what they want. That's why they're violent is because they're afraid of you and everybody else. And they find out also that they're safe. So what do you think? Does that make some sense to you? It does, except that in cases where it seems like she has no choice that she's in this situation. Well, she may not have any choice, but if she's talking to me, If I'm not there, I don't know who's going to help her. Somebody maybe could go in there and say, you know, which I sometimes say to people, I say, this situation is too advanced for you. You know, ideally, it would be good for you to help this person or help this bull or help this tiger, but it's too advanced for you. You're not trained enough to handle this, in my opinion. I think it would be good for you to try working with a slightly less or considerably less violent person. It doesn't help — if somebody's causing trouble, it doesn't help to let them do trouble on you, usually, unless you're going to be able to convert them.

[44:29]

So again, the Buddha could interact with a violent person, and the violent person tries the violence on the Buddha but doesn't work. There was also this story I often tell about the founder of judo in Japan. His name was Jigaro Kano. He was quite a small person, and he was on a boat in the Indian Ocean one time, and a huge man was storming around the deck, almost knocking people over. And he came up to Jigaro Kano, and he pushed Jigaro Kano, and when he pushed Jigaro Kano, he found himself flying up in the air, spinning around and then being brought back down safely onto his feet again. And he kind of snapped out of it. So you can convert these people like that if you're skillful enough. But if you're not skillful enough and somebody's violent, you should go get somebody who is skillful enough.

[45:33]

Like that story of the, you know the story of the Billy Goats Gruff? You know that story? No, it's a story. So it's the story about these three Billy Goats. I think they're all just called Billy Goat Gruff, the Billy Goat Gruff Brothers. And they lived in a pasture, and they were eating grass, and there was a bridge going over it. ...pasture over to another pasture and they ate all the grass in their pastures so they thought they would go over the bridge to get the grass to the other side but there was a troll, a monster under the bridge and the monster in the bridge didn't like anybody to walk on his bridge unless perhaps he... So their plan was to send a little billy goat over the bridge So the little billy goat goes, over the bridge, and the troll says, who's that on my bridge?

[46:35]

And the little billy goat says, it's me, the little billy goat girl. And the troll says, oh, you can't walk on my bridge. As a matter of fact, I'm going to eat you. And he reaches up to get him, and he said, don't take me. That's the way you're wasting your time. A much more larger and more delicious one is coming soon. You can eat him. And then so he says, OK. The medium-sized one comes, and the same thing happens. He says, no, don't bother on me. I'm nothing. The really delicious things come in, the huge delicious meals come in. Get that guy. So the next one comes, and he says, okay, now I'm going to eat you. You're the one I've been waiting for. And he says, oh, yeah? Come on up and try. And the guy gives him, the big one gives him a little judo flip, and he flips him into nirvana. No? Well, how about dead? He took care of them.

[47:39]

So some jobs are not for us. And if you meet somebody who can't handle the violence in the situation, it's good to help them get out of there and find some other situation that they can work on. Eventually, we want them to be able to come back and interact with this person. Some people are concerned it's like to go find a more appropriate job, a job that's more in the ballpark. It's not really like running away from your problems. It's going to find a problem that you can grow on. We all have our limits of our skills. And it's good to conduct contact and interact with people who can help us figure out, what's the appropriate challenge in our life? Is this too much for me? And some people might say, it isn't that you're ending your relationship with the person, it's just you're rearranging it so you can respond more appropriately. You want to hear the poem?

[48:47]

OK, I'll give you the poem. Where's the poem? Put this up by your mouth. Put this by your mouth. Here's the pool. Bumble over here. To paint the portrait of a bird by Jacques Prévert. Somebody French. Thank you. Help me here. Okay. Jacques Prévert. First, paint a cage with an open door. Then paint something pretty, something simple, something beautiful, something... The bird. Then place the canvas against a tree in a garden, in a wood, or in a forest. Hide behind the tree without speaking, without moving.

