And that's physical pain. And they feel the pain, they feel the pain, and sitting there and keep feeling it, they soften up. Sometimes by the end of the week, I touch the back and suddenly the spine moves. My finger touches and the spine just goes into the body. The spine says, okay, this is not going to be any worse. It just goes right in. And then, and then the person, you know, Then all that pain drops away, you know, the holding against it. Then they get this new pain, the pain of anxiety comes, which they thought they couldn't handle some number of years ago, so they went like this. So, at a certain point in our development, the trade-off was, okay, you can express yourself, but if you do... there's going to be some pain and some anxiety in that expression. And we say, now if I express myself less, fully, will there be, you know, anxiety and less pain?

[01:02]

The answer is temporarily, yes. So we cut back. And we cut back and we cut back. And sometimes our own parents say that, you know, expressing ourselves. Now if I express myself less, mom, will you, you know, will you stop looking at me like that? And the answer is yes. We make these deals and after a while they become institutionalized in our body. So the practice is to come back out and re-inhabit this person. It's a long, strenuous process about meeting. This is what you do with yourself when you're sitting and walking. This is your own work with yourself throughout the day. But it also is something you can do. This is like something that can be done in relationship to others. Or in relationship to the unknown.

[02:07]

I shouldn't say unknown. The non-being. And in Zen we have rituals for like and being with yourself, and we have rituals for meeting another. Formal rituals for both of those things, and informal rituals for doing those things too. And both of these are rituals for enacting our basic human situation. the basic human situation of being yourself in terms of your self-expression, and then the basic human situation of being yourself in your relationship and expressing yourself. I have a picture here of a little boy who happens to be me.

[03:12]

You can look at it later. You can see what you think is going on with this little boy. Anybody who wants a window open near them open it I propose that each of us have a mudra. Mudra means a circle or a ring. It also means a seal. Each of us has a mudra, our enlightened mudra, our enlightened ring or circle.

[04:18]

And we want to close that circle and finish that circle It's also that we have a mudra of ourself and we want to complete that circle, to complete that ring. We're driven to do that. As I say, we made some kind of deals in the past to not express ourselves, so the ring has been broken. And now we're in the process of yearning to complete the ring. In Zen, the transmission of the enlightened spirit is sometimes spoken of as face-to-face transmission. There's something about a face that's important in transmitting enlightenment.

[05:22]

That's because there's something about a self that's important in transmitting enlightenment. And selves are very closely related to faces. Funny thing is about our face is that our face we can't see. But other people see our face and we can see their face when they're looking at our face. So if their face is smiling at our face, that means that there's something maybe nice about our face. that the world is smiling upon what we can't see. And the face that is here is an expression of everything that we are. It's like a focal point where people look. They look at our face partly to check out our whole body. Of course, particularly they look in our eyes to check out our whole being. And we look in theirs to And to see if their face, what they are, approves of and appreciates what we are.

[06:26]

And they're looking at our face as representative of our whole being. Now sometimes they look at other parts of our body and appreciate that too. But our shoulder can't see how their face is looking and approving our shoulder. So our shoulder doesn't exactly get the transmission from that person. That person's face has to be brought around in front of our face and look at our face. Somebody told me recently that I told somebody years ago, somebody asked me, who are you? And I said, I don't know if I said this, but they said that I said, I'm a heart in search of a face. A heart is looking for a face that will look back at our face and understand us, which means it will understand a face that understands our face.

[07:31]

All faces are looking at us, actually, and telling us who we are, but we don't get it yet. What we want to do is see a face that will, you know, show us what we're trying to learn, which will complete our circle. Approval is part of it, but in particular, this type of approval we're yearning for is that the approval would be the face that looks at us and says, yes, not only is that face is you, you have your actual face on. You have just presented your real face. Not that I like your face or don't like your face, it's that you have just presented your inhabited face.

[08:33]

What you want to see is a face that tells you, this is your face. You know, it's approval of you as such, rather than as you relative to something else you could be. It's approval of you being completely yourself. Saying, you have expressed yourself completely. If you look out and get a reflection of yourself not expressing yourself fully, that's not what you're looking for. That won't count. If you tell someone a lie and they reflect back, okay, well, it's not going to do you much good. If they say you're telling a lie, that's somewhat helpful.

[09:41]

But that's not really their job to go around telling you that. In fact, you'll notice you can tell people lots of lies. All the lies you tell them, basically what you get back is they don't understand who you are. And of course they don't because you didn't tell them. And you know you didn't. But when you tell the truth, now there's a chance that they could see you. But when you tell the truth, you're at risk. Because if they don't like this, they don't like you. If you tell a lie, you're not at risk. Because if they don't like that, so if they do like that, no problem. So there's actually a sixth fear, and that's the fear of being loved. So the fear of losing your reputation is closely related to the fear of losing people's love. But there's just another fear that which in a sense I want to emphasize, but really a sphere of being loved. Because when you're loved, you might lose your mind.

[10:45]

Do you understand? You don't? You're in your usual state of being the way you are. You might lose control of it if you really felt loved. Really feeling loved, people often start crying. And not even crying in a way that they would ordinarily let themselves cry. Partly it is so moving that they're loved, plus it's also moving that they can actually cry whatever way they want to now. They can cry in all these ways that they didn't think they'd be allowed to. So all control is released. But it's not control, it's all dreams of control. Because when you're loved, you don't have to control anymore. Take it away. You don't have to pretend like you're under control anymore.

