How many people weren't here last week? Raise your hands, please. Pardon? I'm asking myself if I was here. You are what we call a traditional Elena. Some other Elenas were here last week, but you're here this week. I think it might be good to do a little review, especially for the people who weren't here last week. So the title, I think the title of the series is Exploring Our Infinite Life.

[01:02]

But the title, as I mentioned last week, the title could also be Exploring Our Finite Life. So it's really exploring our finite life is the path to opening up to exploring our infinite life. And I also mentioned that I am a conversation I am a conversation between a finite life and an infinite life. I am both, I am a finite life and I am an infinite life and I'm not just those two things, I'm the conversation that they're having.

[02:15]

And I propose that everybody is like that. I said something like that last week, right? Yes. Do you remember something like that? Can you hear me, Linda? Why don't you come up if you can't hear? Well, do you mind coming up closer? Well, please. Yeah. I want you to hear something. And in solidarity with Linda, I'll put my hearing aid on. You attempted to give us some pictures, but you never got around to it. Yeah, I'm intending to do that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Right here.

[03:20]

Madam, please come closer. Can you hear me better up here? Yeah, great. All right, so another thing that happened last week, which not too many people know about, was at the end of the class someone came up to me and said something like, how does all this relate to sitting or does sitting relate to what I'm talking about? That's what I said when you were sitting. I'm suggesting that in stillness, when you're sitting, In that stillness, enlightenment is living. And enlightenment is a face-to-face conversation between you, the finite you and the infinite you.

[04:27]

That conversation is going on in stillness. So when we sit upright in stillness, we are being present with the presence of that conversation. Our sitting, which when you're like in this room, when we start sitting at about 7.30, we're sitting, our bodies are sitting together upright. That sitting is something which many of you may have been able to perceive. Did you perceive it? Did you perceive some other people sitting? This is a finite thing that we're aware of. this finite body sitting with other finite bodies. That's like the foreground. But in the background is this infinite face-to-face transmission.

[05:28]

and vice versa, when you're meeting with somebody, even like a teacher of the Buddha's teaching, when you're meeting a teacher, for example, and you feel like you're in a conversation with a teacher or with anybody, you feel like you're having an intimate, genuine conversation. This is the Buddha mind. and you're seeing, and you're perceiving it. You're perceiving the conversation and you're hearing the teaching that this conversation, these kinds of sincere, genuine conversations, this is the Buddha mind. And in the background of that conversation is an infinite sitting still. So sitting still and meeting in wholehearted conversation are foreground and background.

[06:45]

Yes? In enlightenment, is the infinite the foreground and the finite still there as the background? In enlightenment, they're pivoting. They're always pivoting. But for us sentient beings, we see foreground explicitly, or you could even say loudly, finitely, but we wouldn't be able to experience the finite explicit knowing without knowing the background. You can't know, like you can't know this shape of me or hear the sound of this voice without a background. But the background, the way you know the background is not the way you know the foreground. You do know the background, otherwise you wouldn't be able to know the foreground. But the background knowing is quiet and implicit.

[07:53]

like those pictures, you know, like the picture of the young old lady and the old lady. When you see the young lady, she's in the foreground, and you know her explicitly. Do you know, everybody know the young lady, old lady picture? You see explicitly the young lady, but you also know the old lady, because if you didn't know the old lady, you couldn't see the young lady. If you couldn't see the old lady, you wouldn't be able to see the young lady because they're pivoting. But the way you know the old lady when you know the young lady explicitly is implicitly. And then, as you know, you can blink and they switch. And now you know the old lady, which you knew before, but now you know the old lady explicitly. And now the young lady you know implicitly. The Buddha isn't one side of this. The Buddha is both and how they're working together.

[09:00]

But we are too. In that way, we're just like Buddhas. And Buddhas look at us and tell us that, that we're just like them. However, they also can tell us, but you don't believe it or you don't understand it. Shawn? I was thinking about one of the rock gardens, where the gravel, the white gravel, you're looking at the garden, and sometimes it seems that the rocks are what draws your attention, and sometimes it seems that the empty gravel is what is the primary, and the rocks are the secondary, and sometimes it seems that it goes back and forth between them, and that empty gravel gives you a sense of expansion. Yeah. So that's like kind of what's called an easy Zen lesson. Those rock gardeners are kind of like, I get it.

[10:03]

And then the Zen circles, right? It's easy to see the circle and then you kind of go, oh, I get it. There's space around it. and then you see the space and then suddenly, oh, the circle. So these are like nice Zen illustrations of this. And one other statement which some of you heard me say before is quoting an ancient teacher who says, from the first time you meet a master and then blah, blah, and then just wholeheartedly sit. and thus drop away body and mind, which means drop away all attachment to body and mind. In other words, usually I would think you meet the teacher and then you can wholeheartedly sit.