[49:53]

Sometimes the bird comes quickly, but he can just as well spend long years before deciding. Don't get discouraged. Wait. Wait years if necessary. The swiftness or slowness of the coming of the bird having no rapport with the success of the picture. When the bird comes, if he comes, observe the most profound till the bird enters the cage. And when he has entered, gently close the door with a brush. Then paint out all the bars one by one, taking care not to touch any of the feathers of the bird. Then paint the portrait of the tree Using the most beautiful of its branches for the bird. Paint also the green foliage and the winds freshness and the dust of the sun and the noise of insects in the summer heat and then wait for the bird to decide to sing.

[50:56]

If the bird doesn't sing it's a bad sign. A sign that the painting is bad but if he sings it's a good sign. A sign that you can sing. Sign. A sign that you can sign. So then, so very gently, you pull out one of the feathers of the bird in the corner of the picture. Thank you very much. That's helped. Is it more? No, I'm taking it. The other side is... That's okay. Thank you for reading. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[51:59]

Yes. I believe that we have a commitment to these kids, and we're very defiant. Your son is defiant? Yes. Yes. Pardon? I want to make sure. Him, not me. Worth it to say, you know, here's a committed structure. Yes. Yes. Uh-huh. And so it's very hard, we find it very hard to be playful because we're not maintaining the structure and say, it's something you agree with that. Right.

[53:05]

So we get stuck on it over and over. Yeah. saying to you that you put them in a cage against their will. Like, some children even say, you're not my parents, actually. You kidnapped me from my real parents. Or, you know, or you forced me to be born in your womb. I wanted to be born in some other woman. Children say stuff like that. They're very clever. Pardon? Right, exactly. Yeah, right. There you go. And then they say that's not funny. You know? There are times when you may be willing to relax and they may not be willing to relax.

[54:09]

They may not be ready to relax. So then you have to relax but then not be ready. I don't mind you. Yeah, right. I don't know if it's a paradox, but anyway, it's a situation where if you're willing to relax, they're not necessarily willing to relax. But sometimes if you're willing to relax and they're not, and you're willing to relax with them not being willing to relax, and you're just being relaxed with them, not pressuring them to relax, not pressuring them to be not defiant, but relaxing with their defiance, And you can't yet necessarily play with them, but you're ready to play if they would relax, then you could play. But you can't play yet because your motivation isn't sufficient such that he's ready to join you. But like, you know, some people have heard this story, my latest grandson story.

[55:11]

You haven't heard it, I know, but I've told it this weekend in Sacramento. I'm telling it around California. So Thursday, I was in L.A., and I went to the zoo with my grandson, and he brought an orange along, and he wanted to eat the orange, so he sat down and he started peeling the orange, and I asked him if he wanted me to help him, and he said no. And... You know, I felt kind of relaxed. He was fairly relaxed with me. And then he finished getting all the peels off, but there was still this part at the end of the orange which sort of holds it together. And I asked him if he wanted me to help him get that part off. And he said, yes. So I took the orange and bit that piece off so that it spread the sections. To his mouth, to his orange, he became very tense and angry that I put my mouth on his orange. And he didn't seem to be playful, or he didn't seem to feel he was playful.

[56:17]

He seemed to feel like he was just really hurting me and wanted to hit me. But I don't think he felt like he wanted to playfully hit me, but he wanted to really hit me and really punish me for this great insult of me putting my mouth on his orange. And I was, you know, a little bit, because it's really frightening to have this little guy so upset with me. But I kind of relaxed. So I'm kind of afraid of him, you know. I'm afraid of my grandson being this upset with me. I'd like him to like me. But he didn't like me. He thought I was just the most terrible guy in the area. But then I kind of recovered and relaxed with him really being angry at me and not wanting to have anything to do with me for the foreseeable future. He didn't say, you know, he might have actually, he said a lot of stuff.