[11:45]

So losing control and giving up control are related. And when you feel loved, you can give up control. Because control is basically about getting love. Isn't it? Do you have to be ready for love? Do you have to be ready for love? What do you mean, have to? Well, I think in life that maybe there are times when we are being loved and we're afraid of this. Yes. So we don't let go. So we're not ready. Well, when you say not ready, first of all, you said supposed to and you didn't address that, but that's okay. You said, do we have to be? Do we have to be ready for love? And I wonder what you meant by have to be. Can we let it in before we're ready for it?

[12:47]

Before we can handle it? Can we? No, we can't. If we can't handle it, then we won't handle it. So ready means two things. Ready means, is it the right time? And also, are you ready? Are you in a state of readiness? When you're ready, you can face love. But again, when you face it, when you face love, often you feel anxious. So then you evacuate to space where you're... Or you feel love, and then you think of implications of the feeling you have when you're feeling love. Well, now what? You get into, and now what? When you feel love, there's a whole bunch of and now what's then you start feeling afraid. In other words, you can't stand it. You can't flat out feel love. In other words, you can't be ready anymore. So readiness is the state in which you receive love.

[13:53]

I mean, in the state in which we realize and actualize that we are receiving love constantly. It never doesn't come to us. It's coming at us from all directions all day long, but because we're not ready, we don't realize it. Now, feeling long means feeling what you're feeling all day long. Again, if you close your eyes to some aspect of yourself, you'll close your eyes to love. So people, in this face-to-face transmission thing, part of the practice, the formal practice of doing that is you go see a face. You go meet a face. You go meet another face. You go bring your face into a room. The practice is called entering the room. Or sometimes called room entering. It's a formal Zen practice.

[14:56]

And to the room. They voluntarily, in this community, they voluntarily enter the room. They say, may I enter the room? Would you put my name on the room entering list? Then the attendant goes and says, now would you like to enter the room? You want to go in there. Of these two faces meeting, it's called tok san, which means meeting alone. And there's two ways, our solitary meaning, there's two ways to understand it. One is that two people in there are alone, nobody else is in there. But the other meaning is that there's only one person in the room. There's not somebody else in the room. This face over there, you're going to see that face because you want to see your face. You think maybe I'd like to see that face, but mostly people don't want to see that face. The reason why they want to go in there is it's not just another face to see. There's a lot of nice faces in the world to see, and we go see them, right?

[16:04]

There's Jim's face, I'd like to see it. There's Michael's face. There's Molly's face. There's Denise's face, okay? These are faces. I come to this workshop to see your faces. But if I come to this workshop to see my face, then I feel different. We have some difficulty dealing with other faces, but the face that we're really wanting to see The face that our heart is looking for is our own face, which we cannot see, which we don't understand we're seeing. When you go in that room, you see your own face, which people very much want to see. They come from miles around to see their face. They wait. patiently to see their face. As they get closer to the opportunity of seeing their face, though, they start to feel anxiety and perhaps fear, but at least anxiety.

[17:06]

Fear, for example, of something, of what might happen in the room or what might happen after being in the room. Fear of what wonderful things might happen. Fear of approval and disapproval. Fear of tremendous approval, or tremendous disapproval. And it wouldn't take a lot of disapproval to be tremendous disapproval. A slight disapproval would be a major disapproval, because you're bringing your face in there. So people very much want to go in there, but when they get in there, with joy at the possibility of being in there, if they really feel how excited they are, and they often do, then as soon as they get in there, they want to get out. Even though they came, you know, quite a distance, in order to have the opportunity to go in there and look at the space which is going to reflect your face. I came to Zen Center to study with the founder of Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi, and I had the good fortune of spending quite a bit of time with him.

[18:12]

And sometimes he really was there for me. And when he was really there for me, Oh, no, you're too busy. I'll go now. Thank you. That's enough. And he sometimes says, no, no, it's okay. I have more time. No, no, no. All right. Or like, you know, you haven't seen your lover for a long time, you know, and you're traveling over the highways, you know, yearning to be back with your lover. And you get in the room and suddenly, where's the newspaper? Yeah, do I have any mail? You know, go to the answering machine. Face, this face that you want to see, because when you see this face, you see your own face. It's very difficult to go there and look at that face. That face which loves you so much that you can see your own face.

[19:18]

The only way you can see your face is through the other. So that's how we ritually and theatrically enact this meeting with non-being, which our self needs to feel complete, because our self is born of non-being, and non-being is born of our self. What's your name again? Sam. Sam. Yeah. I'll never forget. I'll never forget. Sam. Take advantage of this time. Yes, please do. When we left to go down to Descendo, I was feeling really good and walked outside. I truly enjoyed the beauty of the thing, and I didn't know what else to be anxious about. Then I got down to Descendo, and...