[11:09]

Well, that's true. But actually, from the time, at that time that you meet the teacher, you are wholeheartedly sitting. And you cannot wholeheartedly sit by yourself because you are a conversation. So when you're meeting the teacher, you are that conversation. And the meeting is like you meet the teacher, yes, and you meet genuinely, yes, and in genuine meeting, you realize that you are yourself and you are the teacher. That's the meeting. And the teacher realizes that she's herself and she's you. In that meeting you are wholeheartedly sitting.

[12:11]

And in that meeting your body and mind drop off. And we have to be really fully responsible to meet anybody in full responsibility. Not shirking my responsibility. One way to shirk my responsibility is to take too much responsibility. Like I've got my responsibility and I don't want it, so I take more. I don't want this responsibility, I want a bigger responsibility. That's shirking my responsibility. Another way is I've got this much responsibility and I take a smaller responsibility. That's shirking my responsibility. And I can't find my responsibility by myself because my responsibility is responding to the person I'm meeting. it's like a full-time job, I mean, or a full moment's job. So that's genuine meeting, genuine conversation, and that at the moment you do that, you're wholeheartedly sitting.

[13:23]

And when you're wholeheartedly sitting, it's not just you sitting, it's you sitting, yes, and you also not sitting, and you also being others sitting. All that's the sitting, and all that is. the sitting. So this is related to sitting. This discussion, face-to-face transmission is what the sitting really is. And what is face-to-face transmission? It's sitting. It's sitting. And sitting where? Here. It's like finding your place where you are. Rather than finding your place at the yoga room or at a Zen center.

[14:37]

Now, if you're at a Zen center, finding your place is to find your place at the Zen center rather than another Zen center or back at your house. But we have some, I don't know what the word, tendency-addiction to looking to find our place someplace else. So that makes it hard to find our place where we are because we keep going away from the place where our place is. So sitting is to find your place where you are. When you find your place where you are, the practice is happening. But you can't find your place where you are by yourself because you're not by yourself. So you find the place where you are in a conversation. Yes? Can you say more about responsibility? Yeah. I can, actually. And I'm doing it right now. I'm saying, yes, I can.

[15:39]

And that's more about it. And I'm doing it because you asked me. You called me to. So now I'm responding. This is a demonstration of responding and it's my responsibility to respond to you every time you ask me to say more about anything. So if you say, could you say less about responsibility? I could go, sure. And you say, that's too much. And I say, okay, that's too much too. That's just right. You know, so this is... I have this ability and so do you. You had the ability to ask me that question in response to me talking. I also said last week that I am a conversation. And part of that is I am calling to you. I am calling you. I am calling you.

[16:43]

All day long I'm calling you. And you are calling me. And when I call you, you respond. And when you call me, I respond. And it is my responsibility to respond to your call. And I do. But I have to accept that and say, yes, when Cynthia calls, I do respond. As a matter of fact, I respond at the very moment she calls. And her call is because I'm responding. And that is finding my place where I am. If I don't realize that where I am is a call, I haven't found my place. My place is calling to me too. My place is saying, honor me by being with me, okay? Honor me by sitting here with me. My place says that. My place in the universe said, would you please be at this place? And I said, yes. Like that story I often tell about a Zen master who woke up in the morning and he said, teacher, and he said, yes.

[17:53]

Are you awake? Yes. All day long. Don't let anybody fool you. I won't. Don't let anybody fool you means don't let anybody or anything make you think that you should be someplace other than where you are. I won't. And then also that story that Carlos Castaneda wrote in one of his novels, the first one, one of the first assignments that the teacher in the novel gave him was, find your place. So then that was like the assignment and the teacher, you know, walked off and then he went around looking for his place. He didn't just stand there and say, well, I found it. He got fooled. But even though you're fooled, you still are in your place.

[18:55]

And then if you are fooled and you go someplace else to find it, then you're there. Like one of the Zen cliches which you hear all over the country is, wherever you are, that's where you are. That's supposed to be Zen. It is. So then he looked for his place and then next morning he sees the teacher and the teacher said, did you find your place? And he said, no. He said, where did you fall asleep? Over behind that rock. He said, that's your place. When he stopped running around looking for his place someplace other than where he was, he found his place. And another thing about responsibility which I told you at the beginning of the last class, and I'll put it this way, it was kind of like when I found out how fragile I was, there was this little flavor of, I don't know if I can keep living.