[57:18]

He might have said, I never wanted my whole life. You're the most terrible granddaddy I ever had. Anyway, he said real angry stuff like that. And I kind of relaxed with it. And he kept being angry at me for quite a long time. And I kept relaxing with it. And he kept being angry at me. I kept relaxing. As I'm walking along, this little hand reaches up into mine. Takes my hand again. Kind of like you know, my relaxation kind of like, and not forcing him to like play with me again or whatever. He had it, he could feel it, on him to like take my hand again, but finally he reached up and there we were holding hands again, strolling through the zoo. And then after a little while he asked me to return to my usual service position of giving him rides on my shoulder. So, you know, he likes it.

[58:20]

He's really angry at me. He doesn't even want me to give him rides anymore. So he said, can I have a ride again, granddaddy? So I put him up on my shoulders and started riding. And, you know, so the relaxation does sometimes spread to them, and they join it, and then we start playing again, you know, riding the granddaddy around the zoo. But I have to be patient and not, I want him to play with me. I want him to relax with me. I want to be creative with him and free with him. But part of my work is to wait for him to be ready to join me. And then after that, I can't remember exactly whether we were walking together, because at certain times I get tired and I have to put him down because he's getting big. And I have a very rigorous exercise program so that I could be able to give him rides at least until he's like 80 pounds.

[59:24]

Now he weighs 50. I can still lift him up and put him in my head. And so I can't remember if we were walking together or if he was riding, but anyway, I think we were walking and he said to me, if a Buddhist man knew what a terrible job you're doing, he would fire you. But it was kind of, it was playful. And there was freedom, at least on my part, and I think in his, too, that he could say that. There was some freedom there. And there was some freedom in me. It didn't hurt me at all. And I just stopped to think, oh, this is a good one. And my wife, who I haven't been mentioning, was there for this whole thing. When she saw me stop walking, she said, I know what you're doing. I'm putting that down for future lectures. So patience is part of this too.

[60:34]

Relaxation and patience really go nicely together. And it's painful to be with someone we love. We want them to relax and play with us and realize freedom together as a healthy family. But every day is a new day. Every day there's new commitments. Every day there's new tension. Every day there's a new, they have to go to school again, you know, and they've got all kinds of things they're worried about, what's going to happen at school. So we can help them relax when they go to school and have a more relaxed and playful time while they follow through on their commitments to maybe be a good student. But children who want to be good students sometimes get so tense that although they do their homework, they're very unhappy. I want them to make a commitment, perhaps, to do skillful work at school, but I want most of all for our children to be free. in school. But free means they need to make a commitment.

[61:37]

They can't just go there and say, I don't care what happens. They'll soon be in the principal's office. But no, I'd like to do a good job. I'd like to get along well with everybody. And now how can I relax with that? And my dad and mom are helping me with that. And my teachers hopefully help me too. And some teachers do. Those are the teachers that we look back on with gratitude, the ones to relax with our sincere commitments to do well. I think so. But even some teachers who don't help us relax, we look back on gratitude that they were so rough on us, you know, that they gave us a great challenge and we were able to relax even with them. We really appreciate those who had really high standards. and or even had expectations of us and they finally became free of their expectations. Yes?

[62:39]

Can you hear her over there? Could you say what you said louder so they can hear you? remind me of a newspaper article that I was reading It looks like we have three choices here, meaning the people who live in the United States. And he said one was back to another president like this one. He voted into office. we could, um, let, um, basically a revolution begin. Not much, but a bloody revolution. Or we could all become centrist. And, um, the article that I read in the newspaper was saying that, um,

[63:51]

Hillary Clinton is boggling herself after two senators, Lorna Ann and DeMotto, are senators and have worked as non-partners for many years in the Senate, trying to accomplish things on both sides of the aisle. And so I guess I would like you to comment on that. One of the senators had two different slacks, but it's critical. And one was the savior of neo-conservatives, and the other was the savior of neoliberals. And so I think that the stories that we were experiencing seem to relate to that somehow. I would like to know how you think the stories I was telling relate to that.

[64:55]

How do you see it? Working with the person who wanted to inflict harm was a very wise thing, it appeared to me, that just the possibility of some type of transfer of information occurred in that process. is the thing that I see is the way to the potential for peace in the situation that I see that we're facing. And I think that what we're facing is very important for the world. I think that I wish that Mrs. Clinton had, I hope that Mrs. Clinton validates the nature that we're in right now. Yes.