[20:23]

What I became anxious about was actually talking to you. I don't know what I'd say. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity. How are you feeling? Tell us about the anxiety, would you? Well, it's on my stomach. Turn it down. You were talking about loving, and I have a tremendous appreciation for it. But you're really doing what you're saying. And I have a love for beauty. I experience that with you, too. And what I'm anxious about is

[21:26]

the only part where it's going to go. Can you stop there for a second? Now, one of the ways to objectify the anxiety is to call it the unknown. It isn't even the unknown, because the unknown is still a way of conceiving of the non-being. And if the unknown, for example, if our relationship would convert the unknown into something known, drop away then, you realize you still feel anxious. It's not the unknown. I said it a minute ago, but I retract. It's not the unknown. The unknown is still a category we can put non-being into. The thing about non-being is that it doesn't even go in the category of the unknown. Non-being doesn't even go in the category of not being. That's why non-being can go into the category of It can be here. It can be my face.

[22:31]

It's not my face, though. You're just using my face to meet this thing. And if you can open up to this face as a symbol, not of anything else, like I'm the unknown, but as a symbol of non-being, which is your, you know, what gives you life. Now, Judith, I said I would talk... Is there more about this you want to bring up since I deferred your... Am I speaking to what you... You're speaking to it. Is there some other aspect you'd like to bring out of this meeting? When I was sitting down there, I kept trying to notice it. And what I noticed was how being happening to bodies seemed very much a part of it. And... It seems to me, and it seems to me right now, like a kind of giving away or making away.

[23:39]

It's an allowing of the spirit. Okay. So part of breathing is an allowing. Okay? Another part of meeting is a recognizing spirit. All right? Usually, that's part of it. But another part of meeting is not just the recognizing or the empathizing or the acknowledging or even deferring. Okay? Not just that. Not just the listening. Not just the obedience. But all that. That's part of it. But the other side, the commanding, the expressing, the asking for acknowledgement, it's recognizing somebody else, finding somebody who you think is somebody and going to that person who you think whose face means something to you, who's got a face that's on a person who is somebody, going to that face and looking at that face and saying that face, I recognize you and I want you to recognize me.

[24:59]

And not only that, but I'm going to show you something to recognize. Partly just asking you for recognition, I'm expressing myself. Do you recognize my request for recognition? And there's no guarantee of what that person will say. Because what you may reflect is that you really haven't yet asked for recognition. Recognition. So I'm not going to give it to you because you haven't asked for it yet and you don't want me to recognize you yet because you haven't shown me yourself yet. So I'm not going to say okay because you didn't tell me the truth yet. It's an opening spirit and accepting and allowing and now that you've allowed the person can express himself Now you can recognize it and listen to it, but that's only part of meeting. The other part is you had to go there and do that, and you had to recognize, I've gone there now and taken a position where I can listen. As a listener.

[26:02]

Mark, what's happening? Anything? No? Okay. Okay. So that's part of the meeting thing, and that balance between, it's very dynamic, the balance between expressing and being recognized. And recognizing the other person, and encouraging them, and letting them express themselves, and recognizing them, back and forth, back and forth. That's all that's involved in the meeting. And they have to do their part, too. If they don't do their part, themselves, then you don't have much to recognize. And also their recognition doesn't mean much if they don't express themselves. So if you get into a pattern with somebody where you're doing all the expressing and they're not expressing anything, their recognition gradually becomes less and less because they become less and less somebody. If they express themselves too much, they can't recognize you. They're somebody, all right, because they're expressing themselves and you're recognizing it. But they're giving you no space.

[27:08]

So how do you get in there? That's meeting. Molly? Goodbye. I feel my anxiety. I feel in touch with my anxiety. I feel it. I carry it with me back. I feel it in my heart of vulnerability. I often drive it, express it in specific fears that I have made and that I carry around. I'm working on So for me, I'm feeling that I'm living with it. I can name it and express it. But it drives me to action. I want to drive. I want to go. I want to go beyond that. I want to get it solved. Yeah. It drives. It drives. Part of it is that it drives you to leave or to become afraid.

[28:12]

put it in the future, to anticipate, to go someplace. It drives you to... And now what? And what next? That's a natural part of... That's a natural potential of this anxiety that drives you to make it into something, to objectify, therefore to be afraid, or to get out of the room. As soon as they get in the room, they want to get out. That's natural. But take one... Her beautiful expression of her anxiety now She feels vulnerable. What else did you say? Vulnerable, emotional. Vulnerable, emotional, what? Full of the pain. Full of the pain of it, okay. Now, can you feel that and also have confidence? The answer is yes. You may not be able to, but you should know.

[29:14]

Not you should know. I will tell you. And you can listen. So that all the... That this is what it's like to have a heart. Hearts are vulnerable. And confidence means you settle into that feeling of vulnerability. And you say, I have a heart. I can be hurt. And I am willing to be a person to be hurt. Not because I'm some kind of a hero, exactly, although that is rather heroic, but primarily because that's where I'm at. That's what I am. That's just simply the way I am. And to have confidence means partly to... but also settle into that. The Buddhist word for faith, sometimes translated as confidence, is if you sink down into it, you settle into it. So you have some, like... Here I am vulnerable, and yeah, I am vulnerable. And I sing the song of vulnerability.