[20:05]

And recently someone said to me, you know, I don't think I can go on living. And I said, you know, I feel that way sometimes. But then I remember that everybody else feels like that sometimes. So then I think, oh, okay. I'll keep living because everybody else is having a hard time too. If it's just for me, I don't know if I can keep doing this. It's not that much fun a lot of the time. But if it's for everybody else, no problem. then my little difficulty is, it's just my place. Okay, that's kind of a review. Is that enough review? You don't know. I don't know either. You don't know. What do you want? Well, I think you said also last week, there's no me without you.

[21:08]

You said various ways for a long time. And I wonder if you'd like to say a little more about that again and again and again. Well, there's what I am. What I am is me or a self. That's what I am. And I'm also others. And you're one of them. And I can't be me if you are not me. If you're there and you're not me, then I'm not me. I cannot be me without you and everybody else in this room and so on. Because that's what I am. I'm all of you and it's the same for you. So it's not only I can't be me without you, I can't be me without everything else also. Right. I include the whole universe, I am supported by the whole universe, and that's what I am, and I cannot be this if I were to leave out anything in the universe because I'm supported by everything and everybody.

[22:18]

And also, I wouldn't be me if I wasn't supporting everybody, which I am. I'm also included in everybody. And I warned you before, I'll do it again, when I feel like somebody is not included in me, then basically that sets up not just an aversion, but an obsessive aversion. And if I feel like I'm not included in somebody else, that sets up obsessive desire. So I watch out for that. And if I see that tendency that I'm not including somebody, I confess and repent it. Yes? So if the, you talked about the self-conscious being, like me or you, and the

[23:21]

the unconscious, the big forest around those little spots that we inhabit, those little clearings that we inhabit. So is the self-conscious self the finite self and the unconscious the infinite? Is that how those two things relate? Can we just hold your question in the air? Sure. And I'll go now to describe what you're talking about in detail. So what I promised to talk about, she's bringing it up, so before I get into answering her question, I'd like to tell the story inspired by D.H. Lawrence, saying, this is what I know about my conscious self.

[24:25]

It's like a clearing in a dark forest. And sometimes deities come out of the forest into the clearing and then they go back. So, and I thought of, I don't know if I mentioned it, but later I thought, oh, an example, this is also a review, which some of you have heard before anyway, who weren't here last week. An example of my clearing and a deity coming out of the dark forest into my clearing is the story I told you about being in DMV over and over. Have you heard that story, Alan? You have, haven't you? You heard it, right? So, anyway, just to make that long story short, in my clearing, in the clearing where I am, where I'm conscious and I live, and where there's others,

[25:37]

in the clearing where I'm a finite being, where like I was born. And then I've been changing for a while. But I'm a tradition in this clearing of a whole bunch of, you know, a whole bunch of rebs. Little tiny rebs and then growing up rebs and then pretty big rebs and then now shrinking rebs. I used to weigh about 200 pounds. So now it's like the rabbit grew bigger and bigger and bigger and now he's shrinking littler and littler. So that's the lineage that exists, there's a history of me and the universe in my clearing. Okay? And in that clearing I went to the DMV in a very short, in a month or so I went to the DMV three times. And part of the reason I went to the DMV was because the DMV didn't send me my renewed driver's license.

[26:49]

And then I was waiting for it and then they said I had to come in and get another one. And then some people in security at the airport lost my, took my driver's license from me and didn't give it back. So anyway, all that happened in a clearing where I lived, where I used to live. I'm still living in a clearing, but that clearing's gone. But in that clearing, I was going through these repeated visits to DMV. And so I was, I think it was the third time, I'm not sure, but I think it was the third visit. Somebody called out to me and said, Reb, And it was a person up ahead of me in line. And she gave up her place in line. Or she invited me to go join her in her place in line. I don't remember which. But anyway, I think she gave up her place and came to be with me

[27:51]

And she was very happy to see me and she said, how are you? And I said, great, but except I'm at the DMV. And she said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I've been here, this is the third time I've been here in, you know, a couple months because of these things. Thank you for looking so pained for me. And she said, you're here for us. And then I woke up. That I was... I found my place where I was and the practice occurred. So she was like a deity that came out of the forest. You know, here I was in this world and then there was one person in the world who came and told me this wonderful message. And then we talked a little while and we got our licenses and stuff and she went away.