[65:56]

You know, I come across a lot of suffering every day. And, you know, the question that I, there's two areas that perhaps you could help me in terms of how I'd be more wise in giving out advice. Is that, you know, that are, where people are very desperate. Yeah. If I meet someone who's desperate, I usually feel like the main thing I can do for them right away is relax with them, is to be calm with them. They've got the desperate stuff down. But I need to be willing to join their desperateness and not push it away and not try to get them to not be desperate. In other words, to really let them be desperate. If I'm calm, I can let them be desperate. And actually tolerate that I'm not.

[67:02]

A lot of people feel like it's not really right that I'm... I should be desperate too. I should be hysterical too. But actually, if you're calm, your job is to be calm, but also be calm with that person. And be playful and be relaxed with the person's desperation. And if they can feel that you're close to them, that you're willing to open your heart to their suffering and relax with it, maybe they could relax in their desperate situation without anything changing in their life. What happens if that person was in a situation where they were about to die? and they have to be confronted with that information at a young age. A perfect example. That's exactly... The main gift to give them is fearlessness, because they're going to die anyway.

[68:05]

I guess you have to be fearless yourself. You can't give fearlessness... It's hard to get fearlessness if you're afraid, but it's not impossible. Sometimes it's possible to get afraid, and if you're afraid and you go see them, they see your fear, and your fear helps them face theirs. Sometimes that can happen. That a frightened, or even they're afraid of their death, and somebody's even more afraid of their death comes and meets them, and they start to feel, oh God, I'm going to This person says, I'm kind of calm, and it's nice to be calm. And they start feeling more and more calm because this person, and actually a calm person, might go and look really, really frightened if they're meeting someone who's afraid of something to help that person calm down. It's possible. But basically, the thing is that somebody, one of the main gifts to give people is fearlessness.

[69:05]

And again, it's a little easier to give if you're fearless yourself. And so if you meet people who are facing extremely difficult challenges and are having trouble, you can help them if you can face that in yourself and if you can face that in them. And a lot of people, you know, we hear this story of somebody's in the hospital with some serious disease or life-threatening disease, and people come in and they say, you're going to get over this, blah, blah, blah. But that might make the person just be more afraid. Because the people aren't saying, I don't know if you're going to get better or not, but we can face this, whatever it is, together. And then you feel that. What do you say?

[70:12]

Yeah, right. Yes. How do you explain that you're about to take on this new one? How do you decide if it's too much? Well, one of the ways of deciding if it's too much is you think it's too much. And then you think about, it seems like too much. And again, I would suggest if you think a commitment is too much, it's good to try to find some of your friends to talk to about it. But it's particularly good if you have somebody in your life who is a — what do you call it — a teacher, a commitment teacher. For example, I'm a commitment teacher. I spend a lot of my time talking to people who want to make commitments to various things, like want to make commitments to ethical precepts, training programs, organizations. People a lot of time talking to me about when they're making commitments. So it's good to find somebody that you can talk to about a commitment that you think is too much. And even if you think the commitment is not too much, it's still good to talk to somebody because somebody might say, I think that's a little advanced for you.

[71:18]

You might have to hold your breath for 10 minutes under water or something. And they might say, why don't you try a minute? And then see how that goes. So talk to people who love you and who, if you can find any, who themselves make commitments and have experience making commitments and want to help you. But if you think it's too much, you might be right. But again, if it's too much, you can do half as much or a third as much. A lot of times you can just do a smaller version of it. Commitments are often best to do when they're, I feel, when they're quite clearly defined. Like therapists, and they commit to, you know, they kind of commit to stay in the room for like 50 minutes, and the therapist commits to 50 minutes. But the therapist doesn't say, you can stay here all day. They usually don't do that because it's not very healthy. It's good to get, if a person is psychologically challenged, it's good to see if they can deal with like commitment, which they have trouble with often.