[30:19]

My whole heart, which makes me all the more vulnerable. Now everybody knows. But I was vulnerable before, and I thought if I stuck my head in the ground, I wouldn't know. And maybe nobody else will either. And in fact, the funny thing is, if you go up to people and say, I'm not vulnerable, they are okay, you know. Fine. Let's make the agreement. Neither of us are vulnerable. Let's call it off. And everybody sort of stays away from everybody, and everybody feels fine, except actually they're scared to death. Mary Lee? What about when the whole environment in which you're functioning requires you to not be fully yourself. Or that if you are fully yourself, you've become marginalized and you've already managed to plant it, which is not my situation. That whenever I'm really fully, what I feel is fully present of who I am, the message I usually get, well, I live and work in Silicon Valley, so the message I usually get back is that I'm really strange and funny and people laugh and amusing.

[31:37]

You know, I have strange memories. So, this is very hard. Yeah. Very hard. Yeah, it's hard. So, the more I am myself, the more sheer raw courage that it takes. And I don't know how much, how much to be that. I don't really know. Do I do a dance with what people want me to be? Or what? Do a dance with this? Laying, keeping, laying low, not being too much myself. No, no, no, no, no. No, dance. Dance. Dance. Now, if it's the lay low dance, then do the lay low dance. That's like you're laying low, you know. This is what you're doing. Now, if they're not dancing with you when you're laying low, then it's not dance. This is not about submission. This is not the submission dance. Submitting is not dancing, because when you submit, you make yourself... you don't take risks. And submission is very much to do... Yeah, that's what I do more.

[32:43]

Yeah. Well, yeah. So you do the self-accusation submission thing, and then they just don't pay any attention to you. If you try to pop up from that, they'll laugh at you, laugh you back down into submission. Yeah. Yeah, right. That's what happens. And those people who are... they're also pregnant to death of an actual... If you stay, if you're not human, they don't have to be human, everybody's fine. Make our money, go home and watch TV. Yeah. Right. Got it. Okay, that's it. That's where you live? Yeah. That's a usual place to live. Most people live in places like that. How do you practice in a place like that? That's my question. How do you practice? Well, so far my strategy has been mostly the laying low strategy and then... Is that practice? Probably not. Is laying low practice? Is submission practice? Is submission expressing yourself?

[33:45]

No. Then that's not practice. What's practice? Well, I don't know. I mean, I get... I don't have to know. Just tell me. You express myself and watch what happens? Yep. Watch what happens within me when it happens? Yep. What else? It's a dance, that's the end. Listen to what the other person could bear? See what they do. See what your dance partner does. Also, when nobody else is around, express yourself and see what your dance partner there does. See yourself. Fine when I'm alone. Well, good. Do the same thing when you're with other people. Not the same thing, but express yourself in the same way.

[34:49]

And then if they say, this is not fine, Mary Lee. Not fine. [...] Then you have a response to that. Like, lift your eyebrows. Yeah. I don't know what you're going to do, but you know you will do something. If I say, not fine, you're going to do something. You are going to do something. You're not going to not do something. Whatever I do, you will do something. If you do something, I will do something. It always is that way between us. Everything, your eyes, I blink back or I don't blink back. We're responding to each other all the time. You have to get out. But don't just check out me responding to you. Check out what you do, too. Because you're doing something. When you blink, I blink. When you smile, I frown. You're doing something over there, too. I'm reflecting you. You're reflecting me. We're doing something together. Check it out. Be there. Check it out. You keep checking me out, Mary Lee, I'm going to marginalize you big time.

[35:53]

You're going to have a response to that. What is it? That's you. Not necessarily, but you might have, you might say, you might think, well, what will marginalization be like? Okay, well then, what should you do? What's the practice when you start thinking, what will marginalization be like? What's the practice? What? Experience it. Experience what? Being marginalized. No. That's later. Right away now you've got this fear of marginalization. You're thinking about what marginalization is like. That's not marginalization. That's fear of marginalization. What do you do with the fear of marginalization? Well, in that case, you sit with it. You go into it. You go into it. You participate with it. Right now, the marginalization has not been established. This guy hasn't had time to go out and get everybody to marginalize you yet. It's just a threat that he's made.

[36:55]

And actually, he was really just teething it. He was your one... And what he was saying to you is, you know, if you keep being like this wonderful person you are, you know what they're going to do to you? You know what I'm going to do to you if you keep being this beautiful creature? I'm going to like, you know, you're going to get in trouble for this. You can't just keep being this lovely. So I say, they're going to marginalize you, Mary Lee. And you think I'm serious. But anyway, it doesn't matter. Anyway, you start thinking about this marginalization, you feel fear. What do you do with that fear? You sit with it. How do you sit with it? You're in the office. How do you sit with it? What do you mean by sit with it? Dance with that too. When you think of fear, you have a response. Get in there. Work with it. And as you get totally involved with your fear, the fear will drop.

[37:57]

And you'll be standing there in the office again. you will and you'll be anxious because you have just faced your fear so now you can face being there a woman in the office standing on the ground with your feet in shoes or whatever and maybe you take your shoes off I don't know I'm not recommending you know what to wear so you understand what the practice is the practice is you yourself all day long how about owning up to it Say, okay. But then as soon as you do it, you say, but now, right? Now what? Keep it up. Or do it even more fully. When you meet somebody, be there. And if you're somebody being there, this person is going to have a response to that. If you're not there, this person will also have a response to it. Meeting me and you yourself, my policy is to applaud you.