[29:00]

Now she's back in the forest again. But things come out of the dark into our little world and they sometimes say to us, hello, guess what? You're here right where you are and right where you are is just where we want you and you're here for us. And she didn't say, so stop complaining. You're doing your job. But sometimes somebody has to come and tell us, you're doing your job. And then they go back. So here's the picture. It's this clearing in the dark forest. And sometimes when you're in the clearing and you think, maybe I shouldn't be here in this clearing because this is not fun, or this is a waste of time, or it's not fair that I'm in this line again, or whatever. You doubt that you should be here. So something divine comes and tells you, no, you're right where we want you.

[30:07]

You're here for us. The universe sends us a messenger. You're here for us. And that's a big us. I don't know what she meant. She might have meant everybody in DMV, but maybe she meant for everybody in the universe. And so when we think we're not in the right place, it's nice if somebody comes and says, thanks for being here for us. And I, by the way, am a messenger from everybody to you. So she, it was divine. And the function of it was to make me stop resisting being where I was. And so the practice happened. This is This is how we get help by the darkness that surrounds our little world. Okay? But then I elaborate the story more now. And D. H. Lawrence didn't say this, but I say this, given some Buddhist teachings in my background.

[31:09]

I told this story in Texas and after it was done, someone said, what's the sources for this teaching? In other words, did you make this up? And then I started to list the sources in Sanskrit. And then she said, that's enough. But anyway, if you want to know the sources, I can tell you and also wrote a book about it. Somebody wrote a book about it. That person's gone, wherever that was. So what I add to the picture is, yes, I'm living in a clearing in the middle of a dark forest, and I would say the dark forest is, you know, I would say vast. but the forest actually is dark so it's actually hard to measure how big it is so I say vast but actually it's more like an induction for me to say it's vast because I happen to know that there's a lot of stuff in that forest which makes it really big but immeasurably big you could say infinite and in the forest are a whole bunch of other clearings and when I say a whole bunch I mean

[32:30]

Again, nobody can count the clearings. So I'm in a clearing and I have pictures of you in my clearing, but also I have an understanding that you are all living in your own clearing. And between us is a dark forest. And I don't know how many light years there are between me and you, actually. So you appear in my little, all of you are in my clearing, and also I understand that each of you have your own clearing with all of us in your clearing, and each one of us is surrounded by a vast darkness, which is not a clearing, where there's nobody there. There's no self there. But it's a mind. This forest is a mind. So again, the first class I said one kind of mind is this little clearing forest, clearing in the forest mind, where I am.

[33:35]

Another kind of mind is the unconscious cognitive processes which we share and don't share. So the unconscious cognitive processes are a mind also. That's the second kind of mind. and that mind has two parts in a way, the shared part and the unshared part. And then there's a third type of mind which is the realization of all of the clearings and the entire forest and the conversation between the forest and the clearings and the conversation between the clearings. So all the clearings are interpenetrating each other and all the clearings are interpenetrating the forest and the forest is interpenetrating all the clearings. The forest and the clearings are conversing and also the consciousnesses where there's a self are conversing. So in my consciousness you are here with me and I'm talking to you but the you that's appearing in my consciousness is a picture of you, it's not you.

[34:46]

And I'm talking to you and somehow this talk in this little clearing penetrates the vast unconscious surround of my consciousness and it changes the forest. So when I say something, my unconscious processes are simultaneously transformed. If I say, I really want to be your friend, right now I said that, that transforms my unconscious cognitive process and it changes your unconscious cognitive process and it changes your conscious process. Yes? You forgot to tell that you're there and you're clearing to hold up the universe together. Thank you. I'm here in this clearing to hold up the universe together. Yes, right. That's right. Yes, yes.

[35:49]

And my holding up the universe is possible because the universe holds me up. I can hold the universe up because all of you clearings, all of you who are in clearings and your clearings, yourself and the world yourself lives in, that world and you support me to support you. And my forest is your forest and also part of my forest is not your forest. And I'll go into that more in detail too. And the actual conversation is the third type of mind which I call basically Buddha mind or the Buddha mind seal or perfect wisdom is that conversation. I said that almost like the biggest joke I could have ever said in my whole life.

[36:54]

Yeah. However... It could only be true. And the people have not yet laughed at your joke. Why have they laughed at my joke? I don't know. Can't hear us laughing? Now I can. But it is a joke. It is a joke and you are the setup which makes the joke funny. Do you get it? Pretty good. Also, I want to mention that Mr. Sigmund Freud, I think, said a related and made a related comment. Again, I think he said it in German, so this is an English translation. D.H. Lawrence spoke it in English. He said this in English, so I didn't have to translate it.

