I had a title in mind for this morning's talk, which I thought sounded pretty good. So I thought I'd tell you. Anxiety and Art. An artist told me once that most people, or a lot of people, think that if you could understand, then you would be able to create. But he felt it was the other way around, that if you can create, you could understand.

[01:10]

And I think today, as I mention this, that maybe those are complementary paths, that maybe for some people understanding of how things are comes first, and then realization of full creative possibility is realized. And for other people, realizing full creative potential is realized, and then they understand how things are. So in some sense, you could say that the traditional, formal teaching of Buddhist meditation might seem more like understand how things are and you will be able to enter into creation and art.

[02:37]

And your art, the art that is expressed from your life when you understand, will be an art that benefits all beings. But in actual, the actual life of practitioners in America today, I feel that The strict following of the traditional meditation form actually doesn't work for people if it's exclusive of an ongoing artistic, more artistic mode of practice, going along with it.

[03:43]

This view that I have makes the practice more complex. What I'd like to do today, if possible, is walk through the landscape of the traditional meditation practice, or one story of the traditional meditation practice, which starts from wherever we are and takes us to a vision of the way things really are and the full artistic expression of enlightenment, and then go back through it and talk about how the more artistic mode might be woven into the formal meditation practice as we go along.

[05:05]

And that seems like a lot to do in a limited period of time this morning, but I'm going to try. Let's see what happens now. So there was, you know, there was this... event that we say happened thousands of years ago where a person had this great awakening and he saw that all living beings fully possess the enlightened nature. And he was very happy about this. And when people saw how happy he was and asked him what happened, he said that he woke up to this vision and that he was now a Buddha.

[06:29]

And he taught them about how he proceeded to awakened to this vision. And some of them learned it and saw the same thing. And therefore, this practice has been transmitted for 2,500 years. Although the Buddha saw that everybody was fully in possession of an awakened nature, the Buddha also saw that because of certain beliefs and attachments that humans have, the eye which sees this enlightened nature is closed. The Buddha eye is closed to itself. Our own enlightened eye can't see our true and incredibly wonderful nature because it's closed.

[07:40]

It's closed by certain views which we adhere to, which we believe are true. And the main view is we believe in an independent self. a limited self, which we take as substantial. Because of that belief, our eye starts to close to the vision of the interdependent Buddha self. Not only that, but fortunately or unfortunately, all around this belief arise many afflictions. So not only do we close to the vision of our interdependence and our all-pervasive Buddha nature, but that closing down in vision also gives rise to pain and anxiety and all kinds of selfish impulses.

[08:58]

So the Buddha and those who wish to realize Buddhahood dedicate their lives to realizing, to opening the eye again, to opening the eye and realizing the interdependence of all beings. Bodhisattva's vow to help all beings realize the interdependence of self and other. And in Zen we have a way to realize this, which is to, you know, sit upright, be upright,

[10:14]

And by being upright in the midst of our moment-by-moment experience, we enter into the awareness of interdependence. We enter into the awareness which fulfills and completes our limited view of ourself. We enter into an awareness by which we move from believing in an independent self to forgetting about that independent self and seeing the interdependent self and not even believing in that but just realizing it. Okay? So that's it pretty simply. And then In a little bit more detail, what that involves is that we slow down, in a sense, or stop

[11:26]

in the moment and be present with whatever experience is arising now. And to simply be present in the fullness of what being present means with first of all our experience of the body. For most of us, that's the easiest thing to notice first, is a body, bodily experience. I know some people, several people are scratching their eye and rubbing their hair and touching their cheek. So you start to notice that you're touching your face when you touch your face and you feel the temperature of your hand on your cheek.

[12:43]

You become a breast of your breast. You become a breast of your body. You come up and be present right now with your bodily experience. You become mindful of your body, of your bodily experience. You become mindful of colors and sounds and tangibles or touches and tastes and smells. You inhabit the body, inhabit hearing, inhabit seeing. Inhabit the body that's touching the earth.

[14:09]

inhabit the body that's dealing with gravity. Are you aware of this body that's dealing with gravity now? There is one. I mean, there is this dealing with gravity. The next thing to be mindful of is feeling, our feelings. And by feelings I mean feelings of pain and pleasure and neutral feelings, to feel them, to be mindful of them, to feel them. And feeling pain is hard for us to be settled with, but it doesn't mean it's impossible.

[15:41]

We can feel the pain that we're experiencing. And as we start to feel pain, are aware of pain, are mindful of pain, we need to practice patience. in order to be fully settled and calm in the middle of our pain, in the middle of our anxiety, in the middle of our restlessness and discomfort and so on. If we can practice patience with our feelings, This gives rise, this releases lots of energy and gives us enthusiasm to continue on this rather challenging path of being present with our experience.

[16:46]

If we can be present and patient with our feelings, with the afflictions that arise from just having a body and also with the afflictions and pains which arise with our belief in our independence, with the anxiety that naturally arises with our belief that we're separate. If we can be patient with this pain, we can see then more subtle forms of experience and we can start to be mindful of and notice the somewhat general qualities of our consciousness. For example, that our consciousness is clouded or clear and that we have anxiety and what the quality of our anxiety is, or perhaps that we have fear, perhaps that we're somewhat agitated still, even though we're somewhat settled with our pain, there may still be some agitation, or perhaps we're rather calm.

