May I say again that one way to describe the process by which calm can be developed, and again this is calm which is also buoyant and flexible, state of body and mind, is to train the attention to not move among different objects. Another way to say it is, well there's many ways to say it, many ways to describe this process. Another way to say it is to relax among different objects. So the attention is trained onto the way of being

[01:05]

with the various objects that appear and disappear. And that way of being with them is to meet them and train the attention to just meet what's happening and then meet what's happening and meet what's happening rather than having the attention creating the impression that you're moving from this moment to the next moment to the next moment to the next moment, and also reviewing, going back to things that happened in the past and going up to this moment and into the future and into the past. This is discursive thought that I just described. Being involved in discursive thought is part of our life, but in calming down we let go of discursive thought. We let go of running back and forth among the objects.

[02:07]

We train the attention to give that up. And that's the calming side. Also training the attention on relaxing with whatever comes. Again you're emphasizing the way you are with each object rather than being concerned with what object it is. So this person, [...] but each person is met in the same way. When each person is met in the same way, the mind calms. Because it gets to be like you're not really moving among the beings or the events, the objects, but you're paying attention to the way the mind is with each object. and it's basically on some level the mind treats all objects the same. It just accepts them and knows them. So that's not exactly being relaxed, but if we meet things with relaxation that means we give up, we relax, we let go of another aspect of mind which is to run around a lot, to wander in our mind.

[03:26]

So again this is talk about stabilizing, calming the consciousness. This way to be trained in this way and actually to sort of enter into a tangible or palpable sense of being calm will serve us well when we go over into the field where we investigate the teachings of reality, the wisdom teachings, where we're going to look at different objects and their relationship that the objects are fundamentally not different. But in order to realize that, we sort of have to go into this field of difference again.

[04:33]

And when we're in the field of difference, there's, generally speaking, some stress. And we need to be trained in relaxation in order to be able to calmly study the stressful field of dynamic interdependence out of which things appear and disappear. So I'd like to move over then to describe again a kind of field of experience which I mentioned last week and that is we may be able to experience our inner sense of what's going on moment by moment an inner version of reality

[05:41]

our own imagination of what's happening. At the same time, we may also be able to understand that there is an external reality which is different from our individual inner imagination of what's happening. And, or, that we may be imagining something and And other things are also going on which we can share, which we can agree on and share with other people. We can express our inner workings, our inner imagination. But people can't actually feel or actually experience our imagination. They can hear about it. but then we're bringing it out into the world where we can say what it is, they can tell us what they heard, we can say that's right, and in that sense then our expression, our verbal expression of our inner workings is an external reality which we share.

[07:00]

And part of our work as normal, fairly mature humans is we need to be able to see the difference and in some sense keep separated our inner reality and external reality. We need to be able to tell the difference between the two. So like someone said to me this morning, I'd like to do a little reality check with you. So she told me something and then I talked to her and she talked and pretty soon we got to kind of like a shared reality about some something at Green Gulch. She had an inner sense about something concerning another member of the community And what he was saying to her about something I said, she wanted to know if I really said that.

[08:18]

And I said, well, I did say it, but I meant this, and back and forth until we had a kind of shared reality, even though our inner sense of the situation was still different. So reality checking often means checking to see what area we can agree on. And that shared sense is external to me and to you. It's not really in me, although I have access to it, and it's not really in you. The inner sense, in some sense, we have some magical control, almost. It seems like we have control over our imagination to some extent, but we don't have control over the external reality, shared reality.

[09:19]

We can participate with it, contribute to it, receive from it, but we can't control it. we can't make other people necessarily agree with us. Now there are tricks which I could give you some examples of if you want, but basically it's just an illusion just as much for the person who is successful at getting the other person to agree as the person who agrees. Really we can't control other people's minds So anyway, we need to be able to tell the difference between inner and outer reality, and we need to be able to keep them separate, but we also need to keep them related. Keeping them separate is somewhat stressful, but keeping them separate and related is quite stressful, quite difficult, quite dynamic. And that's why, in order to study how we keep things separate and keep them related, and how other people do the same,

[10:22]

and enter that field where we're doing that together, it's very helpful to have considerable tranquility, especially as you get into the real intense dynamic of the process. Last week I said I wanted to tell you a story Remember what the story was? Milton Erickson. Some of you have already heard this story. Is it in Being Upright? It is. Okay. Well, I don't know exactly how it's used in being upright, but good stories often can be used from, you know, you can see lots of teachings in good stories. And the story goes something like this. I believe there was a psychotherapist who, by the way, was also a, I think, considered to be a very expert hypnotist. His name was Milton Erickson.

[11:26]

And He's one of the ancestors of neuro-linguistic programming. He was, I think, also, especially towards the end of his life, he was... He had polio, I think. Is that right? Anybody know? He had polio and towards the end of his life he couldn't walk even with crutches. He walked for crutches for quite a few years and then pretty soon he was just taken around on a gurney. I don't know what stage in his life this was, but Anyway, he was teaching right up to the end of his life, teaching. He was a psychotherapist, hypnotist, healer, anyway, a person who understood and studied the mind and the body. So he was visiting, I think, is it Las Vegas, New Mexico? There's a Las Vegas, Nevada. Is there a Las Vegas, New Mexico? Is there a Las Vegas, Arizona? I think there's a Las Vegas, New Mexico, and I think the state...