[37:56]

Freud said it in German, probably. I think he said something like, human beings are powerful, isolated, fantasy machines. Okay? And so again, I would comment on that and say, yes, Bill? Okay, so I would comment on this saying, yes, human beings are powerful fantasizing machines. Yes, definitely. I'm a human being and part of my mind is conscious and part of my mind is unconscious and my unconscious mind supports my conscious mind to fantasize. I wouldn't be able to fantasize if I didn't have this amazing

[38:58]

unconscious cognitive process, which has more or less infinite images and image-making power. There are images in the unconscious, but there's no self there. And this unconscious process sets up consciousness and feeds and supports consciousness. And in consciousness these images come up that aren't made by the consciousness, but they appear in the consciousness. And that process is a very powerful fantasizing process. And it's powerful in the sense that you can't stop it, really. And if you try to stop it, that's another fantasy. And if you think you've failed, it's another fantasy. If you think you've succeeded, it's a fantasy. But it's powerful. And it's powerful because, you know, human beings are powerful. And one of the most powerful things about them is this clearing where they speak language and they make all kinds of discoveries.

[40:04]

It's an amazingly powerful system. But the part I disagree with is that these machines are isolated. In these clearings, these machines fantasize that they are isolated. Did you hear that, Justin? Yeah. So I had a fantasy that since he was sneezing right as I said that, he might not have heard it. So it's very powerful that I can fantasize. And maybe I actually... He agrees. He didn't hear it. What I said was that these fantasizing units... They fantasize that they're isolated, and they're not. They can also fantasize that they're not isolated, but they usually fantasize that they're isolated. That's very common, and that's our anxiety, is that we fantasize that we're isolated, alienated, separate.

[41:13]

And the teaching here in this class is let's explore this fantasy of isolation and anxiety with compassion and then we will be exploring our finite life and we will open unto our infinite life where we're not separated and we don't have beginnings and ends, etc. And again, now I have these questions and I want to call on you. I want to tell you I haven't yet gone into the forest and told you what's going on there in the darkness. But I'll tell you about the darkness later after all these questions which may take the rest of the class. So then I'll do it next week, okay? Yes. Okay, we want to go back to Kim. Kim, then Linda, then Katie. So Kim's question was, is the unconscious forest, is the unconscious cognitive process of the forest, is that the infinite life?

[42:20]

It's infinite. It is infinite, I think, as far as I can tell. There's no way to put a boundary on it. But the infinity is more than even the dark forest. What else is going on in our life besides the dark forest, which is infinite? You talked about the Buddha mind that understands both. That would be also more than the forest, wouldn't it? Not more, it would be bigger in a way. Because the understanding of both is understanding not just the forest, but all the clearings. So our infinite life is not just the unconscious cognitive process, which there's no way to put a boundary on it except in clearings. The infinity is also, so that's one infinity, is this thing that includes infinite clearings

[43:25]

But there's another bigger infinity, which is the relationship between the infinite clearings and the forest. That's a bigger infinity. And then another bigger infinity is the relationship between all the clearings. So there's different size infinities, right? There's this one, which there's no way to put a boundary on it. And then you can make a bigger one by pointing out that there's a relationship between this thing that's infinite and all the infinite clearings and also between the clearings. And all that is the Buddha mind, which is our infinite life. So our infinite life isn't just all of us. it isn't just all of us, but our infinite life is that you include all the clearings and you're included in all the clearings and you include and are supported by the entire force and everybody else is too. All that and realizing that is our infinite life.

[44:29]

In which our finite life you know, seems to come up go on for a while and stop. come up for a while, go on for a while and stop. That's our finite life. So like I, when I had the operation on my body not too long ago, I, my finite life, I knew, I accepted my, that with chemicals, my finite life would be turned off. My finite life ended. It was turned off. The thing that makes it finite was turned off. My consciousness was turned off. I was still alive. My life didn't end, but my finite life actually ended. There was no finite life. And it wasn't like going to sleep. find that life changing and going through those old things. It was like, boom, find that life turned off.

[45:31]

And then when I came back, find that life turned on. But I was alive the whole time. My infinite life didn't get dented or squished or anything. I didn't have a slightly smaller infinite life. I had my infinite life, my infinite life, my infinite life. But there was no world and there was no me And it was just like off and then on. And then when it was on, it wasn't like, oh, I woke up. It was like, oh, a world. Just a world. Not like, well, maybe this one, maybe that one. When I usually wake up from sleeping, it's like, well, maybe I'm in Green Gulch. Maybe I'm in Berkeley. Maybe I'm in Spain. Maybe I'm in Mexico. And that's all going on sort of before I really wake up. And then after I wake up a little while, too. That's what it, because my finite life was not turned off, it didn't go from off to on.