[18:11]

Anyway, we can notice the quality of our consciousness fairly well if we can feel our pain. If we can't feel our pain, then our wiggling and restlessness around our pain makes it very difficult for us to see the more subtle aspects of our experience. On the other hand, if we can settle with our pain and be still in the middle of our pain with the practice of patience and feel the energy and enthusiasm that arises spontaneously with that successful patience, then we naturally start to notice the quality of our consciousness. And if we can then stay present with that mindfulness, then we see even more subtle aspects of our consciousness, and we start to notice

[19:17]

also the relationship between the self, which we believe in, or we start to notice the relationship between our belief in self and certain other phenomena. We start to notice the relationship between our belief in self and our lack of appreciation of our interdependence. We start to notice the relationship between our belief in ourself and certain actions which we undertake. We start to notice that we do actually see the world and our life as a place where we take action independently. We start to notice the nature of our so-called karmic activity, we start to see how this way of understanding the world causes pain and disturbance and regret.

[20:32]

Continuing to practice patience now with this vision, because this is a new level of obnoxiousness, we settle down in this awareness. And again settling down, again we get more information about the interrelatedness of our vision of our self and certain problems in our life. Little by little we start to understand more and more of the conditions in creating this vision of a separate self and our problems. we also get more and more sense of how this sense of self is created. We start to see again the creation of the self. We start to see how the self is created. And as we start to see the creation of the self, we understand the self.

[21:41]

We understand that the self is not independent. we start to see the interdependent self. We start to see the self dependently co-arising. And when we start to see the self dependently co-arising and stay, again, present with the pain of all this, we start to see the light of the Dependently Co-Arising Self. We start to see the light which releases us from this belief that we're separate. Our Buddha eye gradually starts to open. We start to see that all living beings are interdependent, are Buddha. We forget about the small self. We don't deny it. We just let go of it and let it be something which is just conjured up through various conditions.

[22:50]

The anxiety drops away, the pain drops away, and now we are fully able to help others realize this vision. So perhaps you can see there that at the end of this formal meditation path, you come to actually witness creation and understand. And understanding the creation of your limited ideas is the same as understanding their vanity and insubstantiality and being released and the eyes opening. So that's the formal path, in a sense, with not much mention of art. Did you understand that? Now I'd like to go through it and more point out the artistic aspect of it, which I think

[24:10]

I don't know if it was always part of the Buddhist path, but I think maybe it was. But I proposed to you that maybe the artistic aspect of it is esoteric, and the formal aspect, which I just told you about, is exoteric. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that the artistic aspect requires more supervision. and is more dangerous. In the path I just described, having a teacher is certainly helpful and necessary, but in including the more artistic aspects, the teacher's presence is, I think, more crucial in a way. So let me say that from the beginning of this path where you have a person who believes that he is separate from other people and has independent existence and can do things on his own, this person is a person who has what we call karmic consciousness.

[25:34]

Karmic consciousness is they think they're independent of other beings and that they can do things by themselves, by their own power. the mind of karma. The mind which has a will and the definition of action is our will in a given moment. The will and the idea that there's a person who can fulfill this will or execute this will. So from the beginning of this path, you already, before you even start to do this meditation practice, you probably already have a person here who's fully equipped to create trouble for himself, for himself and for others, and he has a self which can be the recipient of this

[26:37]

deluded activity and which is, in a sense, part and parcel of the deluded activity. Belief in the self is the source of the delusion, or is the delusion, and then the self gets to be the recipient of the actions based on the delusion. Source and recipient of deluded activity, this individual self, which has individual power. But this self, if it's aware of suffering, may be willing to enter the Buddhist path, hearing that the Buddhist path is for people who believe in their independent existence and have noticed that their problems have something to do with that belief. So when you first start doing the practice, right along with this, every step of the way, is this ongoing belief in independence. You hear, that the Buddha has a vision of interdependence and that that is a path of peace and freedom for all beings, that vision.

[27:42]

But you to some extent realize that you don't believe that. It sounds good, and the behavior of some people who have been studying this way looks good, but you actually don't, actually deep down you do not believe the Buddha's teaching of interdependence. But deep down, you do believe in your independence. You really do believe that. And when push comes to shove, that's where we hold on, usually. And even if we don't, lurking in the background is that belief. So part of what I'm proposing to you as we go through this cycle of practice is that I think my experience is that we need to own up to the fact that we don't believe the teaching that we're trying to practice.

[28:55]

And while practicing mindfulness of body, and feelings and qualities of consciousness and more subtle qualities of consciousness in the interdependent relationships around the self that we ongoingly take responsibility for our belief in our independence and for our actions which we are conducting under this delusion. So it's almost like, it's not exactly two tracks, but more like a cord or a cable that has these different threads in it. One thread is the thread of trying to practice, trying to do what has been recommended by the ancestors in the tradition. The other thread is an ongoing selfish thread, a thread of selfishness. and that thread's really strong.

[30:06]

And the other thread, the wonderful thread of enlightenment that we're trying to develop here and carry on, is really just a little baby thread that can be snapped and lost every moment. The other one, though, is not going to snap and get lost. Don't worry. It's been going on for a long time, and now we're trying to weave around it and to coat it and thread it through with this mindfulness. So part of it is just mindfulness of pain and pleasure and body and consciousness qualities and so on. But another part of this mindfulness is mindfulness of the diluted activities which we are perpetrating right along in the midst of the practice. Because we still believe in our independence even though we're entering into a program which is going to gradually free us from this belief. In the meantime, we're continuing to believe it and doing all these things based on that belief.

[31:11]

My experience in practice is that if you just try to do the practice without simultaneously admitting that you're doing all this karma, that's not really So the practice is not just mindfulness mindful of the experiences, but also mindfulness of our delusions and our actions based on these delusions. So right along the way with what I just described as the path is a simultaneous path of constantly being responsible for our karma, which is constantly generating new problems for us. So while we're developing this good path, of mindfulness and awareness and study and understanding, we're also building up more hindrance. We've already got a huge mound of hindrance developed from past karma which was done with or without awareness.

