So when I say self, this self that has the anxiety, that's the ego. The non-ego doesn't have anxiety. I'm talking about the ego. Now, if you want to meet the authentic self, the authentic self is the dependence of the ego. Authentic self is like totally free. I know you were, but I'm telling you that the authentic self goes through the ego, comes out of the ego. Check it out. And if you check it out, what you're going to have to do is you have to If I am more my authentic self, I'm less concerned about what people think about me. I'm less attached to the image I project. That's right. That's right. It means if I'm more that self, that authentic self, I have less ego, which means I... No, no, you don't have less ego in your authentic self.

[01:02]

No, no, you don't have... Authentic self doesn't, like, have less ego. No, it has an ego. No, it has an ego, but it doesn't think that the ego is the beginning and the end of the universe. It has inhabited the ego. It has inhabited the self as something that a person who has been willing to be an ordinary person gets as a gift. People who are I'm saying what natural I am or felt in the world, the less concerned I am about affecting my ego, which means I need to become less concerned about what people will think about. That's all. Would you say that again? A little slower? No, I can't. It's something like that. If I'm more of my natural self... I didn't say natural self. I don't know.

[02:03]

Okay, I heard you. Okay, now here's what I have to say, all right? Which might sound different from what you say, okay? Can I say something different from you? All right. So what I'm saying is that the way to transcend yourself, the self I want to transcend is my limited self. That's limited. That's the one that feels the anxiety, the limited one. But that self wants to be a self. Only because it is that limited self. And that self wants to transcend itself. I'm not done. This self wants to keep talking.

[03:04]

Are you going to let me? I'm proposing that by being my limited self, I feel... And if I'm willing to feel the anxiety that comes with being my limited self, I will transcend my limited self. And I will become my authentic self, which is not worried about this limited self anymore. But I'm suggesting that I don't get to transcend the self by skipping over the self. And that's what a lot of people in spiritual practice do. They want to get to the transcendent self. They don't want to go through the pit, the anxiety pit of being a limited inauthentic self inauthentic means inauthentic a self that doesn't completely realize how it's offered I have to be this limited ego self and feel the anxiety of that all the way feel the whole range of the anxiety and just be that self and feel that and then I get relief

[04:19]

and then I won't be worried about myself anymore. However, that authentic self for me is not natural. It is a result of hard spiritual practice of commanding myself to be a limited fella or gal, whatever. And that is very intense spiritual effort, which takes a lot of practice and a lot of cutting your hands on sharp grass and a pretty bloody meditation cushion to get to that place. But when you get there, you won't care about yourself anymore at all. Not because you're doing somebody a favor, but because you just forget the whole thing. You transcend it. You completely forget the whole thing. You suddenly see that all the stuff that you're threatened by is actually your life.

[05:24]

That's what you really are. So there is no more threat. But you don't have less ego. Ego is exactly what it was before, just a little kind of like puffball. You know? And that's how you know where to put your cereal. You know, you don't go around, you don't go around, you know, you know, feeding other people without asking them. You do feed other people, you know, like, she said, would you like, would you like me to feed you? And she says, no, so I don't. But if she actually can't feed herself, then I feed her. I find this is concerning, but I also know that she's not me, so I have to ask her, but I don't have to ask me. I've still got an ego, but useful. Without an ego, I wouldn't know who to ask whether they wanted me to feed them or not. You see, it would be a mess. They would lock you up if you didn't have an ego. Enlightened people have nice nose, just like everybody else. Real clear, you know. They never make mistakes like, you know, kind of like not knowing whether they should check with somebody else before they, you know, wipe their nose, wipe the other person's nose.

[06:32]

They know that you should ask people in certain cultures. Now, there's some things you can do with people without asking them. I mean, a couple hundred dollars, baby. In certain cultures, you can do that, and it's quite all right. But in other, in certain cultures, you can't take a couple hundred dollars from people without asking them. Ego is how you tell what to do with the money and what to do with the saliva and the snot and the toothpaste. ego these authentic selves but ego's like you know kind of like there's blue jays there's pine trees there's ego there's addresses there's telephone numbers there's telephone books egos are like one of the things out there that you use that's all it's not like kind of like ego's really like real important telephone books are less important they're like they're equal at that point But you wouldn't go around saying, you know, it is like enlightened people do not have telephone books.