[12:29]

mental hospital is in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I think Milton Erickson lived in Phoenix a lot of the time. But anyway, he went to this state hospital and there was a patient there who had an inner, his inner reality was that he was Jesus. That was his inner fantasy world. but he couldn't get the people in the hospital or people in the general population to agree with that. He couldn't establish the external reality of him being Jesus. He tried to get people to do it. He pressured them to agree. Most people, of course, wouldn't. He meant Jesus Christ, not just that his name was Jesus, but that he was Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. So my impression is anyway that the hospital, the professional medical staff and probably a number of the other patients would not agree that this was an external reality.

[13:44]

And that was part of the reason why he was in the hospital is because if people pressure us and demand that we validate their inner fantasies, we And I'll just parenthetically mention, and come back to this later, that when children do this, especially little tiny infants, when they do this, we do not consider them to be mentally ill. And we actually go along with it for a while. And actually somebody has to go along with it for a while. in order for them to move from the world where their fantasy is mostly operating to please themselves into, out to, you know, external reality. Someone has to, like, go along with this beginning reality, this fantasy level where they're requiring pretty much agreement, they're requiring somebody to adjust to that

[14:47]

and we often call that a mother, or there's a mothering process. It doesn't have to be a mother, but somebody has to go along with that in order to help them move out of it into this external reality. When Milton Erickson came, unless you would recognize, unless you would affirm his inner reality, he would not relate to you. So, Milton Erickson went up to him and said, I understand you're a carpenter. He partly affirmed his inner fantasy world. so this man could relate to Milton Erickson. And then he said to him, would you build me some bookshelves?

[15:56]

And the man said, yes. And he built bookshelves, I believe. And when he finished the bookshelves, I guess they looked enough like bookshelves so that Milton Erickson and most of the other people on the staff could say, these are bookshelves. And the man who built them also shared that reality that they were bookshelves. So he established, he has managed to establish contact with external reality. Now he probably still a little bit thought he was Jesus, or maybe just as much as before, I don't know. But each of us maybe has some sense of ourselves that even when we establish external reality, like, you know, we agree, like I talked last week about, we agree that this is a, what is it again? It's a cushion. We agree it's a cushion, but we still have maybe some versions of ourselves which, if we tried to get everybody to agree to, you know, and we weren't, we were really inflexible about it, they might, they might have us committed.

[17:09]

But, we can somehow keep some of that stuff to ourselves if we can share it, if we can agree that this is a Christian, okay? Or that this is a bookcase or whatever. And the man was, not too long after that, released from the hospital and lived happily ever after, more or less. So it was necessary for somebody to, in some sense, affirm his inner fantasy and then offer him something that would not deny or destroy his inner reality, but give him something to do in the external world, in the world where we agree, which is not just his idea, that would get him out there where he could interact with others. And when he's able to do that, he became more like a normal person. with your inner sense, but we have other realms that we can meet in, so sometimes we'll accept that and let it go that they don't agree with us.

[18:21]

The ability of this one person, Milton Erickson, to come and meet this person and to offer this suggestion didn't really come from external reality and didn't really come from internal fantasy. It came, I would say, from this wonderful space between, between Milton and the patient, between Milton and his, between Milton and Milton's personal sense of this man and who Milton was, And the external reality that he didn't have, he didn't have a shared reality with this man. He had to create it with the man. And this creativity offered this way for this man to get out of his internal prison and enter into normal human relationships.

[19:33]

I see in his teaching, in his offer to that person, an understanding of he wasn't holding to either side, and he somehow knew what it takes to get the person to come and play with him. And the story goes he was successful. I mean, they were successful. Now the teaching of the teaching of the teaching one of the main teachings of wisdom is that all things are interrelated, interdependent, arise depending on conditions, are changing all the time.

[20:35]

So here in that teaching how do we actually get a sense of this How do we actually enter into this creative process? Usually we carry around an inner version of ourself. We also have an external version of ourself, which we try to get people to agree to, and most of us can get to be somewhat successful there, like I'm a male, human. Most of you agree with that. And I have an inner sense of myself, too. And my inner sense of myself, which comes right along quite normally for a human being, is that I'm here. I'm here. before I come in the room.

[21:43]

I'm here before anything happens. I don't have to wait for things to happen for me to be here. I'm here already. And then things happen around me and to me, and I do things in relationship to those things, but I'm already here. Like this guy also thought, you know, he was already here, he was already Jesus. This way of seeing myself is innate and doesn't take into account how what I am right now wasn't here a moment ago. That actually I'm a newly born person. I'm a person, I'm a newly born person and I'm born circumstances in my life give birth to me right now.

[22:49]

And then when the circumstances change, I change too. And then what often happens is that another reb is born. Now I say that, and I'm saying that that has been taught for quite a long time. but the reason why it's taught is because people innately don't see it that way. And they need to learn how to see it. They need to learn to listen to that, and they need to learn to actually witness that. So we start, you know, We're born kind of thinking we're already here. In other words, we're born with a fantasy of who we are. It's not necessarily so clear, but after a while, we develop a sense of who we are.