[32:18]

Now we're building this new pile, this new mound, based on our current karma, which is increasing the old mound, and now we're trying to develop this new path of goodness based on mindfulness of what we're doing. But there's one kind of like, in some sense, happy thing is that if you are mindful of your deluded activity, the mindfulness of your deluded activity is not deluded. Awareness of karma is not karma. Awareness of what you do based on your selfish view of the world, awareness of that process, that awareness is not selfish. Now, of course, you can make it selfish by saying, well, I'm doing this and this is going to help me. But just the pure awareness of all the selfish activity, that awareness is not selfish.

[33:21]

And particularly when that awareness is full and wholehearted, it is selfless. The awareness of selfish activity is selfless. The awareness of body, feelings, and consciousness, those awarenesses which are excellent methods for understanding, finally, our selflessness, Those methods can all and will usually all be contaminated by selfish motivation. So we'll be practicing these mindfulnesses, but for our own benefit, to help this person who exists independently. That may be unavoidable, that we're always trying to do everything for this independently existing thing. But again, if you can keep track of the fact that you're operating in this way, that awareness itself is not selfish. That is beyond karma.

[34:25]

And in a sense, that awareness of our defiled, deluded, selfish karmic activity is selfless and beyond karma, and is in a sense enlightenment already. But it isn't just that we're aware of our deluded activity and our ideas that we can act independently and our selfish concerns. It isn't just that we're aware of those. We're also aware of things which aren't really karmic, which are just experience. Pain is not karmic activity. Pain is the result of our karmic activity. It arises with our karmic activity, but the pain itself is not karma.

[35:29]

The pain is not diluted activity. It's simply experience. So we need to do both. We need to admit our activity and fully experience our experience. We need to fully experience our pain, just plain experience it, and also keep track of the busy, selfish person who is here. And if there's any selfishness in the awareness of our pain, if there's any selfishness in our practice of patience, we admit that selfishness. We observe that selfishness. We say, yes, that was me. I take responsibility for that karma. Although that gaining motivation associated with these mindfulness practices defiles them, The admission of that defiled motivation purifies it. This is hard work, though, as you can see, because it's hard to stay present with your pain in the first place, to really be settled with your pain.

[36:43]

It's hard even to fully experience pleasure. And part of the problem with pleasure is we don't fully experience pleasure because we're trying to get something out of it and we feel pain at our trying to get something out of the pleasure. So pleasure is a very complex experience for us too and hard for us to really settle into the total dynamic of feeling pleasure and also being selfish about it and the pain that arises from that mess. To stay present with pleasure and its concomitant defilements from our selfish motivation and pain in its concomitant selfishness of trying to avoid it and eliminate it and neutral sensation with its concomitant confusion and ambivalence, all that is hard to stay present with. That's hard work. But with patience and understanding of its importance, it is absolutely essential that we do that. One can do it. One can practice it. Then on top of that, we need to be vigilant of the selfish and defiling ways in which we do that difficult practice.

[37:53]

That also can be done. If we can do both of those, the practice is moving forward. Now, in addition to, this is part of the art side of it, in addition to what I've said so far, I also recommend, and I'm finding very useful, to encourage people to fully express, to get the selfishness out in the room. Because still, you know, people say, yeah, I see that, I see, yeah, I see, you know, here I am trying to do this meditation practice. I'm trying to be mindful of my experience. I'm trying to be present. And now I've noticed that actually I'm trying to be present for what I'll get out of it. And also I think of being present as something I do by my own power. In other words, I see how deluded I am about how I practice mindfulness. That's good. But sometimes we still aren't fully expressing how selfish we are about this.

[39:00]

Now this is where the art part comes. Because in this full self-expression, which is, for starters now, through the process prior to full enlightenment, what the self we're expressing is this small self. It may get bigger in some sense, but basically it's still not completely forgotten. This small self, this identity, That's what we have to express. We're expressing a small self. Isn't that bad? The small self, if we believe in it, is the main problem in our life. But expressing it, expressing it may cause trouble, but the expressing of it in a way that we can see and see the trouble it causes

[40:13]

will liberate us. If we don't express it out in front as an essential aspect of the art of liberation, it just lurks in the back and sneaks around and acts out unconsciously, unsupervised, and unenlighteningly. If we get it out in front and do it on purpose with appropriate shame and disgust at what happens, and sometimes with appropriate joy at what happens. Sometimes it really encourages people. Sometimes it's very beneficial, and sometimes it's just flat-out liberating. Eventually it will liberate us if we can get this self-expressed, because when you get it out there, then you can see how it dependently co-arises.

[41:14]

But again, if you get it out there and you express it, but without mindfulness, you won't be able to see how it dependently co-arises, and then it'll just cause trouble as usual. I don't know if it ever, however, causes as much trouble when it's out in front as when it's out in the back. It's hard to measure. But if you can express it out in front, it's part of the process of seeing how it works, what it comes up with, how it happens. This self-expression can be harmful. So what we do usually is we keep it unconscious and let its harm be unknown to us. It's not that I'm saying you should do something harmful.

[42:17]

I'm saying you should express the self which you've got there, which is asking you to express it. It is asking to be expressed because it's there. But express it with mindfulness And what I'm also suggesting is that the partial self-expression is selfish. Out of self-concern, we partially express. But when you fully express it, you must be completely mindful in order to witness its fullness. And in full mindful self-expression, that is selfless. And full expression is also not manipulative. The fact that our expression is non-manipulative is a criterion for its fullness and its mindfulness.