[07:34]

You know, like, no more telephone books for enlightened people. It's not like that. You eat before and after enlightenment. You have telephone books before and after enlightenment. You have self before and after. You have ego before and after enlightenment. What you don't have after enlightenment is you don't have hatred for other people. You don't have greed, you know. You don't have fear. You don't have anxiety. But you do have. You do get hungry. You do have the ego. You do have a telephone number or not. And you do have enthusiasm and joy and freedom and energy and flexibility and intelligence and wisdom and compassion. You have all that stuff. which you had before, but you couldn't see it because you were afraid to come home. Because when you got home, you felt too much anxiety.

[08:36]

So, if you get away from fear and then you temporarily feel a relief from fear and you don't feel a lot of anxiety, that's okay. If you now start expressing yourself in your meditation, which means all day long, you will start feeling The more you express yourself, you feel more anxiety. But if you can feel that anxiety, be that person who feels that anxiety, you will transcend that person. And your authentic self, which is your forgotten ego, or your ego-forgotten state, that will be realized, that will come into the world, and that's what we're here for. But we have to go to this workshop first. and his workshop, if not just, you know, for this weekend. This is the beginning of, you know, a long workshop. Congratulations.

[09:44]

What's your name? Barbara. Barbara? Yes. This is what Marcy said, actually. I have something very similar to that. Yes. I have a close friend. I'm pretty honest with all the families. She has helped express myself in a way I live in, as she said. And I have not yet shared with God about the requirements of me when she's gone. I mean, I have learned a lot about listening better, but I've come very far over towards what she needs. I have not yet told her that I am gay, and I have existed so far and have not been on here. So, are you seeing the best thing for me to do is to sit with it, share my life, not to objectify in my mind I'm afraid of, or I'm afraid she's going to leave me, or I'm afraid she's going to,

[10:54]

pretty much but you said some stuff around the edges there that I would like to like prune off I'm not telling you you know not to do anything there's nothing I'm telling you not okay What I'm suggesting is that you be yourself. And that will give you just the right amount of anxiety. I'm not exactly saying, like, if you feel some anxiety, like, you know, work with the anxiety. Because, then again, if you feel the anxiety like something that you're not oriented towards, that's not anxiety exactly. That's more like fear. The anxiety is what you feel when you're, like, have no, you don't have any time even to, like, feel it. It's like you're totally working at being yourself. I'm suggesting that you work at being yourself, and then what happens will be the anxiety, just the right kind of anxiety, which you won't have any time to get a hold of. You can't get a hold of the anxiety.

[12:08]

You can get a hold of fear, and that's useful. And so we can talk about that more, too. How do you get a hold of the fear? When you start working with the fear, you know, with it, to love it, to bring it back, to be yourself. That will be you doing this very strenuous energetic dance with your fear, with the object which causes fear. By being yourself in relationship to that, by being courageous in face of that, using courage to meet the fear, you're expressing yourself. And when you've totally done that, the fear drops, and what we've got is you now. Then the anxiety dawns. What do you do then? Be yourself again. So, you're talking to somebody. The way to be yourself is the same way that you be yourself when nobody's around. When nobody's around, what you do is you listen to yourself. You obey yourself. And you command yourself to obey yourself.

[13:16]

You say, listen to me. And you listen to see what self you should be. And when you're talking to somebody else, you listen to them. To them. And then you express, and then you be, and then you be yourself. And you command them to listen to you. How do you command them to listen to you? By being yourself. You might say, listen to me, but mostly you express yourself. It's kind of boring to keep saying over and over, listen to me, listen to me. What you do is you say, I want to talk. I want to say something. Here I am. I'm expecting myself. It isn't like, please listen to me. That's the one way, but basically I have something to say. I'm talking. This is me. That's one thing I have to offer to this conversation. I have me to offer. Not only do I have me to offer, but I also have listening to offer.

[14:23]

I'm listening to you. Turns out that the me that's the most anxious one is the one that's listening and also expressing. The one that's not only expressing, but being recognized. If I'm expressing and you're not listening to me, I don't feel as anxious as if you do listen to me. But if I'm expressing myself and you're just listening, I don't feel as anxious as if I'm listening to you and you are expressing yourself. That's the most way, that's you, that's me, that's my most, is when I'm not just talking and being listened to, but I'm talking to somebody who I think is somebody. and somebody who I think that somebody is listening to me, watching me. I think that somebody who means something to me, I'm also listening to.