[23:56]

And we do it somewhat in relationship to this external reality. But it isn't an external reality. It isn't a shared reality that I'm already here. that is we don't we don't establish that other people feel that way too so if we if we say to them i am i here they say sure but you don't walk in the room thinking that the other people already exist you think you already exist and then they show up i'll stop there and see if you think if you disagree or disagree Well, do you disagree? Do you see the difference? The way you feel about yourself coming in the room and the way you feel about the other people?

[25:00]

You may know there's a bunch of people in the room, like if you're late for class, you may think there's probably a bunch of people in the room. But you don't think, oh, well, John already is there. I mean, he's already existing there. You don't think that. But you think you already exist out in the hall before you come in the room. to see the difference? It's maybe kind of subtle. I mean, it's actually stunning, the difference. Another way to put it is, you all know about the universe, right? You've heard about it? Or the world, right? Now, there's the world, right? And is there one more thing besides the world? Is it the world and something? Huh? Is there? Huh? What? Yeah, isn't there the world and you?

[26:01]

Well, don't you feel that way? Like there's the world and me. There's me in the world. Or there's me in the world and there's me and the world and I'm in the world. You don't feel like there's just the world, do you? You feel like there's a world and me. But you also don't think there's a world and Joel. Right? There's you and the world, and the world's got Joel and Minnie and everybody in it. See the difference? And the world's changing all the time. Joel's changing, Minnie's changing, but I'm... I'm just that thing in addition to the universe all the time. And you can take away the universe, and I'll just be here until it shows up again. And then when it shows up, you know, I'm here already. Hi, universe. Hi, people. It's a startling difference if you think about it. And that self is an inner reality.

[27:07]

Other people have that same kind of thing, but it isn't shared reality. It's not objective that you're already there and then there's the rest of the universe. Even though everybody else feels that way, that's exactly why it's not true, because they think you're part of the universe, but you don't think you are. And you don't think they're not part of the universe, and they think they are. This is our delusion equipment. Wisdom is to, like, see the inner reality... the inner sense of I'm already here, see the external reality of where we share, and then let go of both of them and enter a space in the middle. And in that space in the middle, you can say things like, you're a carpenter, aren't you? And you can get people to come out and play where they're still holding on to their inner reality, but they're also connecting with the outer reality.

[28:14]

You can be part of that because you are part of that. I am part of all your external realities and you are part of my external reality. And there's no external reality without an inner reality. Entering the space between, I'm not in that space between and neither are you. My inner sense of who I am is on one side of it. external sense of who I am is on the other side of it, and the external sense of other things is on the other side of it. But in between, I'm not in the middle and neither are you. And it's in the middle, when you enter the middle, you will see yourself born. You will see yourself born. Not the self that you bring to the situation, but a self that arises as creativity. Which doesn't eliminate this inner sense of self, It just lets you realize that it is an illusion.

[29:17]

It's an inner reality, but it's not a reality. It's just an inner reality. It's a fantasy. It's an illusion. To enter that space, however, we need to be fairly relaxed. As I mentioned before, we need to dare to relax to enter the space. And in that space, you can watch yourself arise and cease. You can watch other things arise and cease. And as you see, as you watch how things arise and cease, and then you watch how you arise and cease, then you develop the correct understanding of what you are. you have developed the middle way understanding of what you are. Namely, you are something which appears in the advent of all things and then disappears in the advent of all things and may appear again in the advent of all things.

[30:28]

But because you see that, you understand that you're not a permanent thing. And also you understand that you're not annihilated. Because you understand by the way you're created that you're not annihilated, and you understand by the way you cease that you don't last. So you understand how you actually are, and your illusions about yourself just keep going right ahead, and your sense of external reality which you share with people goes right ahead. And the process of enlightenment needs us to keep these two worlds, internal and external, alive so that we can invite people to come into the play yard and partake of creativity. Because we need, in order to realize fully who we are, we need other people to be realizing fully who they are. Because who we are is actually dependent on all the other people.

[31:30]

and who we are is that we're not complete until the other people both resist us and harmonize with us in this space. Inwardly they're not harmonizing with us, externally they're harmonizing with us, but also they're harmonizing with us in the realm of creativity. So again this story I just told was a story of a person who met another person. One of the people really did not know how to play and the other person didn't know how to play. And he taught the person who was severely handicapped in being able to play, he taught the person how to play. They played this game called making a bookcase. And that play process Although I don't know that this man became really enlightened, he did recover from this prison of holding to his inner reality and demanding that other people confirm it, the way a child does.

[32:54]

And again, in order for a child to get out of that world and extend into the external world where they are not in control, somebody has to go along with them for a while. And going along with them for a while, then gradually you start going along with them less. And you teach them how to stand the frustration of losing control and tolerating that and gradually developing contact with the external world. So you could guess that this man at some point in his life had a breakdown in that process so that he couldn't get out of his inner world where he was feeling pretty good and dare to enter the world where we're not in control.