[43:32]

And when it's full and mindful and non-manipulative, it is most likely to tell the whole story and enlighten us. So I can say, you know, I'm upset with you and hope that by telling you that, you'll do this or that. Or I can tell you that I love you and hope that by telling you that, that you will do this or that, or you'll feel this or that way. In other words, I'm expressing myself to some extent, but I have another agenda at the same time, which I'm not expressing. Now, if I say, I love you and I'm telling you this in order that you will give me some money, That's a more full self-expression. But if I just say I love you and then wait for the donation, that's not as... I may not even know that I told you that for that reason.

[44:37]

But if I see, oh, I want to tell them that I love them so they'll give me some money. By the way, I don't get any of the money that you make your donation for. If Green Gulch keeps it all and they use it to make muffins for the virtuous, if I say I love you to get something that's not a full expression of I love you. If what I actually feel is I love you or I hate you, and I express that 100% for self-expression, which means 100% selflessly, only for the sake of enlightening all beings, I have no other agenda.

[45:43]

And I'm completely mindful and totally expressed and totally satisfied and don't want anything more. Non-manipulative means I express myself expecting nothing more than that expression. No future, no past, just right now, I hate you. I don't do that to hurt you. I don't do that to help you. I do that just to say, this is what is happening. And I do it so fully that there's not the least bit of manipulation or hope for anything else. There's just total exposure. Total exposure. That's it. And the total exposure is so that people can see what is happening and be released. from the partial vision of what's happening.

[46:48]

This is self-expression, even small self-expression, but small self-expression in such a wholehearted, mindful, and non-manipulative way that it is a selfless small self-expression. This is finding an identity and expressing it, but at the same time in the face of a fully imagined other. The fully imagined other comes in relationship to the fully expressed self. But I can't see the fully imagined other if I'm not mindful of the fully expressed small self. If I don't take responsibility for my selfishness completely, I can't see the fullness of the other. But when I take full responsibility for my selfish actions, the other becomes very vivid and full and big and strong.

[47:55]

When I shrink back from my personal, selfish, small, deluded expression, I do that to protect myself. And the other also receives and is diminished. And everybody gets to be a little more dead and feel a little bit less of the pain that's there anyway. The other way is more dangerous, more vulnerable, and needs guidance. So it needs the guidance of the other, and the other is there to guide and to give feedback. which means you can see how this self-expression is not self-expression, but actually is sponsored by the entire other. But when we hold back from that self-expression, it means we don't trust that the other gives us life. When we come up and fully express ourselves with no manipulation in mind,

[49:03]

we realize the other can be trusted and the other gives us life. In other words, this self, this small self, dependently co-arises with everything. This is the artistic enterprise where you fully express yourself in the context that contains your self-expression. And the fullness comes up and its fullness is intimate with the context. And there is, you know, I can say whatever I want, but there is anxiety, immeasurable anxiety, as you come up to that full expression which meets the other, as you come to meet that which will complete you. anxiety gets stronger and stronger, and you think, no, no, I can't do this.

[50:05]

This is just a small, petty, selfish person. How can I? No, no, you shrink back. The selfishness encourages you to shrink back and hide to protect it. The Buddha nature says, come on out, tell the truth, show it. But still, as you come to the meat, the fullness of your expression, the other gets bigger and bears down more and more all around you. The anxiety gets stronger until you're completely settled and it switches from the other being separate to the other being identical and life-giving. And there's no more small self. At this creative place, we understand.

[51:11]

You can also say to someone, I want to manipulate you. I want to move you from here to there. I want to get you to leave the room. And that can be a totally non-manipulative statement. But if you want someone to leave the room, sometimes if you tell them, if you want to manipulate them rather than expressing yourself, you might say something different from, I want you to leave the room. Like you might say, someone wants to see you in the other room. Or, you know, I'm happy for you to stay here forever, but I think you need to leave. I'll let you go. Or, please stay forever. That'll get most people out of the room. But you see, you're not telling them where you're at.

[52:22]

Like, you know, I would really like you to leave. But although I'm telling you as a bodhisattva, I'm telling you, I really, really want you to leave, but I'm not saying that to get you to go. I'm telling you that because I want to be liberated with you. That's why I'm telling you that. I have this strong, strong impulse to tell you that. And also, I really do want you to go. But I don't say those things. I don't do anything to cause an effect. Even if I want to cause an effect, I just say, I want to cause an effect, but I don't say that to cause an effect. I don't live that way. I just express my deluded self moment after moment. This is my art. But I cannot do that absentmindedly. If you're going to be absent-minded, then probably it's safer just don't express yourself.

[53:27]

If you're not going to be present and aware of what you're doing, then curl up in a ball, wrap yourself in cellophane, and get under the covers. If you're going to come out, Come out with presence and mindfulness so you can see and be guided every step of the way. So that when you lift your arm, you know, you can see the glimmer in people's eyes. You can see the twist in their nose and the crunch in their forehead by every little thing you do. You get the feedback, things change. You have to be mindful of the other as you express the self. You have to express the self as you're mindful of the other. This complete mindfulness and complete wholeheartedness is selfless. But we have a little self, too. And that little self must be brought out completely, otherwise it will always undermine our selfless activity.