[15:27]

You're there for the danger that you'll talk too much or listen too much. The danger that you'll recognize the other too much or you'll express yourself too much and not listen to them enough. Then the thing is, so let's say that you're off balance, and the thing is just to keep being yourself, to keep looking to yourself, and if you look into the other also, you keep it going. When you're talking to somebody, you're not so much listening to yourself as part of it. You're expressing yourself, first of all, and then you hear yourself. Express yourself, hear yourself. Look at them, recognize them, watch their face when you talk. What are they expressing when you're expressing them? Try to do both at the same time. And some very bright people in this world, some of the brightest thinkers of all time, have come to the conclusion, basically, people can't do this.

[16:43]

Certainly, most people can't do this. That's what they say. Therefore, they made philosophical recommendations for people who are not willing to do this. So they say, why don't some of you be somebody and nobody? And then everybody will have less anxiety, and let's go from there. Because nobody will be being themselves, and then people will be afraid, and then we can just manipulate people with the fear. That's been the recommendation of some very bright people. Hegel, Marx, and so on. Freud. They didn't think it was possible for people to do this. Yes? Lina. What? Lina. Lina. Lina, yeah. In this discussion about the self, sometimes in life, you have compromises because of the fear that you were talking, you put yourself in the corner, and then you want to be yourself, but sometimes you don't know who the self is.

[17:49]

It is. The discussion here is sort of based on the assumption, it seems to me, that it's like you don't want to be yourself because you're afraid, but it's like there's a... I think there's a time in life where you have lost touch with the recognition of that self. Yes. And so that's... So then you think that that's the direction, that if you take a direction, that's going to be why you touch with yourself. ...simultaneously and you have lost that clarity of recognition. Yes. So... This is true. I mean... So the process of sort of being yourself is not so clear because... Not so clear. Uh-huh. No. That's what's nice about fear is they make it clearer. If you don't feel any fear and anxiety, then, well, where is the self? Which self should you follow? kind of not very clear but if you feel fear then you've got something there because if you if you if you think and meet the fear you will some somebody will be start coming out and meeting that if you have the courage to to face the fear a courageous person starts to develop and if you have the courage to face the fear you and as you get more into facing the fear yourself becomes clearer until

[19:19]

When you totally are engaged in facing the fear, the fear drops and now you've got a self. And then you feel the anxiety. And as you start to feel the anxiety, the anxiety starts to even more clearly delineate this ego, this limited self. And then, of course, to obscure it and to feel less anxiety. But the fear is nice because the fear says, go back home. But, you know, you have to interact with it for it to whisper that. You have to get kind of real close for it to whisper that in your ear. When you really get close to the ear, really get close, it says, I've done my job. You're home again. See you later. The ear goes away, and... So Gail's giving me the signal, which is a 9 o'clock signal, but this is only for Green Gulch people. Did you tell them they could leave at 9 o'clock? Usually in our classes we end at 9 o'clock, but what time do you want to end tonight?

[20:25]

Do you want to end at 9? What time do people want to end? 9? [...] 9 to 15. How many people want to end at 9? Raise your hands. How many people want to end at 9 to 15? How many people want to end later than 9 to 15? So, the people who want to leave at 9, I'll tell you when it's 9 o'clock and you can leave. Okay, so, where were we? We'll start tomorrow. Well, the people who are staying here, or anybody, staying here or not staying here, you can come in the morning to morning meditation at 5. Anybody can go to that in the Zendo. It's 5.50, not 4.50.

[21:30]

5.50, not 4.50, correct. This is the E-Term schedule. So you can go to meditation at 5.50 in the Zendo. Anybody wants to, any of you can do that. You're all welcome. The group as a whole, can you all be back here at 9 o'clock? Can everybody be here in this room at 9 o'clock tomorrow? Okay, so as a group, we'll convene here at 9 o'clock, and then we'll go through the day. Until what time should we go to tomorrow night? 9. 9? Okay, we'll go until 9. And tonight, at 9 o'clock, I will tell people it's 9 o'clock, or a little later. But I want to finish with Lina. Lina? Lina? We are. Arena. Arena. Arena. Okay. Where were we? You were talking about the fear, confronting the fear and developing the anxiety, and then recognizing with itself.