[39:04]

To say, come on, let's have more of that. And if you come to me and you say, okay, I'm not going to be me. My thing is, what are you talking about? How can you be doing that? Why do that? Why pretend not to be yourself? Why to me? I'm not going to like that. And you might say, well, I came to do it to you because I know you'd call me on it. Like I said to somebody recently, if I see people walking around, like this guy with the planks, see that guy over there with the planks? If I see somebody walking around with a plank, I think, hey, he doesn't want me to say anything. I run over there and say, Steve, what's the plank for? I think he's taking the plank to the shop or something, you know, he's a carpenter. Or if I see somebody, a couple of guys carrying a door from the shop over to the room, I think, oh, they're carrying a door from the shop to the room. They don't want me to say, how come you have a door?

[40:06]

You know, I might do that. And they might say, wow, that's a great question. Fantastic. You know, we never thought of this. You know, wonderful. Thank you. Or they may say, what? But if they bring a door into my office, then I'm going to say, what's the door for? Why did you bring a door into my office? Can you imagine if somebody came in my room, sat down with a door? What's the door for? So if I see people walking down the street and they're saying, don't talk to me, I don't want to say anything, don't ask me how I'm feeling, I say, well, fine. But if you don't want me to talk to you, you would say, stay away. But why come into my room, sit down in front of me and say, I don't want to talk to you?

[41:09]

It makes me kind of say, well, what's the door for? Why go out of your way to hide? Who's going to ask you what you're hiding for? It'd be better just to hide somewhere outside the room. Then I won't ask you, probably. I'm going to say, really, you know, him in a creative mood. Where I would ask carpenters, what, you know, how come you have a hat? But, like I say, if somebody comes in and says, okay, here I am, I came all the way from the peninsula to see you, and I'm not going to tell you who I am. What did you come here for to tell me that you're not going to reveal yourself? Now, most people do not want to see yourself because if they see you, then maybe you'll ask them to see them, to show themselves.

[42:13]

So they marginalize you, which means they run away from you. But people do that with, you know, people, you know, people run away from who they want to be with. So they'll marginalize you because you're reminding them of what their life's about. That will be what they'll do to you. Maybe. Maybe they'll do that. That's a normal thing. They'll marginalize the person that reminds them of what they've abandoned. Because they've gone to all the trouble of abandoning it, now you're in their face reminding them of what they've abandoned. Even though they're yearning to be reunited with it. It's very dynamic. This is a big job. No kidding. You've got to have a lot of courage to do it. And if marginalization is part of the price, that's not as high a price as what you really have to do, and that is face the anxiety.

[43:15]

If you face the anxiety, marginalization is not the big problem. Marginalization is just part of the journey of a person who wakes up. Just one little, you know, mini-series in the process that you'd be marginalized for a while. And definitely you have to be open to the possibility of the worst of you. That's nothing compared to the work you really have to do. When you feel the fear of marginalization, courageously encounter it and it'll drop. And then the marginalization will follow or not. But the fear you already have to deal with. Don't you understand who you are and what your job is in Silicon Valley? Yeah. Do you understand you have to save all sentient beings, including those people? How do you feel?

[44:30]

I'm hot. I feel good because I think, you know, when someone just walks in, that's like, wow, there's a seat. Why not? The importance of change your syndrome. So, um, You can be present and not be in touch with your anxiety, but if you stay present for a while, then you start to notice that you're expressing yourself. You start to notice what self-expression is and what it isn't. You start to notice that you're expressing yourself, and you feel some separation from others. Then probably the anxiety will start to manifest. And if it doesn't, is that a sign that you're not being yourself?

[46:03]

Well, yeah. Kind of. I mean, I can't say absolutely, but you might start, one, you might start becoming a little anxious about that. You might sense, you know, especially now that you've heard me suggest that to you, So like, for example, Kathleen, before she expressed herself there, was probably feeling different than during and after she expressed herself, right? Between just sort of like, she was expressing herself before, but somehow that expression brought her quite, she became quite aware of expressing herself, right? And that maybe your views are somewhat different from Galen's. I feel anxious. I feel anxious now. Yeah, so what is that anxiety like? Well, it's a little uncomfortable. And I think that's really a fear I have about expressing myself. I just blurt it out when I'm thinking.

[47:11]

Well, you can have a fear that if you express yourself, you'll feel anxious. But the anxiety is not fear that if you express yourself, something... you can feel the anxiety before anything happens. Just the fact that you're by yourself, expressing yourself, you feel, you feel some, you know, torment. You feel under some threat or attack. And if you don't feel it yet, then just enter more and more deeply into self-expression. And again, that doesn't mean self-expression. Self-expression is not just that you express yourself and assert yourself. Because part of what we are is receptive to and which have the capacity to recognize others and to respond to others. But you can't respond to others without recognizing them. Does that make sense? If you're responding without recognizing them, you're just responding to your own idea.

[48:15]

And in fact, we do respond to our own idea, but we can also check out our own idea to respond. We can say things and ask questions. We can ask questions. We can doubt that we actually understand the other person. We can wonder. We can be in awe. We can respect. In other words, we can look again at somebody and to see if what we thought is what we thought. This is part of being yourself, too, is to actually go up to people and say, what's happening? I mean, and actually wonder. Or wonder even before you ask, and then wonder, and then ask, and then wonder, and ask and wonder, and ask and wonder, and doubt. That, you know, existentially doubt, not doubt like corrosively, unhealthily doubt, in the sense that you don't express yourself. Doubt your own perceptions. That's a normal part of self-expression. To be a person and think you're right, that's part of being a person.