[54:34]

But when the little self is completely expressed, it says, hallelujah, we're free. You did it. I got to live. That's enough. That's all I ever wanted. The little self just wants to exist fully, not more, not less than it is. It is the great Buddha mind that lets the little self be exactly what it is. Buddha doesn't say squelch yourself. Buddha says, be honest about what you are and drop it off. That's it. But this is a great artistic challenge because since we believe in what we are, we feel anxiety all around it, so we shrink back from it. So please, with full mindfulness, feel your experiences and honor and admit what you're up to. That will be full self-expression.

[55:40]

Selfless, mindful, wholehearted, with no manipulation and no other agenda. At the end of Zen training, that's what all the stories are about. All these Zen monks going up to their teacher and saying, okay, here's a small self. And the teacher's saying, oh, yucky small self. And the student's saying, yeah, that's right. And both of them leaping beyond all that and realizing the interconnectedness of the entire universe through their willingness to be little creepy Zen monks. These are the great masters. It takes many years to be able to be that small. many years of sincere training to be able to be a limited self and take full responsibility for it and express it to the whole world.

[56:46]

I have a class in the city on Buddhist psychology, which in a sense is about Buddhist pathology, since I'm teaching it. I'm a pathological Buddhist. After the class, this woman came up to me and said, and she really was kind of shaking her head, like back and forth, shaking her head. I didn't know what it meant. But anyway, she said, were you as crazy before you started studying Zen as you are now? And I said, no. I wasn't. I was relatively sane before I practiced Zen. People thought of me as stable and calm. But because of my stability and calm, I have now come out of the closet. I was just hiding before.

[57:56]

Will you be able to be yourself before you die? Will the world let you be your small self? If you don't think it will, you'll always be imprisoned by your small self. I say to you, the world wants you to fully express your small self so that you will be liberated from it. From it, through it, of it, by it. If you shrink back from your small self, you'll always be a slave of it. The only way to the big self is through the small self. Through the complete, complete small self expressed in the face of a big other. So there's a story of the great Zen master Linji. And he was... He didn't have too many disciples, but every one of them got finished off.

[59:05]

He trained them all to full Buddhahood and started this tradition which helped millions and millions of people over many centuries. Anyway, little guy, little temple, but he really worked hard with his students. He really got intimate. He really encouraged them to express themselves, and he expressed himself to show them the example. He shouted a lot. That was his style, not to say it should be yours or mine, although I seem to be shouting today. Anyway, that was Linji. And when he was about to die, he called his senior disciple before him and he said, After I die, please don't destroy my treasury of true Dharma eyes, true eyes of Buddha.

[60:15]

Don't destroy that. Don't destroy my teaching." And his disciple, whose name was Three Sages, said, "'Teacher, how would I dare? How could I possibly destroy your teaching?' And Linji said, well, if someone comes up to you after I die and asks you, what was his teaching, what will you say? And Sanchang said, ah! And Linji said, who would have thought that my great treasury of true eyes of the Dharma would be destroyed by a blind ass."

[61:17]

This is his main successor, this blind ass, this blind donkey, who expressed himself in the face of the great master and realized in that expression, in the fully the fully realized other, in that full self-expression, that's where the Buddha is realized. It's not Sanchang. It's not three sages. It's not Linji. It's all of us. This is how to work for all of us. But we have to do our individual job, and nobody can do your job for you. Nobody can do it for you, and you can't do it alone. We do it together, but we have to fully express ourselves. Okay? This is my invitation. This is my bet for this lifetime.

[62:23]

This is how to be upright and enter into the awareness of interdependence. But it's hard. It's hard. It's scary. It's not painful, but it involves accepting your pain. It doesn't cause the pain. It just brings you right up to it and helps you be intimate with it. And then when you're completely intimate with yourself, then express it. This is expression which has roots. This isn't expression from midair. This is expression from a rooted, a rooted being who's fully present in her body and mind, and now gives the great shout, or the great song, or the great dance, or the great painting, or the great sculpture, or the great tear, whatever.

[63:35]

Who knows what it will be? But it will be something, and it will be incredibly beautiful. Weird, huh? So I don't have a song today. Does anybody have a song? Is there a song called Shout? How does it go? Shout? Scream and shout. Twist and shout. Let's twist again like we did last summer. May our intention penetrate every being and place with the true merit of the Lord.

[64:36]

Amen. and the power of the heavenly thoughts of all. I thank you, God, and I love you. [...] Although I was disappointed that it was in a song, Pop made up for it today.

[65:38]

I wondered if you could speak to the issues you talked about today about expressing yourself with what you talked about last time about me doing it in your own way. It's a dangerous practice developing enough wisdom not to get too many out of your butt, practicing out of your wake butt. Did you hear what she said? No, I didn't hear what she said. She said, last time I was talking and she was talking about, she or somebody was talking about expressing themselves. I said, go ahead and do it with somebody who's your own size. You understand? Do you understand what I mean by your own size? If you're a heavyweight, do it with a heavyweight. What does that mean? It means with somebody who's up for it. Somebody who's up for it.

[66:43]

Like you say, are you ready for me to express myself to you? A lot of people say, well, what do you mean? And then tell them, and they say no. But you kind of know who he is, too, to some extent. For example, people who are physically big is one indication. It's a hint. Little tiny people like little children are not good to deal with. I was thinking about that old Bob Hope movie, Nothing But the Truth. Pardon? Do you remember that old Bob Hope movie, Nothing But the Truth? Where, you know, he actually said, Nothing But the Truth? Uh-huh. Got in big, big trouble. Yeah, if you do this, you'll get attacked. Not all the time, but a lot, you'll get attacked.