[33:57]

And in the play realm you're not in control either. So somebody has to, like, make you feel like it's okay and move into that realm. And Milton Erickson found this way for this guy to move into the playground between. And people in Sacramento heard the story of Dr. Hansen, right? You remember Dr. Hansen, don't you? Yeah. You don't remember? Well, that's great, because the other people haven't heard about Dr. Hansen, have you? No? Yeah, you don't know about Dr. Hansen. Well, anyway, when I was a little boy, when I was eight years old, I had a very nice room, which I shared with my little brother. It had windows on three sides, and I used to spend a lot of time in the room by myself.

[35:02]

in my inner reality. But I was all, you know, I was playing with things in my room, playing with, you know, little soldiers and things like that. My parents thought maybe something was wrong with me because I spent so much time in my room alone. I was having, I wasn't exactly talking to Jesus, by the way, but I didn't think about Jesus a lot at that time. I used to think about whether if Jesus stood outside my window and said, come here, whether I'd walk out the window to him. I used to wonder about that stuff around that time. I wouldn't say exactly a religious awakening, but sort of awakening to spiritual issues and questions of commitment to religion and, you know, loyalty to Jesus and my parents. I used to think about my parents dying, what would I do if they died, those kinds of things. So I'd get in my room thinking about that stuff a lot by myself. My parents thought something was wrong with me, so they sent me to... Huh?

[36:05]

No, no, no. LAUGHTER They sent me to an ear doctor. They had my ears checked. They thought maybe I was hard of hearing. And was I? No. And then they... Then they sent me to Dr. Hansen. Dr. Hansen was a psychiatrist, a child psychiatrist. And I think they gave me some tests. And then after that, I went to see Dr. Hansen, just him and me in his room. And he would say to me at the beginning of the session, he would say, what would he say? Do you want to talk about anything? And I would say, no. And then he would say, well, you want to build a model airplane?

[37:06]

And I would say, yes. And we would build a model airplane. And by the way, the model airplanes we built were like really nice ones. I mean, they weren't like just those little plastic ones that you stick together. They were like made of balsa wood, you know. And then you put paper around them and then paint them. So, you know, and at eight years old, I wasn't skillful enough to do this kind of stuff by myself very well anyway. So it was really a good deal for me because I suppose my parents were paying for this. But anyway, from my point of view, I got these models and I got this skillful person to help me build them and then I got to take them home. Model airplanes, model boats, forts, model cities. It was great. And I traveled halfway across the city of Minneapolis by myself to go see this guy for months. And I was happy to go see him. And then once a month, what happened? Do you remember? Once a month, all the crazy kids were gathered together. And they put us in a room and gave us chocolate cake and ice cream.

[38:14]

And we got to play games like Old Maid and stuff like that. Monopoly. So we also look forward to the group therapy sessions. At the end of every session with Dr. Hanson, he would say, do you want to talk about anything? And I would say no. So I don't know exactly what happened there, but I was playing with Dr. Hansen, I guess. And I don't know if I was healed or if I never was sick, but anyway, I enjoyed going to see Dr. Hansen. And we just played together. That's all we did. I don't know what he saw. He never said much to me other than, you know, pass the glue or... And I enjoyed seeing him, and I stopped seeing him on my own, not because I didn't want to see him anymore, but just because I didn't want to miss playing soccer after school. And then my parents went to see him.

[39:16]

So there was my inner reality. There was the outer reality of the airplane. And then there was us working together, which is really, that's where you really learn, is that space between. I don't know what I learned. I don't know how much that contributed to my development as a person and how much it helped my understanding. I don't think it hurt it at all. And just like the story of Milton Erickson, the story of Dr. Hansen, I keep seeing it in different ways over the years, what was going on there and the time we spent together. I wasn't afraid of making mistakes with Dr. Hansen.

[40:39]

And I don't know if I was trying to avoid making mistakes. I don't remember exactly. But I can imagine that I wasn't too worried about making mistakes either. Dr. Hansen wouldn't hit me if I painted a line not very straight. or if I broke a piece of balsa wood or ripped a piece of paper, he wouldn't hit me, I don't think. I was not afraid of him. I was not afraid of making a mistake. I wasn't worried about making a mistake. I probably did make some mistakes, because some of the stuff required considerable skill, and I probably, being kind of young. And I don't think, I don't know about Dr. Hansen, I don't think he was so afraid either. We were kind of relaxed together. I don't know if I would have gone all the way across town just to get the goods. I think I'd like to be with them. So we have to feel like we dare to relax in this space.

[41:57]

and then start playing together. Do this thing where nobody's in control. And this is where creativity appears. And when we see the creativity appear, we understand ourself. And in addition to that, which is part of Dorit's question, when our self appears there's somebody else there with us to reflect it back which makes it go really become part of us because we're playing with this internal and external thing so it isn't just our internal sense of creativity and our internal sense of who we are and how we appear but it's also shared and reflected back.

[43:12]

So it becomes part of our actual imaginative structure, changes our imagination. And it's our imagination in the first place that imagines these strange things about ourselves, like that we exist independently. This is just an imagined thing. It's not true, but we imagine it from birth. we have to somehow get the other story demonstrated, reflected back, and internalized. And then our actual way of thinking gets transformed. So then wisdom has actually become part of our... has transformed us. That's why we need to play with somebody else. And part of the process is sometimes there needs to be somebody who is willing to adapt sometimes to our inner sense, otherwise we won't play.