[46:31]

And usually you don't go from deep dreamless sleep to boom, full wakefulness. It's a gradual thing, but under anesthetic you go from, it kind of goes boom. And also in certain meditation states, when you go into them you think it's ten to nine and then you're in them maybe for many hours or even up maybe a week and when you come out you think it's ten, you know, nine minutes and fifty-six seconds to nine. It seems like just like boom, boom. But it's not. It's like, boom, that's gone. And then your life, you know, the forest is bubbling away and all this, your body is like doing all this stuff and relating to everybody else. But it's not producing a consciousness with you in it. But it's supporting everybody else to go on with the doctors and the nurses.

[47:34]

You're supporting all that. You know, you're supporting a huge life all around you and you're not there. but you're alive. And then it comes back, and then we have to go to work again. So did I answer your question? What do you think? I did answer, but not very well. No, you did answer it very well. Pardon? You did answer it very well. Oh, great. So when this self-consciousness dies, and it's not like the world doesn't end, and obviously the world doesn't end, the forest still goes on, and I'm still part of, or some, I don't know, am I still part of the forest? When you said that you had said it. I think there is a like, the I part of the story It's over.

[48:40]

There's no more I part of the story. Just like the person you were yesterday is over. However, the person you were yesterday is in the forest. Well, the forest is changing every moment, and the consequence of who you were yesterday is part of the reason the forest is the way it is today. So at some point, The consciousness where Reb lives is going to get, you know, Reb's body is going to get smaller and his consciousness is going to get smaller and at some point his consciousness is going to be really tiny, not even any room for a world in it, and then it's going to stop. It's not going to appear again with Reb in it. However, my infinite life isn't diminished in the slightest when my finite life no longer reproduces, when the forest no longer makes the consciousness where Reb lives.

[49:51]

That will stop someday, soon. But the infinite life is just continually changing with the universe, as the universe. And there might be another life specifically related to this one, to this finite one. There might be another finite one. And when I get into the discussion of the forest, I will propose some possible stories about how that all goes on. the continual process of the forest producing clearings. Okay? So I think now, I don't know if you were, which one of you were first? Does it matter? Was it Katie and Linda? That's Katie. Okay, Katie. about the relationship between language and the conscious mind and language and the unconscious mind.

[51:01]

You talked a little bit about that. Okay, I'll try to say a little bit about it. Yes. The question was, can I say something about the relationship between language in the conscious mind and language in the unconscious mind? I can say a little bit about that and I could also say a lot about it. But I'll start with a little and see how that goes. Even that was quite a bit. The medium of exchange in the clearings for humans, is language. The clearing is language. It's got all these linguistic models of the universe in there. So language is what is... Everything in the little clearing is interpreted and twisted and confined by language. The clearing is confined and in the clearing there's all these other confiners, all the little words.

[52:05]

So that's language land, linguistic model land, okay? However, you wouldn't be able to use language if there wasn't the unconscious cognitive process. So when you're a baby you have, because of your unconscious cognitive process, you have a natural kind of a readiness to get into language. And actually you go... So you're getting ready to, you know... And then you're starting to listen to... People are talking to you and they're going... And you're starting to hear and make the sounds. And every time you make a sound, it transforms your unconscious process. And every time you hear something, like tonight, you're hearing me talk, I'm hearing you talk.

[53:08]

When I hear you talk, that changes my body. Your words appear in my consciousness and that activity of the appearance of your words in my consciousness transforms the unconscious. The shared and the unshared are transformed every time I hear a word which you give me or that I say. And then that unconscious cognitive process supports me to be able to hear words and understand them. And so you watch the baby and they start practicing talking and they get feedback on their talk. And every time that happens their unconscious process changes. And when the unconscious process changes, their body changes. because the unconscious process is closely related to the body.

[54:10]

And the unconscious cognitive process is full of images of the body. So if you look at the body where the nervous system is, you can see pictures of the body, physical pictures of the body. But the pictures of the body are different than some other parts of the body which aren't pictures of the body. And the pictures of the body become a mind. And those pictures get transformed when consciousness hears words and starts playing with them. And so after a while the child, their unconscious has been changed, their nerves have been changed, the fluid in their brain has been changed by this language exercise that they're learning to do in consciousness. But they can't do it without the support of the unconscious. and they gradually get more and more support for the unconscious which means their body supports the language and the unconscious supports the language so then they can speak English but when I speak English, I'm not only speaking English but I'm moving my lips and my tongue and my teeth and my jaw and my neck and I could never consciously put that all together I can't do this consciously and also my hands are moving and the way they're moving I cannot do but

[55:32]

all this magical movement, so complicated, more complicated than a conscious mind could operate, is operated by the body and the unconscious. So there's not language in the unconscious, but the support of linguistic activity, the unconscious makes the body speak. And the consciousness can watch and say, oh, English is being spoken. And when you learn a foreign language, you can suddenly see, oh my God, Japanese is being spoken. And you see that you didn't even, I didn't even try to say it, and suddenly there's Japanese happening, and I said it. But that's because I practiced saying over and over, no lo kawaita. I practiced that and practiced that consciously and my unconscious and my body got changed. So then it starts putting Japanese up in my head without me even asking for it.