[67:48]

If you try to express yourself as honestly, you'll get attacked. But still, even so, you should deal with people who are, you know, who are... That's part of the reason why you get attacked. You deal with people who are your size, so to speak, approximately your size and your level of maturity and level of intensity, level of energy. Yeah. So sometimes when I'm talking to people about this, I tell them who the people who are their size are. I can kind of tell. There's three people you can deal with. These people can handle you and leave everybody else alone for this kind of thing. Is that clear? Or do you have some question about that? Hmm? It seems like you're missing a real opportunity in that, though. Aren't those people that are less willing to participate in that the people that can learn from your expression, in a sense?

[68:52]

Yes, but the people who are less willing, I respect their... So, for example, I say sometimes, I have a room, you know, over here in the meditation hall, behind it, where people come and see me. When they come in the room, then I, you know, then I expect them, I don't necessarily tell them everything I'm feeling, but I expect them to tell me what's happening with them. In other words, I say, if I accept, if I let somebody come in the room, I'm basically saying, I'm here. I'm your size. I'm not going to let somebody come in that room that I'm afraid of to such an extent that I don't think I can handle it. If they're that big, I meet them outside. So I can run away. If I sit in that room, I'm trapped, you know, and I only let people in there that I'm ready for. But at the same time, I don't let them come in there without expressing themselves.

[69:56]

All right? If I see you on the street in Mill Valley or something, and you ignore me or run away from me, I'm not going to run after you. Okay? I'm not going to say, what's your name? And I say, Ellen, stop. And come running over to you and say, Ellen, where are you going? How come you're trying to avoid me? Are you trying to avoid me? And you may say, yeah. I say, well, what for? And you say, you know, try to hold you and, you know, tell me about it, you know, blah, blah. Or if you walk by me in Mill Valley and you put a fan up on the side of your face to cover your face from me, I'm not going to go over and pull the fan down. With you, I won't do that. But if you come into the room and bring a fan in front of your face, I'm going to say, what's the fan for, Ellen? How come you're coming into the room and bringing the fan with you? If you want to hide from me, don't come into my room. you know, for an appointment that's about you telling me what's happening with your life.

[71:00]

But then you go around basing your ideas on who's up to and who's not, and it's just kind of just a whole series of misunderstandings. I just came back from work with my family, and it became this snake pit of those kind of misunderstandings. I was not saying what I needed to say because I was afraid, and then when I came back... Well, you know, family is the most difficult, okay? But what I'm talking about is I really don't have that much trouble with this. It's not so hard. And I'm not basing it on my idea. I ask people. If they come in the room and they don't tell me, I say, you know, I don't say immediately. If they don't tell me everything in the first 10 seconds about their whole life... But after, you know, a number of meetings and I sense that the person is coming and going out of their way to come and see me and not telling me what it's up about, I say, well, you know, what's your motivation in coming here? And little by little I find out and finally I say, well, you know, come on, tell me. I do, if I think the person wants to tell me, I do ask them to tell me. I ask them to tell me the whole thing if they want to tell me the whole thing.

[72:03]

But I have a conversation with them to find this out. I do not assume that you want to tell me about your life unless you tell me you want to. But if you come and see me, I think maybe you do. So I ask you. And if you say no, then I say, well, what's the point of coming to see me? And you say, well, I guess there isn't any, so fine. There are some people who do not want to talk to me. That's okay, they don't have to. But if they do want to talk to me, and they tell me they do, and then they don't, then I'm going to say, well, excuse me, I've got a little problem here, blah, blah, blah. And then I encourage it to come out. So, not everybody is up for everybody today. The long-term program is everybody up for everybody. But we have to, you know, if suddenly all of you were telling me everything about everything, I wouldn't be able to handle it either. But I found a way actually to go deeper person by person with certain understandings.

[73:07]

And I do not go on my assumptions. If I think you don't want to hear from me about something, I check that out. If I sense that you don't want me to bring something up, I say, I have this fantasy that you don't want me to talk about this. Is that right? And you might say, yes. I say, okay. I understand that. And that might lead me to say, well, let's end the conversation then if I can't express myself to you because, you know, then let's talk later when you feel up for me being like I am. Okay, so I do not act on my assumptions. I check them out. I mean, my vow is to not act on my assumptions. My vow is to check them out. I sometimes do slip into it because it's so easy to read people's minds, right? Yeah. Yes. Right. Okay.

[74:24]

Now, the second point is I also remember you talking about us not editing ourselves. So does that sort of go with this? Yes. I'm not editing if I'm... How do I not edit myself and at the same time try and figure out which person is in my weight class? How do you figure it out? Well, I can figure out who's in... I can figure out who's in my weight class, but then do I edit my message? Yes. Yes. Yes. But then when you find out that somebody's not in your weight class, your attitude is, you know, you don't want to do the same thing with that person. But then I can also delude myself and never really reveal myself because nobody's exactly my same weight or They can be bigger than you. It's okay if they're bigger than you. All right?

[75:28]

That's a good place to start with somebody who's a lot bigger than you. Then you can like totally unload and they can go... You know? That's why I said fully express yourself in the face of a full, fully imagined other, the big other. And get somebody who can represent the big other. Somebody who you think is a big other. Okay. And who says, okay, I'll be there. You can go ahead and dump it all. I'm ready for it. Not too many people like that, but start with those people. My other question, wouldn't we also say that what you really want to do is to come to some sort of completion or exhale, wherever you make... Yes. It's kind of like it's over. Yes. And... To do a small, petty, little expression. Some little thing like, I'd like you to wash the stove after you make a mess on it.