[72:24]

But it's a nice clear container for that challenge of dealing with that time on both sides. So I would suggest that whatever kind of commitment you make, don't have it be formless. It's hard to get in touch with how it's confining you and get in touch with your fear and lack of freedom. your sense of those things. But if you define them, you can get more in touch with it, plus you know what it is and you can tell if you're trying to get away from it or not. And then also you can see sometimes . Like a lot of people say, I just can't fit that long. I say, well, how about half as much? A short period of time of commitment, even a minute of commitment to some presence is useful. And most people have a minute. Yes. Yes. Can you hear him? He says, suppose you do take on a commitment.

[73:26]

Yes. Okay, a big commitment. You make some progress, then you kind of get stuck at a certain point in development. Yes. You start feeling, or one starts feeling deluded at that point. Like, am I chasing something? Because a commitment is something specific, right? It's setting a goal. Yeah, like a commitment to freedom, for example. Right. And you may never become free, right? You may sit in this jacket all your life. I think that part of becoming free is to face the possibility that you'll never become free. If you can't face the possibility you'll never become free, even if you can't face right now the possibility that you'll never become free, that doesn't mean you're never going to become free.

[74:31]

It does not mean that, because you already are free. But if you can't face the possibility that you're not free, even though I told you you are, then your inability to face it is going to postpone your realization of freedom. But it won't stop us forever. You will eventually realize freedom. However, you're going to probably get stalled if you can't face the possibility of not being free. Being free is facing the possibility of not being free. Or put it another way, people who are free have no problem with not being free. It's not a problem to them. That's part of freedom. Freedom is really great. Freedom is so great that you can even be not free and say, no problem. You can take free people and put them in prison and they don't have a problem because they're free in prison. It's as good a place to teach freedom in prison as it is to teach it on a golf course.

[75:32]

Also, you can put them on a golf course and they don't say, put me back in jail. They might say it as a joke, but... So, anyway, if you enter into a process to become free and you feel like, and your thought crosses your mind, maybe I'll never be free, then that's another thing to relax with. Oh, you know you're not missing out on something yet. How do you know you're not missing out on something? What would I suggest you do? I'm suggesting that you entrust yourself with the possibility that you're missing out on something. And trust yourself to that.

[76:36]

And relax with it. When you mentioned that, a lot of people stopped you. They enjoyed you using that example. Can you enjoy using that example? Can you? And you have fun with it? Yeah. Great. And that's another possibility that you should face. Again, when you're free and somebody comes up to you and says, not only maybe are you deluding yourself, you definitely are deluding yourself. You can say, me? Deluded? Cool. Totally. I am totally. I was telling people about this thing called theater sports. You have two teams which kind of compete with each other and one team presents something to the other team. And you lose points if you block what the other team presents. So if they come up to you and say, what's your name? Anup. Anup. Anup. Anup, you're deluded.

[77:38]

They come up and say that to you. But if you say, no, I'm not, you lose points. The improvisation means, you know, you don't know what's coming, you haven't seen it before, and you're going to blow with it. You're going to be creative with it. You're going to play with it. The theater sport is who can play, who can be most playful. The most playful people get the most points. But if somebody comes up to you and says, you're deluded, and you say, no, or you say, well, maybe, you probably lose points. But if you say, totally, you get points. And you say, not only am I deluded, but I'm also a chicken. I'm a cow. I'm a turkey. What about you? They can't go with that. They lose points. You can say, you, you're even, you're wonderful because you're not deluded. I'm so happy to talk to somebody who's not deluded. Tell me about what it's like not to be deluded. You get points. Because you can play. You're free. You're demonstrating freedom. And people want to see that. Or they want...

[78:39]

...to not be free, but not in a way to beat other people. You tend not to be free to help other people, or be free to help other people. Please. I think I'm supposed to stop now, but... I get your question. Go ahead. Is it a short one? But will the answer be short? Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. What's your name? Tess? Okay, Tess. I was thinking of when I was a kid. You were a kid? You're not a kid anymore?

[79:21]

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