[56:39]

And the same with English. That English for most of you now is coming up all the time. And for some of you Spanish and Japanese and so on is coming up in your mind. But the conscious mind is not operating the language thing that's going on. However, although it's not operating it, everything that happens in consciousness transforms the unconscious. So if you go away and live in Japan for a long time and don't hang out with, you know, just don't speak English to people, your body will change because you're consciously doing that English thing which transforms your unconscious and transform your body. So your body will change and you won't be able to speak English like you do when you speak it every day, you'll get rusty. And also when you get old, your body changes as you age. When you get old, it changes from not being able to speak to being able to speak really well. And when you're a teenager or in your twenties, you can speak really fast.

[57:41]

Your body can move your tongue and lips and so on really fast. And then as you get older, your body changes and you can't speak so fast anymore. Or you can speak fast, but you make all kinds of mistakes and your tongue can't keep up with your mind, so you have slurred speech. But you can sometimes notice, oh, my speech is getting slurred. I'm starting to sound like an old person. But other people can tell you too. Anyway, this is your body changing. And when your body changes, your unconscious changes, and so your conscious changes. And language is one of the main places where we notice that our body's changing and that our unconscious is changing. And in unconsciousness we can't remember the names for things or the names for people. We can see that, oh, there's a person, and what's the name? I used to know it. I know I know you.

[58:45]

I know I like you. I wonder what your name is. That's because my body has changed. The consciousness can't stop the body from changing. However, the consciousness does change the body. But the body is changed by other things, too, because the body is in the forest. And there's a thing in the forest called, I don't know what, they're not going to let any of these bodies go on forever. which, again, I haven't got into what the bodies are. Yes? Oh, excuse me. You're next. Okay, next. Okay? Yes? Yeah, I'm thinking I should just listen in some more, but I'm having a little trouble with the dark forest and the light in the consciousness, the clearing. Yes. And I guess, you know, when you were talking about fantasies, I wanted to say, well, the forest and the clearing are fantasies.

[59:46]

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, no forest. And why is it dark? Oh, it's dark in the sense that consciousness is a clearing where there's light. There's light in the consciousness. There's a deep consciousness in the forest, too. Well, it's a deep mind, but there's no objects in it. In the unconscious, there are these images which support the appearance of fantasies, but that mind can use images to operate the body when the consciousness is turned off. You can be unconscious, And that unconscious process can still do a lot of work for you. It can even, well, people sleepwalk, right? So you can walk up and down stairs without consciously being aware that you're walking up and down stairs. And I would say that when you do walk up and down stairs, it's not your consciousness that orchestrates that incredibly complex activity.

[60:52]

And again, I'm just coming out of the phase of watching this little girl learn how to walk up and down stairs. It is so complicated. And she learned it, but she didn't learn it consciously, but she knew she was walking up and down the stairs, but she was not consciously But her body learned that and the unconscious cognitive processes orchestrate these incredibly complex movements like this. All these fingers moving like that. I cannot, I'm not doing this consciously. I'm watching it in consciousness, but it's operated by a vast and wonderful unconscious cognitive process which uses images to do this, but there's nobody there. So in that sense, the light of consciousness, which is our problem, is not in the unconscious. But the unconscious also shares the problems of the conscious because the conscious keeps transforming the unconscious. So we're having a conversation to learn about what the mind is

[61:58]

And so we have these three kinds of mind we're trying to learn about. We're exploring the finite and infinite. This is what we're doing. And we're using imagery, which are in the clearing, we're using images to learn how to deal with the images in such a way as to open to the visitation of innumerable deities. and make peace with the unconscious vastness that we are and realize that everybody else is who we are. But we're not going to realize that. I feel like it was kind of lighter in the vastness, darker over here, where we think we know everything. It's worse. The clearing where there's light is diluted. It's delusion land. Yeah. You could say it's dark. Yeah, go ahead. Yes.