[76:33]

I'd like you to clean up after yourself. To say that petty little concern with your whole being. can be a moment of liberation. Because we don't like to be such a person who's so concerned with such a petty little thing. Especially about somebody who we really love, you know? Whether the stove gets cleaned or not is really a petty concern. But if we are concerned with it, and we don't admit that, then we are trapped by this petty concern. If you fully express it, now it turns out that a lot of people are able to receive that message. is so little. But if you don't do it fully, you can hurt them. And if you hold it back, you can hurt them. A small, petty concern, unexpressed, can get huge.

[77:34]

A small petty feeling or concern expressed fully can be hugely liberating. Hugely liberating. A small thing done well, a small petty concern done well can turn into a great good. A small petty thing unexpressed and selfishly squelched can become a big evil. It's amazing. This is the law of karma. Was there somebody over there, a hand, a while ago? Yes. Actually, now I have two. The first one is, I think there are also cultural considerations in expressing yourself. Yes. I remember when I first came to the United States, I was used to expressing myself a lot more than I do now. I was misunderstood, not understood, or, you know, or told to shut up.

[78:41]

I learned to express less in a different way. In a way, I think I even became a little more manipulative. I started to express myself for a purpose, not just as a, you know, as a pastime. I haven't seen any way to change that, you know, I have just adopted. But the only one that I was thinking about now is little... Excuse me. Yes. Did you say you haven't been able to see any other way than this? Yes, sir. You haven't been able to see that. Okay. Are you expressing yourself now? Yes, I am. Well, are you seeing a way now? Well, I haven't squashed it completely. Pardon? I haven't squashed it completely. Yes, I didn't say you squashed it completely, but I'm saying right now, are you fully... I'm not saying squashing completely.

[79:42]

I say right now, are you fully expressing yourself? I am, yes. You are? Yes. So then you haven't lost it, have you? No. So what are you, were you lying to me? I think I have reduced it. You have reduced it, but not now. You're not reducing it now. Not just now. Okay, so now be like this all the time. It gets me, I can do it with a big person. It gets you, did you say it gets you in trouble? Did you say it gets you in trouble? Yes. Did you say it gets you in trouble? Not with you because you're a big person, but it gets me into trouble. Okay, getting you into trouble is not a problem for this kind of practice. Getting me in trouble is not a problem for this kind of practice. Me getting in trouble is part of the price of doing this work. I get in trouble for this. Not every single time I express myself, but often I get in trouble.

[80:47]

And when I get in trouble, sometimes I don't meet the trouble I get into, and then I get into more trouble. This will happen to you if you express yourself. And even if you express yourself with me fully, you might get into trouble. That's okay. Now, the problem is that you hurt somebody else. That's the problem. That's why you have to be careful not to hurt other people. But my experience is, ladies and gentlemen, when I try to edit myself not to hurt other people, it doesn't protect them. It doesn't protect them. When I try to hold myself back, everybody's like scared to death. When is it going to come out? They see the choke chain, you know, and they go, when's it going to happen? They're all like, you know, waiting for it to come out. They can feel it, you know. It's being restrained, this vicious, you know, aggressive energy, you know. When's it going to come out? When's it come out? And then, you know, I go like this, beep, and it just flattens people like this.

[81:52]

You know? Because when I'm restraining these big, big things, you know, I'm restraining the big shouts and the big punches, you know, and the obnoxious statements and the, you know, hey, fatty kind of comments, you know? Here I am trying to, you know, hold this monster in check, you know? That's my editing myself, okay? And then I just sort of, a moment of inattention, I raise one little finger and it flattens people. Because I can't, when I'm going like this, I can't keep track of it all because it's back there, you know? It's in the dark. It's like, get back there, get back there, get back there. Everybody's, what would happen if he stopped doing that? So they're all kind of like scared to death because they can feel the force of evil back there, you know? This huge, monstrous selfishness. What if he let go and it came out, you know? So then, you know, one unconscious thing, beep. It doesn't protect people.

[82:58]

People are not protected by this. They're protected by saying, here I am, I'm a selfish person, and this is the way I'm selfish, and these are my selfish concerns. Get it out there. They can handle it then. They can see it. If you're a warrior, you want to hurt people, you just keep quiet. Just hold it back, and then you wait for your move, and then you kill. You don't tell them. You don't tell them before. And, you know, I'm watching. I'm seeing my opportunity to kill you. I'm trying to move you. Here's all my moves, and this is the thing I'm thinking of. This is the way to make peace, is to reveal all your war plans. Reveal all your manipulations. Reveal all your selfishness. Of course, do it with people who can handle it. Yes. But, you know, find out who and get it out there. And the small things, a lot of small things, you know, a lot of people can handle it, but we don't want to be that small. But I get in trouble even when I do it in a way that helps other people, I get in trouble.

[84:06]

Even when it helps other people, I get in trouble. Or put it the other way, me getting in trouble helps other people. For them to see that I express myself and I get in trouble and I keep going, it's very helpful to other people. But I have to show other people that I do get in trouble for expressing myself and I keep going. And also that they don't lose me when I express myself and they get angry at me. They don't lose me. That I come back again and say, again and again, I keep showing up for more trouble. That I'll never stop. They'll never lose me, even though they tell me they don't like me when I express myself. They have to see that. But I get a lot of trouble for it. And if I get trouble for it, maybe they can get trouble for it. And maybe other people won't leave them if they express themselves. A lot of people are afraid, what will happen, right? Will you lose all your friends if you start showing it? A lot of people think they will. Well... When are you going to find out?