[22:30]

But, you know, even knowing that, you sort of end up making time to make choices. And if you have already made some choices... Like what? What choices? For example, in relationship, I mean, if you change, you can hurt other people. For example? Children. For example? Tell me how you hurt people. By abandoning certain situation. By abandoning situation? How would that happen? that you would abandon a situation by encountering fear? How do you, how do you, how do you... One culture to another, and you have to take your children to a different culture to be more yourself. Well, this, this, this is kind of like, what do you call it, a little bit elaborated, okay?

[23:36]

If you can bring the example back down to an actual situation, like an actual situation, not some kind of big plan to leave the country or something, but like some case where you're in a situation where the question is you're afraid and what's the problem of facing your fear? Would you tell me an example like that? You can take... I'll give you some time. Tell us tomorrow. I don't think so. I think what I'm talking about is the path of taking care of your children. It might... Where this path leads, I do not know. It might lead to Guatemala, New York City, No Valley. It might lead you to become a ballet dancer, you know, erotic dancer. I don't know what. I don't know where this is all going. That's not the point. The point is that every step of the way is your best, most authentic, courageous attempt to express yourself.

[24:37]

Because, ladies and gentlemen, you're No matter what happens from now on, you're going to be expressing yourself. That's not going to stop. That's what's been happening your whole life. The question is, is what you're doing, is what you're thinking, what you're saying, and what you're doing with your body, is this your most honest, your most true to yourself expression? And do you trust that? And most people do not. They do not believe. They do not believe that they can be themselves in this world. They think people do not want them to be that. And ladies and gentlemen, they will say they don't. They will say, I do not like you. I do not like what you just said. They will say things like that. That does not mean they don't like you. That does not mean they don't like what you said. It just means they said that. You do not know what people mean when they talk to you.

[25:38]

You do not know what people mean when they talk to you. That's part of the anxiety of this world is you do not know what's going on. You do not know what people mean when they talk to you. You do not know what people mean when they talk to you. That's part of the anxiety of this world is you do not know what's going on. So because we don't know what's going on, we decide to make up that we do know what's going on. In the face of making up about what's going on, we decide that given that that's going on, which I decided what's going on, I'm not going to be myself. This is the big mistake. There's one thing you do know about, a little bit, and that is who You have to say and how you feel and what you want to do.

[26:43]

You know that a little bit. It's a little bit unclear and you can get better and better at it, but you know about that, but you do not know anything about other people and what they mean. You really don't. It's really a mystery. But who wants to face it? That's too anxiety provoking, so I'll make up a story about it. I'll make it into an object and I can be afraid. But again, once you get afraid of what you make this world into being, if you interact with it, you'll find out it isn't that way. And it'll drop. And then you'll be back in a place of having a mystery again all over your face. And you'll feel the anxiety of the... But the person who feels that anxiety, that's starting to get clear. Because the one who's most anxious... is the one who's closest to you. That's the closest you can. You more and more get anxious by feeling closer to yourself. Or turn it the other way around. Be more and more anxious. We tell lies because we think it's safer for us.

[27:46]

It's not safer for us, but we think so. What's safe is to tell the truth. experience the results. That's the safe path. But it's not easy path and doesn't mean people won't yell at you or have problems with you. It also doesn't mean they will. But it does mean you won't know what they're doing with you. That does mean that. And you will feel anxiety. So part of meditation is first encounter the fear. And then also part, the next part of meditation is to learn how to take care of yourself when you're anxious. and the way to take care of yourself when you're anxious is to do more of what made you anxious namely be yourself even more and [...] more until you see what it is and when you see what it is you'll be relieved of it and you'll be relieved of anxiety and you'll be relieved of fear and you'll be a Buddha and your wisdom and compassion will be totally available for use

[29:03]

But this is difficult. It's not easy, it's difficult. So, now we enter our nighttime meditation session. What? Several hours long. It goes from nine... It's twelve hours long. It goes from about nine to nine. Your meditation is to... as much as you can, be as courageous as you can, and if you feel any fear, try to face it, engage with it, participate with it, fully, fully, fully, until, you know, you've totally included it, and then see what happens to it. And come back and tell us. If you're not afraid, then try to keep your anxiety down. Feel what that's like. And see who you find out you are in that thing.