[44:25]

And part of the person who knows how to play is they will be willing to play and go along with our illness in a way. in order to get us to come out and play. Long term that wouldn't be good, but short term it may be necessary. But the person who's playful can do that a little bit. So Milton Erickson could say, I understand you're a carpenter. He wasn't afraid of making a mistake of, you know, kind of like reinforcing this guy's fixation on his inner reality that he was Jesus. because of being in touch with the process that would help this person, he knew he had to go along with it to some extent in order for the person to trust that he could dare to relax a little bit from being Jesus, the carpenter, to be just a carpenter. Just like for us to relax a little bit from being the carpenter.

[45:31]

an independent, autonomous, metaphysical self into being kind of like just an ordinary interdependent self. Do you have any comments about this? Yes? I've noticed that in certain settings what I see is my Yes? Yes? Well, I think one way you work with it is you just... You say it, you express it like you just did.

[46:34]

And then I can tell you that... And then I can say to you and to me, do we have any idea about what would make us, you know, have more confidence and trust that we could let go of our inner sense and our external sense a little bit. What would help that? What would promote that? What would support that? And when I can do that, then I can also, of course, open to other people's more, other people's inner sense. So, you know, do you have any suggestions? Of course, we know that certain drugs will do that. You know, like the Anything else? Well, I thought first of all we'd start with you because

[47:57]

We really can't teach other people how to play until we know how. If we don't know how, we should learn how. So if I can't play with your expressions coming from your inner sense, then I need to learn how to do that myself. So I could relax in the situation of you and other people expressing verbally or physically to me what your sense of the situation is, which if it hasn't been agreed upon between us, then I'm just hearing you report your inner fantasy, your inner reality, which may be that you are trying to find a solution to your problem. I don't know what, like I know this one young lady who her inner reality, I think she got over it, but a while ago her inner reality was that she was ugly.

[49:02]

That was her inner reality. And I thought that was, you know, quite ironic since she was an exquisitely beautiful little girl. But she had this inner reality that she was ugly. Now maybe she was lying. that she really didn't feel that she felt something else but what she was expressing was that and it was really I didn't share it but to just but just to sort of put it down and disagree isn't very playful and might not so she might the person might just entrench more say okay no I really am ugly otherwise he wouldn't be talking to me so rudely and call me a fool but you know whatever for saying I'm ugly How could you be playful with her? Like, well, actually, one time another woman came to me. She said something like, you know, I'm really bad. And, you know, she didn't look that bad to me. I mean, she meant bad like evil.

[50:03]

And she didn't... I mean, I knew her, too, pretty well. I didn't think she was that bad. I thought she was just a redhead. And... So then she tried to convince me a little bit. And I said, and it wasn't working. I was kind of thinking, no. I don't get it. I don't think you are. And then finally I got it. And I said, oh, yeah, you're really bad. And she said, yeah. You know, she didn't. She didn't want me to disagree with her. She wanted me to go along with this vision she had of that she was bad. So I did. And then things could start moving. But I was being kind of literal about it and concrete and kind of rigid. I had my inner sense that she wasn't bad.

[51:05]

And I was basically just saying back to her, no. But she wasn't ready to like actually establish an external reality between us. She wanted me to recognize her inner world that she was like a bad girl, a bad young woman, a bad chick. And when I did it, then we could start talking about something else. But I had to, I mean, I made a few mistakes, but I finally realized, oh, this is a game. She's playing a game called, I'm going to come in and tell this Zen priest that I'm bad and see if he'll argue with me and tell me I'm good or what, you know. So she probably liked me to play, to do that thing at first, but when I gave in, then things really started to, she got happy when I would sort of go along with it. But then we got, you know, that wasn't the issue anymore. After I sort of checked in with, okay, you're bad, then we can move on to other things. But I had to start playing with her before she could not be on this heavy trip about getting affirmation and bemoaning the fact of her being bad.

[52:21]

So first of all, you have to learn to play. And then what do you need to play? And also, I guess I thought at the time, well, I'm not supposed to be thinking people are bad. People come here feeling bad about them, feeling that they're bad and feeling bad about feeling bad, and it's both to help them get over that. It's sort of like taking my job too seriously. And which I did at first, you know, like, well, this is serious. You're saying bad things about yourself. You should not do that, you know. It's not true, and you should stop that, or that kind of attitude. Rather than, oh, well, that's... Even if I could change the person's mind, we still wouldn't be playing or just being like, I'm the authority and I'm telling you you're wrong. So, you know, get with the program. You're a normal person. You're not worse than anybody else, blah, blah, blah, which is okay, but it's not the door to creativity. I guess I had to trust myself enough to let go of my idea of how I was supposed to be talking to her in a kind of more

[53:25]

adult way you know like well you're not ugly you're not evil that just you know your fantasy rather just sort of like okay let's all play your game i'll build a model airplane with you or whatever so if i thought you were admitting at the beginning that you were kind of like stiff in relationship to these cases so you need to like think what do you need to relax what would give you support to loosen up and be more playful and creative? Yes? Yeah? I was wondering when you were working with Dr. Manson, did that change your behavior? I don't remember, but you know, I... I did quit to play soccer. I wasn't playing soccer in my room.