[85:10]

Start with somebody who says, actually, I'd like to find out, you know, who you are and maybe I won't go away. Well, that person, you might say, well, I don't want to do it with you. Do it with somebody who says, I won't go away even if you are turned out to be a jerk. I won't. I'll stay with you through all the hells that you want to go through. I'll go through them with you. You need some people like that. Yes. What keeps going through my mind is the notion of, yes, it's important to express myself, but at the same time, I don't want to be brutal. You know, modesty without compassion can be brutality. And I feel a need to be respectful of other people at the same time, honoring and expressing what's going on with me. And having said that, my experience is It's good for me to talk to somebody who I trust about what I need to express.

[86:13]

Maybe this works on the big stuff, I can't always monitor everything I do before I do it, but perhaps there's a situation with somebody I'm in a relationship with that's very difficult, I can talk to a teacher about that beforehand, or somebody who I trust. And that's worked for me a lot. Just letting go sometimes, that's pretty terrifying. You know, I'm not sure it's exactly the same thing that you're talking about. You're not sure what's exactly the same thing as I'm talking about? Well, you know, I'm saying rehearsing. Rehearsing? An expression with somebody, as opposed to like, what it sounds like you're saying is like... I don't think you're expressing yourself. Well, I would say, if you say you're rehearsing and expressing with somebody, I would say, in the rehearsal, have that be a full expression. Don't think of your life as a rehearsal. Like, don't think of this conversation you're having with me right now as a rehearsal for when later you're going to try to express yourself. See that right now, you're expressing yourself to me, and I'm expressing myself to you. I'm not, like, waiting until next week to have an expression to somebody.

[87:14]

I'm doing it right now. You should be doing the same. Are you expressing yourself right now? Is there any brutality here? Not here. Well, you don't know. I might tell you, what's your name? Brad. Brad. I might say, Brad, you're being a little brutal today. You know? And then you might find out, oh, yeah, I was. Oh, I didn't notice it. You know, how was I brutal? And I say, well, blah, blah, blah, you know? So again... If you think you have brutal tendencies when you're being honest, then it's good to be honest with somebody, again, who's sort of like, has the capacity to tell you, you know, you're getting a little brutal here. The tone of your voice, I mean, what you're saying is not so bad, but your tone is kind of brutal. I feel beaten down by your talks. If somebody can't talk to you that way, if they don't get permission to give you that kind of feedback, then I guess you probably shouldn't be talking to that person. Like, maybe don't talk to people that can't talk back to you.

[88:16]

So tell everybody that they can talk back to you. Do you people understand you can talk back to me? Do you understand that, that you can talk back to me? How many times do I have to say it? Quite often. Every time I have a class, several times during the class, I have to tell people, you can talk back to me. You can talk up to me. You can disagree with me. You can get angry at me. You can express yourself. Try not to hurt me. I'm not saying try to hurt me, but please try to express yourself. And if there's brutality, I can say, gee, you know, well, yeah, you know. What I guess I'm thinking about is a situation where, you know, using, I'm being honest, I'm expressing myself, is an opportunity to be brutal, or is it a pretense of being honest, where really what I'm doing is just being brutal. Sure, sure. I've done that. Also, not expressing yourself is a better opportunity for being brutal. Sure. That's a better one, because no body marks. But now in California anyway, people could take you to court for what you don't say and how you hurt people for what you don't say.

[89:28]

Because there is a psychic reality to a passive aggression. With some people who care about you, when you set up a certain relationship, if you withdraw, you can break their heart. You can cause them physical and emotional damage by withdrawing. The question is, Are you trying to hurt people? Do you want to hurt people? Maybe you don't know that you do. Well, what you do know, start expressing what you do know. It's like you pull this thing out and then another thing comes along with it. Pretty soon you find out that you really want to hurt people, that you really would like to hurt people. And then you can tell people that you really would like to hurt them. So you can say, I would really like to hurt you. I've told you already, I really like to bite people. It's a thing I've had since I was a kid. I used to like to bite my toys, you know? But I also felt sad when I bit my toys because they were dented then, you know?

[90:31]

So I worked that out with my toys, you know? And it's a trade-off, you know? With people, you know, I mostly don't bite. But I do like to. So, you know, I also sometimes would like to punch somebody. I really like to punch them. And sometimes very affectionately. I kind of affectionately like to punch people. But I don't do it every time I feel like it. But sometimes I say I want to. Sometimes I don't need to say I want to, I feel so fully, you know, I'd be perfectly satisfied just feeling like I'd like to punch you. The question is, the point is to get it out there where you can see it in full life. If you can see it in full life, you can see it how it arises, and you can be released from it. If you don't see it in full life, then you don't see how it's caused. The fullness of it is where the cause, the conditions meet it.

[91:35]

In the partial version of your feelings, the causation, the other that makes it, is as a buffer zone. You don't see the meeting, you don't see the union. The full expression is where the union is realized. Okay? But you have to learn how to do this. But you and I are not the editors. Let other people be the editors. So when you tell somebody, say, I'm going to tell you how I feel about something. I'm going to try to be honest. But I want to tell you beforehand, you can go like this any time. You can say, stop. This is not a monologue. So you have the right to stop me if I'm, you know, if I'm talking in a way that bothers you, let me know. I'll stop. Give them the agency with which to interact with you if you think there's some danger. Get some other people there to witness the interaction. Whatever it takes so you can express yourself fully. You need to set up a situation where you can express yourself fully. Linda? I think it's interesting that we... When we talk about expressing ourselves, the first thing that comes up is expressing the anger to people.

[92:42]

Yeah, they're safer. Well, they're the ones we've sat on the hardest, I have anyway. And what I've discovered with my husband, for example, who I'm terrified to have these kinds of discussions with because he's not practicing like I am. I'm afraid of what consequences I'm going to get for my...

[93:03]

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