[30:08]

And see if you find any problems with this. Come back and tell us about it. Or tell me about it. Or tell each other about it. These things, these fears and these anxieties are tremendous opportunities. They're dangerous though too. We're talking about some dangerous stuff here. But there's a great opportunity and you can actually get into this this weekend. But don't wait. Start working on it right now. Start meditating right now, through the night. I'm ready. Yes, Martin. Engaging with it would be noticing what's going on in the body too. Yes. Notice what's going on. Feel what's going on in your body right now. How do you feel? What are you feeling? Are you afraid of anything now? Then do any other fears that might come up between now and tomorrow morning.

[31:10]

And then do you know how to turn towards the fear? Turn towards it. Move closer. Engage with it. Please try to do that. Your successes and failures in meeting and engaging your fear. Or if you feel like you're in the present and you're not running away from the anxiety, how do you experience the anxiety? And how does it impact on you? What are the dimensions and directions with which you feel? Check it out. Feel it. Experience it. And tell us about it. But first of all, tell yourself you're the first one. You're the first one. This is our condition. So everybody's got this material. So keep your eyes open for 12 hours and we'll get back together. All right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[32:13]

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Because if you've got something about yourself, you don't evaporate. Non-being is my being. Okay? And the same for each of you. There's a tremendous amount of non-being, but, you know, tremendous means... What does tremendous mean? I don't know. There is an immeasurable, inconceivable quality of non-being. It might be very tiny. All the non-being might be hidden in a tiny little unlocated spot somewhere or nowhere. We don't know. No one can find it. But anyway, we couldn't have being without it.

[33:18]

The kind of being we have is that we can't have being. And that non-being threatens our being in a sense. Because it isn't us. They're not us. And particularly, it's the not-being part of us. It is the non-being part of us. We have non-being as part of us. ...time because we give it life. But mindfulness is not non-being. Mindfulness is how you meditate on being. So you use mindfulness and awareness to be aware of... You cannot be aware of non-being. You are aware of being. And if you're willing to be aware of being... To some extent, that willingness and that fact, not willingness, the willingness and the practice of mindfulness of how you feel, of how you think, of how you're imaging, that helps you inhabit this being, the being part of you. And it can be part of you totally.

[34:22]

This is the very important part. If you inhabit your being totally, you're a total being. And a total being is an exact, perfect engagement with non-being. And it is because of non-being that you can be a total being. And then you realize that that which you felt threatened by is actually, you know, your mother. You're It gives you life, and also you in your totality give it life. One of the main images for us, one of the main images or ways we think about, when we think about non-being, the major way it comes to us, the complete image we have of it, is death. Death is not non-being.

[35:29]

Death is one of the ways we relate to non-being. Non-being is more than death. Death just is one of the most complete ways we make it come into form for us. Yes. Do we come from non-beings and go back to non-being? We... And we're just not non-being while we're being? We don't come from non-being, but we dependently co-arise with it. There wasn't non-being before us. There won't be non-being after us. The kind of being, what we as being... you cannot have being before non-being you can't have non-being before being if you can conceive of something if you can talk about non-being before being you can say whatever you want about it but basically it doesn't have any relevance it's not really it's like it's just totally a mental fabrication of a being but non-being does come up right with being and death comes right up with life

[36:56]

Just like other comes, is born. Which comes first? It's not... I have not... I see no way to make self or other posterior or anterior. They come up together. And life and death come up together. And... come up together. And again, even if you could imagine non-being before there's being, it doesn't... it's irrelevant. But the non-being that's there after the being is a charged, you could even say, non-being, or even hot non-being, or cool non-being. It's basically, it's a related non-being. There's nothing in the universe that's not related to everything else. It's basically the idea. And things don't come up separately. They come up together. So, I'm saying this to you, but the reason why I'm saying this to you, I think this is, you know, the best way to express myself, and I think the best way to respond to you is to express myself.