[54:29]

So I think I was sort of, even before that, I was sort of out in, you know, out with the kids in the street. But in the winter, you know, in Minnesota, it is pretty easy to spend a lot of time in your room. And then when spring comes or, you know, summer comes, you do get outdoors more often. But I don't remember that I particularly... I'm kind of an introvert, so it's pretty easy for me to, like, spend time by myself. And so I don't remember that my behavior changed much after that. Yeah, I think maybe they did accept my behavior more and started looking at their problems more. And it wasn't too long after that that they got divorced. They were having a hard time at that time themselves.

[55:33]

I don't, you know, I just, I wish I could be back there to watch myself and see how I was doing, but I just don't know. But I do remember going to see Dr. Hansen and what happened and kind of what a good deal it was to go to the psychiatrist. Well, this is quite a popular area. I've got a lot of hands over here. Let's see. Let's call Doug. Was it Minnie? Yes? I'm thinking about this idea of having an independent... Yeah. Yeah. I've seen people talk about how a lot, I guess in the Western, Western psychology, we do a lot with ill people, and I grew up with a lot of self-esteem building, and sort of ideas about building healthy ego. Yes. Having healthy sense of self.

[56:36]

Yes. A lot of emphasis on individuality. Uh-huh. In some ways, that's very important to me, and it's part of maybe a way to get to the place where you can realize more about the independence. But I'm wondering if there might not be the way to teach those things sometimes. You know, I wonder if that teaching that we do sometimes is sort of the long route to be learning about independence. How do you do both of those things and feel good about yourself without loving yourself? Yeah, it does. It theoretically would be possible to start the educational process earlier than we usually do.

[57:37]

And in fact, you can teach children, certainly when they're eight, nine, ten years old, you can teach them these teachings about interdependence and stuff like that. Like now in schools, they teach children about ecology and things like that. That's part of teaching interdependence. Teaching children where the milk comes from or where the cheese comes from is teaching them interdependence. So you can start teaching them those things, and then when the when they hit puberty then all then everything gets shot because then all their you know the hormones are like what's happening and uh and it's nice if they have an ego prior to that so that they can like um cope and have some kind of coping uh styles with all this tremendous change that they're going through and these strange expectations that society places on them like, you know, don't reproduce now, you know, go to high school and stuff like that.

[58:54]

So they have a really hard time. However, even then sometimes you can teach them stuff and they sometimes do have insights and uh... i mean i told this story quite a few times too that when i was i mean my primary concern when i was uh... when puberty first hit was to be popular i suppose when children are younger that's really important to them too But I think hormonal input makes you more concerned with your status and popularity than when you're younger because that's part of the reproductive opportunities thing. So then, of course, you suffer tremendously because you're so concerned with your appearance. Like my grandson, not a concern about his appearance. He's not. He happens to be quite unbelievably cute.

[60:01]

But he's not concerned about how cute he is. So when he gets stuff all over his face and stuff, he doesn't care that he's not quite as cute. And if he had a pimple on his cheek, he would not care. But when people get to be teenagers, they sometimes really care about how they look and whether people like them. And most people that are concerned about that are quite unhappy. Do you remember? Yeah, a very unhappy situation to be concerned about how you look and whether people will like you. And boys, maybe their looks aren't quite as important to their popularity as girls, in this society anyway. Boys do other things to get popularity. So one of the things I was doing to get popularity was to be outstandingly naughty or bad. And I lived in an upper middle class neighborhood. So generally speaking, the boys weren't into being that bad. So I got a lot of...

[61:03]

got tremendous popularity for being the worst kid in the school. But not worst like, but just the most like James Dean or something like that or Marlon Brando or, you know. I was the most like right out of one of those movies that were popular at that time. Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marlon Brando, those were the heroes. So I was trying to be like them. Did you get kicked out of school? Hmm? Did you get kicked out? I didn't get kicked out of school, but I did have my home room in the principal's office. Other kids went to their homerooms, and I went to the principal's office. But basically, even in my school, the principal and everybody, they basically praised me for being such a bad kid, you know. They said, you know, they told me, you could do all this good stuff, but you're doing this instead, you know. So I just felt, you know, getting a lot of attention.

[62:06]

The basic thing is to get attention. But then I met this guy, and this guy said to me, told me about when he was a kid. And he was really outstandingly bad. He was, like, awesomely bad. He lived in a rougher neighborhood where it's easier to be worse. But anyway, and then he said to me, after telling me what a bad kid he was, he said... If you know it's easy to be bad, you know what's hard is to be good. And that way of putting it kind of made me feel like, oh yeah, okay, I want to be good. So there are skillful ways to get kids to like try another approach. And then when you try to be good, which I tried to do, and then you find out how hard it is. And when you find out how hard it is to be good, Like kids that are trying to be good and think they're successful, they're not really learning about themselves.