[49:18]

To wonder if you're right is another part of being a person. So as you enter into a relationship with somebody and you start to express the part of yourself that's interested in people and wondering about people, you start to care more about people. And as you care more about people, you feel more anxiety. concerned about what they might be and how they are. At the same time, you can't just be concerned about them. You also have to express yourself because you do respond to them always. You sit there and let them sit there, or you sit there and ask them questions, or you sit there and ask them if you can tell them something you want to say. As you get more and more vividly yourself and not somebody else, I say to you, you become more anxious. And when you finally... You know, don't move at all from what you are. And at the same time, don't move while fully expressing yourself. This is Buddha, you know, the night he was enlightened, you know, he said, okay, I'm going to sit down and I'm not going to move until I settle this great matter.

[50:29]

And then they came. It's now been depicted in a major motion picture. Uh-huh. The hosts, armies, armies of testers came and tormented him and teased him and tried to distract him, and he didn't move. He stood his ground. But it wasn't like he closed his eyes to these beings. He was like, you know, quite, you know, quite... And he responded. He recognized these powerful... presences coming towards him, right? Testing him to see whether his resolve would hold, his resolve to not move, for just not moving's sake, but to not move until he settled the matter. And not moving has something to do with settling the matter. In other words, not moving from yourself has something to do with settling the matter. And he said, I'm going to be myself all the way until I understand myself.

[51:36]

And then, and Oh, no, you don't. You can't do this. Get out of here. We're going to kill you. Okay. Here's some destiny cards for you. This destiny, this destiny, this destiny. Will this one get you? Here's one gorgeous woman. Here's two gorgeous women. Here's ten. Here's all of them. Here's one handsome man. Here's monsters. Here's all kinds of terrors. Are you going to move? Are you going to stop beating yourself under these circumstances? He didn't. But it wasn't that he... And not moving has something to do with settling the matter. In other words, not moving from yourself has something to do with settling the matter. And he said, I'm going to be myself all the way until I understand myself. And then anxiety comes and says, oh, no, you don't. You can't do this. Get out of here. We're going to kill you.

[52:39]

Okay? Here's some destiny cards for you. This destiny, this destiny, this destiny. Will this one get you? Here's one gorgeous woman. Here's two gorgeous women. Here's ten. Here's all of them. Here's one handsome man. Here's two handsome men. Here's monsters. Here's all kinds of terror. Are you going to stop beating yourself under these circumstances? He didn't. But it wasn't that he became numb to this anxiety. He felt it. And he responded. And he kept asserting himself and kept saying, I'm going to continue to be here and face this. I'm going to continue to be here and face this. And he just kept doing it. And then they backed off. There's a dance there between

[53:39]

demons of anxiety, there's a dance. How are you dancing? Some people don't know what I'm talking about. Well, then you don't feel like you're dancing exactly, do you? Or it's a funny dance. You, I mean do you, I'm going to ask you if you do, but I'm not going to ask you if you do, I'm just going to say that people sometimes think that you can stand up and be yourself and nobody will come and dance with you. I say the dancing partner will come. You sit still, the world will start dancing with you. You know, the trees and the walls and the stones and the mountains and the rivers and the people and the dogs and the cats, they'll start dancing with you. You know, they'll come around and they'll come right in front of you and they'll go, woo, woo, woo, and they'll move on. And they'll come, woo. You can't just, I'm going to now dance with Pam.

[54:42]

And Pam's my dance partner. No, Pam just comes here for a second and then Pam's gone. And then there's Judith. And then there's Rafael, and then there's Martin. You don't get to be in control of the dance partners in this case. You don't get to buy anything. You don't get to dial in your partner. But if you hold still and be yourself, you'll get partner after partner after partner. But the partners isn't the anxiety. that you have no control, because that is what you feel when you have no control over what your partner is going to be, and that all these partners are actually just like symbols of what seems to threaten you. You see, we're not really individuals.

[55:44]

This individual thing is a temporary setup. It's not going to hold. It's going soon. We have a chance to understand through this limitation. And the unlimited has a chance to realize itself in dynamic relationships through our being. So do you understand a little bit more about what anxiety is now? Do you have another question? The train hasn't fired up yet. Yeah. I understand better because I was going through a lot of anxiety with Tom. Can you tell us about it? Well, I know how to say it. I felt like crying for a moment. Okay, so sadness is not anxiety.

[56:55]

So what's the sadness got to do with anxiety? Tell me about the anxiety. Crying is not anxiety. Crying is a response to anxiety. Tell me about the anxiety. Uh-huh. Okay, good. This might be the case. Now, in the instant before you felt the sadness, what was that instant? That I'd lost something. That you'd lost something. Right. And also, I might ask, you lost something. Now, that something you lost, did you let go of what you lost? Yeah. You did? No. No. That's what the sadness is for.

[57:56]

The sadness is to finish the job. Now, what did you lose? I want to say illusion. I want to say... Yes, illusion. Now, which one? Or which one? What was the picture? And when you lost this picture, which you can't quite tell us about, did another picture of yourself come? Yes.