[38:09]

It's not like this is truth. This is just like the conviction of this being. And in expressing this conviction, I feel somehow rapport. More and more rapport with non-beings. So mindfulness is a practice that a living being can do of how she is. And as she is mindful of how she is, the virtue of mindfulness is that you're mindful of yourself and you gradually then learn that you can be more and more and more yourself. And as I say, the anxiety develops, but still you learn you can be yourself anyway. In spite of that, you can more and more settle into yourself. And the more you understand what this non-being is about and how it actually is something that we do have quite a bit of, we are really challenged to make our peace with it.

[39:16]

Just like we're challenged to make our peace Death is just one of the representatives, in terms of our life, one of the representatives of non-being, one of the images or symbols of it. Yes? Where are some other symbols? Other symbols? Well, sort of the part of death, death is like the big threat of my own being, in terms of like images in that I can think about is death. But relatively speaking, less so is what we call or destiny. That's a relative threat or challenge to my being is what we call fate. And fate means, you know, in some particulars other than death that I

[40:19]

moment by moment. Another way that non-being threatens me, this is directly related to my being itself. How my being gets manifested and situated and endowed. Maybe I'll just stop there. Destiny or fate and death. These are ways that my actual own being gets threatened by non-being. Do you have any questions about that? Yeah, I'm really not getting it. I could be afraid of death, but I don't see how you can be threatened by it. It's going to happen. You're going to be there. Threatened by death?

[41:21]

Well, sure, but I mean, I don't... I'm not... I guess what I don't understand is I just don't get non-being. I understand I sadly don't appear, and I was put in jail for doing that. You don't... You just don't get non-being. Okay. What is non-being deprived to anxiety? Okay, well, unbeknownst to you, this is a good question. I mean, you do know it's a good question. Yes. What's good about it? What's good about this question besides that you don't get it? What's good about it? Because if I understand it, then I should move on. Well, that's one... Yeah, okay. But I said, what's good about this question? And he said, I don't understand. question is is he doesn't understand something that it's an expression of you is what's good about this question right yes and so he said he doesn't get non-being okay and he's wondering about what's anxiety got to do with it or how does anxiety yeah okay you don't get non-being that's right you do not get it and notice how we want to get it

[42:50]

All right? You want to get it. You want to get it. And there is some, maybe some feeling like if you could get non... But even before going on, talking about moving on, before that, I would like to get it. But you cannot get non-being. Non-being is what you cannot get. there's something you can't get. And when you start to realize and face the fact that there's something you can't get, and yet... And yet it's not just to be written off. There's something you can't get, and you're never going to get it. You're not going to get it. You can't get it. You can't get it. As soon as you get it, it's become being. And so part of... And anxiety is the way you feel, is the way an individual being feels when they're faced with and admit there's something that they cannot get.

[44:00]

And you feel a certain way. And that's anxiety. And it is painful to a living being to actually admit that there's something you cannot get. So there won't be any moving on. You get this thing. However, not getting it won't stop you from moving on either. You can move on by accepting the feeling of what it's like to be in some rapport and eventually intimate with what you get. Having something in our life that we cannot get is extremely valuable. Because if you can get it, then it's going to become just another operative, your limited self.

[45:02]

In other words, it's going to be part of your limited self. But to have a pal that you can't get and nobody can get is a big power. Zen practice, you know, in its essence, is something that human beings have to do with, in the sense that human beings, human agency, cannot touch it. Zen practice cannot be touched. It is untouchable. And you can become intimate with it and be its partner. You can be partners with something that you can't mess with. When you're hanging around with something so... immeasurable. You can't even say it's big. Something so immeasurable that you can't say it's big, small, you know. If it was, if you, if it was, then it would be like, you know, in its greatness, it is utterly beyond location.

[46:09]

In its fineness is what? In its greatness, in its what? In its fineness, in its what? Yeah. In its fineness, in its spacelessness. If you want to talk about this thing, this palliars, if you want to talk about it in terms of small, it fits in the spacelessness. That's where it fits. Take a small thing and then make it, take the space away from the small thing, it fits in there and runs around, yells and screams and has a good time in spacelessness. It's utterly beyond all location. That's Our pal, we're born of that and it's born of us. You cannot get a hold of it. And when you start feeling that, it hurts a little bit. It hurts a little bit. The human, the limit, it's anxiety. You actually feel choked by this wonderful, ungraspable pal. And it goes with you everywhere.