[63:01]

Well, I kind of tuned out when you were giving the long answer about language, which you said would be a short answer. But I was trying, because I immediately, you said the means of exchange and the clearing is language, and I was immediately kind of disputing that in my thoughts. Linguistically, you were disputing it. Well, I was, but not entirely. So let me tell you how, though. I was thinking, okay, like, there's an artist. The means of exchange would be visual images. Yes. And that would, you know, we would just look at those visual images and something would be exchanged. Yes. Or then the next example, I thought it was the oppressor and the oppressed and maybe the means of Exchange would be like physical punishment, torture, and that would be it. So, it isn't all language, is what I wanted to say. It isn't all language. I'm not saying it is all language, I'm just saying that in consciousness we squash it into language, but it's not really language.

[64:10]

And you're saying we don't squash it into language. We don't necessarily squash it into... I mean, we do stuff with it. I would say if we don't squash it into language, then it has no meaning. You don't think a painting has meaning? Not without putting it in language. Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So I would go along halfway with Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan. Ann Sullivan is a teacher of Helen Keller. So Helen Keller couldn't see or hear. And so she could, I guess, touch and smell and so on. But her insight, which woke her up, was when her teacher, I think, put her hand in, she was filling water, and she taught her that the meaning of this artwork called water, which we call water, was the word water.

[65:21]

That's a very special example. I don't know whether it matters who's right about this, but most artists would say that to understand a work of art is not necessary to reduce it to language. But to understand a work of art is also not necessarily to reduce it to meaning. Oh, so meaning is language. Yeah. That's why most people have a hard time confronting something without getting some meaning out of it. And the thing doesn't actually come with meaning. So linguistic meaning is meaning. We use language to get meaning out of stuff. And I just recently learned that the root of the word technique is to pull out pull something out of nature. So language is like a technique to pull meaning out of things.

[66:25]

So the way you actually are doesn't have meaning for me. So then I project something on you so I can put a word on you and then I can get this meaning out of you. But I take you to be not what you are, but what I used to get meaning in my relationship with you, which is words. And in order to put the words, I have to project on you a landing surface for the words. And that's my fantasy process. And the powerfulness of the fantasy process is you get meaning out of it. And now we're in a position, most of us, where we have a little difficulty not even walking around, but even sitting still and taking a break from meaning. So Ann Sullivan said to Helen Keller, the meaning of this is the word water.

[67:36]

But then she said something that I don't agree with. And she said, the meaning of the word water is this. I don't agree with that. The meaning of... Helen Keller couldn't hear. I was saying that to her. By touching her. Okay, I see what you're saying. Somehow, this massage she was doing with her, she got the message that... She touched her... This feeling was this feeling. But then she did it the other way around. She said, this is this. That's not true. So the meaning of you, one of the meanings of you, is Linda. That's how I get meaning out of you. But you don't come as meaningful to me.

[68:37]

And so maybe I can't stand that, and I say Linda, and suddenly I have meaning. But the meaning of the word Linda is not you. As a teacher, do you deal in non-language? Is that the real way to meet somebody? As a human, I meet people through this language realm. My clearing pervades you and pervades everybody. And you pervade my clearing. And in my clearing, And you lost? Are you lost now? No. I was imagining that if our clearings were, at least it's just an image, but if they're intersecting, you know, that's another word, then we would probably communicate.

[69:38]

We might use language, but in a tricky way, like poets or something. When I go like this and I make a gesture, in my mind, if this gesture turns into meaningful things for me, it becomes so by language. If I do it like this and you see it and it becomes meaningful to you, it becomes meaningful by language. However, we can have this unmeaningfully also, and we do. We have an unmeaningful communication. It's cool, right? Cool? It's totally cool. It's totally cool. How my linguistic consciousness pervades yours is not something that I have meaning for. The meaning I get out of that is not how it's happening. And also, when we're meeting, it's not just our consciousnesses that are meeting.

[70:44]

Our unconsciousnesses are also shared and meeting. Except they're not really meeting, they're shared. We're living together unconsciously. And that's part of our life together, is that we share an unconscious cognitive process. And if you want to, I'll go into more detail about that next time. But to finish that story quickly, I disagreed with her. I don't know if she actually said this, but this is what I saw in the movie. She said, the meaning of this is water and the meaning of water is this. The meaning of the word water is this. I say, yes, the meaning of this is a word. I agree with that. The meaning of everything is that you project something on it to make it to confine it so you can put a word on it. People are actually infinite. And infinity doesn't have a meaning. And we have trouble with that. So we squish infinity into little packages and then we put words on them and we get meaning.

[71:51]

And we're sorry we lost infinity, but we got meaning. But the other way around is not the story. In other words, the word water is not the meaning of water. The meaning of the word water is not the water. The meaning of the word water is other words. And we're over time, and this is exploring the finite and the infinite. And yeah, thank you so much.

[72:25]

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