[59:05]

And did that picture of yourself, it can get clearer after you were sad? Did it tend to get clearer? Did it get clearer after you got into the sadness? Yes, the sadness left, and then it wasn't clear. Yes, yeah. There was a person who didn't know about anxiety, for example. He didn't know about anxiety. He was a younger person, maybe in some ways kind of, well, I don't know, maybe kind of cute in his... But anyway, that's what you had going for you, and that was your best so far. Not best, but that was your current model. And then you lost that one. That one went away. And then, but you couldn't quite let it go. So you were sad. And then you got this new person who knows a little bit. After the following, with this conversation, is that okay?

[60:18]

Anybody else want to stop the train before it starts going again? Yes? What is your name again? Peggy. Peggy. And you go with, just Peg, Peg. Bookend. Bookend. For the role of self. I've been wanting to ask this, it was earlier last night, about the difference between non-objectivity and The word illusion. Are they synonymous? What's non-objectivity? Weren't you talking about something non-objective? Object. Oh, objectlessness? Objectless. Or objectless meditation? Yeah. Is that... Okay. Would that be the same or synonymous with the word illusion? I mean, I'm trying... I can't get the word out of my mind. Objects are illusions. Illusions are objects. Objectless meditation is illusionless meditation, you could say.

[61:26]

Can you imagine a meditation that's illusionless? No illusions, which means there's no objects. So like if I'm meditating on Reena, if I'm meditating on the object Reena, okay, what's objectless meditation in this case of looking at her? How? Party? Yeah, so what's objectless, illusionless meditation when I'm looking at this? What would that be like? Hmm? What would that be like? That's kind of like it, yeah. She would be an object. That's what objectless meditation would be like, that she wouldn't be an object anymore. Or that my meditation would be on the process by which I create the sense of her being an object.

[62:36]

I would be aware of how I make up her as an object. In that sense, I wouldn't believe her as an object anymore. That would be objectless meditation. In other words, all there would be is doksan. There would just be, you know, solitary needing. And then there would be anxiety. Because looking at her, I wouldn't try to get away from her because it would not be possible for me to farther away from her. All that would be possible would be for me to more clearly understand how that is showing me my face. And that you are the, that that is how I see my face right now. This is my only chance to see my face. I have no chance other than looking at you while I'm looking at you. This is how I meet myself. Then I feel anxiety. In other words, you feel anxiety when you respect every person as kind of like your salvation.

[63:40]

Not your savior. They're not going to save you. They are your salvation to save you from your illusions. And then you feel anxiety. Because you're not moving. And it's just you. And also you have a lot of doubt. Because you kind of doubt that that's you. But you also doubt that it's not you. You perceive if your equipment says it's not you, but you doubt that. You also doubt that that really is you. In fact, don't you doubt that who you're looking at is you? But also, when you start doubting that it's not you, you start doing objectless meditation. In other words, when you doubt that other people are not you, you start to think that maybe you're experiencing illusions. Feel that way and are with people that way, you feel anxiety.

[64:43]

Feel anxiety for yourself, and you also feel like maybe they might feel anxiety too if they're in your neighborhood. And in fact, they probably, they very well might. Necessarily, it's optional for them. Not for you. You're in the middle of it. What's next? I think I've got it. I mean, as far as I'm going. As far as you're going to up to this moment, yes. Start to train? I think you were first. Did you hear him say read before he raised your hand? In our group, questions were about where we feel various feelings, like fear or anxiety in the body. I wanted to see if we could resolve this. My own sense of fear, I classically feel it in my solar plexus.

[65:51]

I don't feel anxiety there. The first year was up higher. Yeah, I'm constricted, actually. Can't breathe. Constrictive heart. Yeah, I mean, like, it's not, yeah, it gets to my throat, too. It all happens. But I always think of it. But I think I have trouble breathing. Yeah. But it's like I said that when we talked about in the Dharma, I was talking about softening your heart.

[66:54]

When I start softening myself, I breathe better. So I think I kind of put up an invisible shell, and it's pushing against me, and I can't breathe. So I kind of soften things, and then it goes away. Well, when you feel the constriction and you feel it, then in a sense you courageously interact with it. You start participating with the constriction. When you start participating with it, it starts to soften up. Does this go on forever? No. Thank you. Another possibility is that when you say you feel fear in your solar plexus, it may be that it's not so much that you feel fear in your solar plexus, but you use your solar plexus as a way to relate to the fear, another way to put it.

[67:59]

You want to relate to it from there. And some other people might use other parts of their body to relate to the fear. So you would say that there are particular body parts between anxiety and fear, and you could differentiate them as to which to stick with. Yeah, there's a difference between anxiety and fear. Anxiety is non-anticipatory. Fear is anticipatory. And the psychochemical reaction of anticipatory types of thoughts are different from the, for example, water. When I get in the cold water, just when I first get in the cold water, at that moment, I'm just getting in the cold water. It's anxiety. But when I think about whether I'll survive the swim, there's fear. Yes? I'm still not out. Well, give me an example of what I said in this room, too, of what I think of as anxiety.