[63:11]

They're just, you know, self-righteous little... But people who try to be good and see how difficult it is, they're starting to wake up to the human psyche. And then about a year later, again, I was just sitting, I remember I was sitting in my room on a Sunday afternoon or something, and it just dawned on me that if I would be primarily concerned of being kind to other people, that was my primary concern, that my problems would just disappear. In other words, I wouldn't be wondering how they felt about me and whether they liked my looks, but just try to be nice to other people. Then almost everything I was worried about would just drop away. So I thought, I'm going to do that. And then I went to school. And I noticed that as soon as I saw the other kids, I completely forgot about that. Because as soon as you see these other faces, like you see these girls, you know, and you stop, you forget about being kind to them and you just be concerned with whether they like you again.

[64:16]

You just can't help it. So I realized, even when you see what's good, Your nature, your chemistry and your physiology and your neurology are just all like, it gets me concerned with something else. So, you know, with some instructions, you sometimes can wake up and then you can start learning how difficult it is to do anything good because of all the stuff we got, all the stuff going through our head. And if someone was like, keep pointing out to you that this was like normal, and bringing your attention to it, that would probably be helpful. To tell kids, you know, that there's nothing wrong with them that they've got all these problems. Like, that's what seems to be, like, when this guy sort of, like, leveled with me, like, he wasn't, like, talking from me up there down to me. He got down where I was And oftentimes when I'm asked to go to high schools or talk to kids, I always try to tell them that I feel close to them and I was just like them.

[65:24]

Rather than, you should be like this and this. More like, you know, I'm just like, I know what you guys are like. I remember. I used to be like that too. And there was these problems with it, right? There's this problem and that problem. Sort of like, get down there with them. If somebody can do that and you can share their dilemmas their difficulties, and then tell them, show them where the vitality is, where the real juice is, where the real challenge is. Sometimes they'd say, oh, yeah. But you've got to get down there with them. Because usually they don't listen to adults because either they're afraid of them or they feel guilty or whatever. Another example, this is somewhat unrelated, but I told my daughter, my wife and I told my daughter when she was pretty young, before she was old enough to take drugs, we told her that if she wanted to take drugs, that she could take them with us.

[66:34]

Now, not that we would take them, but she could take them in our presence. And if she wanted to do LSD or something, she could do it in my presence rather than go out and do it by herself. And I told her that I took LSD. And she listened to that. And she never did do the drugs with us. She did them with other places. She tried various things, right? But then after she took the drugs and knew what it was about, then again somebody reminded her that her dad had taken LSD when he was a young person. And then it meant, you know, then it really meant something to her that I did what she had just done. She came home to me and she said, dad, did you take LSD? And I said, yeah. And she said, that is so cool. That is so cool. And I don't remember if she actually said it, but she, I think she maybe actually have said this, but, but

[67:41]

The implication was, I thought you were like this, you know, basically God on a hill. And now I see that you're a human being because you did what I just did. And I didn't realize until that time that although my daughter, you know, she would tease me and call me names and stuff prior to that, that she was simultaneously thinking that I was basically a god. And you don't, you know... Well, anyway, I realized that. And I never got it, that she was doing it all those years. And there's probably... And that thing doesn't... That doesn't go away. So... And that's a projection out of something you feel about yourself inside. Because basically the baby thinks they're a god. They think they're omnipotent. They think they're, you know, not divine so much, but omnipotent, omnipresent.

[68:46]

Everything's theirs. They are independent of the universe. This is our basic delusion. And then we put that on our father or our mother or both. So anyway, I think it is possible, but I don't think it's by, you know, teaching them exactly necessarily Buddhism straight, but more like getting down to their level and showing them somehow finding a way to play with them. It's like, don't call it Buddhism or wisdom or interdependence or middle way, but get in there and play. Like Dr. Hansen, just play with them. And that's how you teach them wisdom. But it's their capacity is really diminished because of the onslaught of all this chemical development that they're going through, and they're generally speaking very unconscious. So it takes a lot of work to get them to become conscious, but they can become more conscious

[69:48]

They can dare to be conscious when they feel safe. So you have to be like somehow their friend. It's hard for parents to be friends because they project so much on their parents. So maybe an uncle or an aunt has a better chance of being playful. Also, parents have time being playful too because they're so concerned for this particular person. so they have trouble being playful, the children have trouble being playful, so in that situation it's hard to teach them things. They learn, they're learning stuff, but these kinds of things are like, you know, learning wisdom requires relaxation. That was a long answer, sorry. Yes? .

[70:54]

I'm wondering, it is . Oh, sure. Well, building a bookcase isn't necessarily somebody's idea of playful. The thing about playful is that when you're playful, you're not really trying to accomplish anything. You can be playing building a sandcastle, but building a sandcastle is not the play. That's the game, maybe, that you're playing. But the playfulness is to not take the sandcastle so seriously. The playfulness is to be more into the beauty of the creation of the sandcastle than the And in fact, children do build things and knock them down and build them again. So the playfulness, there can be playfulness in an argument, there can be playfulness in a confession, there can be playfulness in building something, there can be playfulness

[71:58]

It's not taking it seriously. It's relaxing with it. So again, the relaxation makes possible the playfulness. Playfulness allows the possibility to get in touch with spontaneity, creativity, and therefore understanding. But any situation, almost any situation could be playful. But of course, when you say that, then people get a little scared, you know, like playful war, playful swordplay. Well, yes. But this is dangerous, right? So it should be taken seriously. Well, does taking things seriously really make it safer? Now, if you think somebody is a child and doesn't understand this is a sharp weapon, does relaxation hurt you taking the sharp weapon away from them?

[73:06]

I don't think so. Does getting all wrought up about it make them more interested in going back and trying to get a hold of that knife when you're not around? I think so. but if you're rather relaxed about it and playful about it, I don't think you increase their likelihood of hurting themselves with it. And you can teach them about what's dangerous in a relaxed and playful way. And again, I think they're going to learn better that something's dangerous when they're not petrified of you while you're delivering the lesson, that you playfully show them how sharp something is, you know, Then they could, if you're relaxed, say, oh, wow, that's really sharp. Wow. Yes? I like the way you speak.

[74:10]

It's good. I think it's like a, I think it's a judge. Ornip got me to be a judge. You want me to not be playful? Can I be a playful judge? Okay. It's not playful. It's not playful. That's my judgment. Thank you. Are you okay? Good. Any other questions? Dorit, did you have your hand up? No? Playfulness is part of the context in which insight arises.

[75:18]

Insight is actually, you can be playful and yet not yet not yet have creativity revealed to you. I get kind of lost. I mean, it seems... I try to think of the times where I feel I've been playful and creative with people. Yes? It's usually been more in a sense of revelation, where somebody said something... Yes. Well, it's not my intention to, like, define what play is. I'd rather be playful than, you know, get play pinned down. Okay? So I don't want to, like, rigidly define what play is. And if you feel like something's not playful, fine. But again... Huh?

[76:24]

Yeah, playfulness itself is not the same as insight. Playfulness is just when you're relaxed and you start interacting with something. It can be playful when you're relaxed and not taking yourself seriously. You're not tense. You're not gripping. You're not tensing. You're basically flowing with the situation. You're interacting in a playful, unserious way. You're not trying to accomplish some rigidly established goal. You might have some goal in mind, but you're not taking it seriously. You say, okay, let's walk across the room now. But you're playful about it. And if you don't get the other side, you don't smash anybody for it. You know? And in that way of moving across the room, then, as you say, there's maybe a revelation of the creativity of the activity of walking across the room. When you have the revelation of creativity, you have wisdom. You have insight. It's actually happening all the time.

[77:39]

The reality of interdependence is going on all the time. It's just a question of our resisting it. We're usually resisting it because we're afraid to make mistakes or busy hiding our mistakes or trying to avoid mistakes. And being concerned with those things, we're tense, we're not playful. We miss creativity. It's right under our nose. We don't have to make creativity happen. We just need to awaken to it. It's the same. We don't have to make wisdom happen. We just need to awaken to it. It needs to be, just open our eyes and wake up to it. But sometimes it does help to demonstrate wisdom. And the way you demonstrate wisdom is to demonstrate playfulness, relaxation, and creativity. Then people can see wisdom demonstrated. And then if they're get with the rhythm of the presentation then they start to relax with it and then they open to it and then they see it and enter it but it's already going on creativity is our actual life the creative dorit is the real dorit the already created dorit is the illusory dorit and that dorit people try to protect and hold on to because they think it's i mean if there was an independent dorit we'd have to take care of it you know

[79:00]

We have to be very careful to keep it separate from all the other people, you know? Otherwise, it might get confused with them. We'd lose our independent . Right? I was wondering if children can sometimes share one inner reality. My daughter was six. My one-year-old son trained, sort of, he had a horse. He would go around with a horse and wouldn't talk. He would answer at school, laughing at the horses. But was he somehow able, because they were both children, to share her new reality or his new reality? I don't think there was some middle space to share the reality. I think that's more... I don't... I... To me, it doesn't make sense that you could share inner reality because your inner reality... The inner reality... Our inner reality is that we're independent.

[80:12]

So it doesn't make any sense that, you know, somebody else is independent. You're not concerned with somebody else as being independent. You're concerned with yourself being independent. You and the rest of the world. It's not... me in the rest of the world and her in the rest of the world. I think he maybe got in touch quickly with shared reality. That's what it seems to me. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Very bright little boy. Yes. ... ... You're taking singing lesson? Yes? When I was young, I had a very nice voice. Then I stopped singing, and my voice .

[81:17]

I thought that my voice would get out of me. I went to the speaker. And what is that unless I'm relaxed and thankful, it's a problem for you not to come out. This is what I thought again and again. Uh-huh. And also, the right kind of point doesn't come out. Okay. So I'd like to reward an incident that's difficult and not only for it, but because I think that when... Yeah, well, right. Yeah, it's a big part of voice lessons is to get people to relax their throat.

[82:30]

Like, one lesson I heard was, like, chew gum and then take the gum out of your mouth and keep chewing. When you're chewing, you can start to relax here. But most of us have some tension in here. There are various exercises to help us stop, you know, tensing here to let our voice out. Okay, whole body, yeah. Whole body. The greatest exercise is to get your whole body to open up so you can let your whole breath, your whole voice come out, you know. And playfulness would help. Right. Right. Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. Okay.

[83:31]

Thank you very much. Good night.

[83:34]

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