[69:09]

Can I just say one more thing? I said when I get in cold water, oftentimes people when they get in cold water, they lose their breath. You know, they stop breathing. One of the first reactions. Go ahead. Like when I was thinking that what anxiety is, like when it's a state of being, is that you have to be, everything is just in that anything can happen at any time. So like the example I gave is like you're driving home and You know, it's kind of anxious. I mean, it's night and it's a curvy road. Okay, so I'm saying that when you start thinking about anything could happen, okay, that anything can happen, that's where anxiety lends to the situation, that anything can happen. But when you make that into an object, then you start having fear.

[70:14]

But what makes the fear... have its bite is the implications, and the implications that anxiety offers are basically infinite. So when you feel fear, you know you're making it into an object of something that might happen. But you know, but you know that that's not really the full story. It's much different from that. If you actually could pin it down and say, this is it, then you could start interacting with it and then bring it into the present even. And then you basically got it. You're back into, you're courageous, you're creative, and your self is starting to manifest to coming back and just being an ordinary person again and realizing again that there's endless possibilities in the next moment. And if you stop breathing, either when you make it into an object or when you make it into the object and you start to feel the bite, the pain, the sting of the fear is all the implications and ramifications that can come with that.

[71:36]

That's what makes the pain, that's what makes the fear not so much painful. Anxiety is more of just plain painful. Fear is very, you know, makes us get very excited and turns on all these chemical reactions, right? Anxiety doesn't turn on adrenaline. Fear does. But still, what's going on is so bad. What's bad is these endless possibilities on the back of that object. But again, once you've got an object, you can dance with it, you can participate with it. So when you've got an object, there's some sense of your creativity there. Because when you can participate with something, then it moves a little bit when you move, you know? And when you get that kind of give and take going, your creativity comes back and some meaningfulness in your life starts to come back. And then non-being is pushed away for a while.

[72:38]

Because in non-being, you cannot participate. Now, your inability to participate with it is exactly why it's safe, too, and why you can't mess with it, and why it can always be your friend, and why your life support can never be, you can never sell away or damage your life support. because you can't participate with it. But since you can't participate with it, there can be no meaning and no creativity possible. And we can't stand meaninglessness and lack of creativity, the possibility of that. We are meaningful beings and we are creative. So it really is an affront. Being affronted is anxiety. And you might stop breathing.

[73:39]

And you also might stop breathing even if you make it into an object and become frightened. How are you doing? I'm breathing. Fear can be both beneficial and non-beneficial, or there are fears that are beneficial. Well, fear is, again, whenever you're experiencing fear, you're in a crisis. Okay? You can go in a beneficial direction or a non-beneficial direction. Just to use the opportunity of fear. Non-beneficial is to fall into the danger of fear. What's the dangers of fear? What? Withdrawal. Hiding. What else? Hatred. Anger?

[74:41]

Yep, what else? These are minor, by the way. Oh, okay. You get paralyzed. You don't think you can't elaborate. You could be paralyzed. That wouldn't be so bad, but that would happen. Or you could speak to somebody else and want to tell me a later deal. Yeah, that's what that... You can get... When somebody's afraid, you can get them to do basically anything. You can get them to hurt other people because they're afraid. You can say, go hurt that person. Go hurt your mother. Go hurt your children. Go hurt your best friend. Tell a lie about your best friend. Blah, blah, blah. And if you... You can be made to do it. Maybe not instantly, but you can basically... You're a puppet when you're afraid.

[75:46]

You can be made to do cruel things. Because other things also can happen with fear. But that's the worst, right? That you can be cruel and harmful to other beings. Of course, to yourself. To yourself. I could go on. But anyway, basically, the most horrible thing that people do... are driven by fear by just by greed and hate even by hate you won't do some i mean you won't do some things i mean even by hate you won't kill person after person after person after person you won't do that just by hate just by hate you'll you'll kill one and you'll kill another but pretty soon you'll start getting sick of it like achilles or something you know he got angry it took his girlfriend away right That was pretty bad. And then they killed his friend, right? Really upset. And went and killed lots of Trojans. But after a while, he got sick of it.

[76:47]

He gets sick of it. But you can be driven far beyond what you do by hatred, by fear. You can kill people that you are not angry with. Over and over, you can be cruel to people you're not angry at to protect yourself from what you're afraid of. Anyway, that's the incredible danger of fear. That's why we must face it, dance with it, neutralize it. I can visit again and again because anxiety is always driving it towards us. But what's the opportunity of fear? There's some opportunity there. What's the opportunity? What? Liberation, but before liberation, what's the opportunity? What? Courage. Courage, yes. It pushes you. It pushes you. Where does it push you? It pushes you towards the fear, and if you face the fear, then what? What? Be more yourself. So fear can be, if you understand fear properly, fear is telling you, go back and be yourself.

[77:53]

You're off the track, sweetheart. Come home. Johnny, get away from there. Come home. And if you understand that message and come back, then fear has been useful to you because you got off track. And then the fear reaction shows you that you can't afford, you cannot afford not to be home. You cannot afford that. You cannot afford that. And fear is what puts teeth in that. It says, we told you six times that you can't afford it. Now take this. Take these chemicals. Now come back. and be yourself. And when you come back and be yourself in a real way, now you're back on track, now you're on the road yourself into becoming liberated from yourself. That's the opportunity of fear. The other is the incredible danger. Fear is extremely dangerous if you don't interact with it and face it.

[78:58]

If you turn away from it, in your back and runs your life.

[79:02]

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