[47:12]

All states of being is around you. Now, most of us, again, are going too fast to notice rapport with something we can't even notice. Right. And you're saying that is the root of our anxiety, by not being able to get a hold of it? Is that the root of it? The root of our anxiety. Is the ungrateful anxiety? No. What is the root? Separateness? The root is we think that what we can't get a hold of might hurt us. We think we might be destroyed by something that's all around us that gives us life and that we can't get a hold of. We think it might overwhelm us. Because again, that's when it shifts into fear, is when you imagine how it might overwhelm you as you get into its implications.

[48:18]

Just a second. Bill's next. I mean, Michael's next. Are you using it in the same way you used ego? Yeah. Is it then the self that feels this anxiety? Yeah. Yeah. Your unlimited self doesn't feel it. And with your last comment, I want to say, what's the root of the root? What's the root of the root of what? Of the root of this origin, the feeling of being overwhelmed. The root of the feeling overwhelmed is to say that you're limited. If you feel limited, then you're just this. So then if suddenly I was that too, then I would be overwhelmed by also suddenly being something that I said I wasn't.

[49:23]

So the root of the feeling of being overwhelmed or the potential of being overwhelmed is that I say that I'm this and not that. For example, you say you're not your enemies. So if they move into your house, you feel overwhelmed. It seems sometimes that the limited self, its function is boundary-making. Yes. That's its function. And I could understand how, speaking abstractly here, but I could... It's not really its function. Its nature is to be a bounded thing, is to say, is to be individual and separate. That's its nature. And I experience confusion at times when that begins to break down and the boundaries between and another. When I perceive myself as being particularly empathic, that can get confusing at times.

[50:33]

Although it can be its truest sense when I am the path that the self just drops away. Well, you feel like that, but I don't think so necessarily. Well, it feels that way to me, but you don't understand it. You have that idea across your mind that the self has dropped away, right? It hasn't necessarily dropped away. Again, the place that the self drops away is not in, like, backing off from it. For example, If you're usually asserting yourself, and then you start being empathic, in a sense, you back off of your usual routine. Your usual routine of self is suspended, so you may feel like, I'm not my usual self. You may feel that your self has dropped away. Okay? But I don't think so. I think you just shifted into another mode.

[51:35]

What I'm suggesting to you is that if your usual way is to and get recognition from other people. Pre-usual mode is to be empathic and recognize others and acknowledge others. What we need to do is express the other side, is to balance and do the other, but not flip to the other side, but go to the other for a little while and then come back to our usual way and go to the other. And that delineates the bounded self. And by delineating the bounded self, you're ready to become, actually forget about yourself and fear yourself. But you have to vivify the boundaries which you have. You have to have them brought into relief so you can see exactly what you think yourself is. You need to know yourself, your bounded self, very well. And when you feel that and know that and express that, things get difficult for a while.

[52:36]

Because again, you feel this non-being. And then you can't stand that, so you veer off into the implications of what will happen to you. Then you get into fear. And so you do this dance for many years until you can have a moment where you're completely yourself and you feel the anxiety and you don't veer away. And then you become liberated from this. and you understand that what you thought was your enemy is actually something knocking on the door to say, would you please wake up to what you're here for? And this self is part of human nature because human beings, I won't say that other animals can't do this, but human beings on this planet are able to know things, and by being able to know things, part of it, we got out of, we had to make them external. And by making things external, we thought that they were separate from themselves, so then we thought other beings and that's, that's the dark side of knowing things.

[53:46]

The dark side of knowledge is feeling separate from what we know. So there's a story of a Greek myth called Amor and Psyche, which is about this, how Psyche was in union with love, but didn't know it, and love told Psyche that if she tried to find out who he was, she would lose him. But anyway, human evolution couldn't stop, and the Psyche found out who love was. In other words, the Psyche made love into an object of love. and then spiritual practices developed by which psyches can get reunited with love. But not going backwards, but now knowing what love is and having a self and yet being reunited. I could tell that story more. But anyway, Martin? You know, I woke up last night at 3 o'clock in the morning, I think,

[54:49]

And I thought, oh, that's what you were talking about. And I remembered an experience I had. Last week, I was in my house, and I had this feeling, I think it was anxiety. I said, what is that feeling? What is that? What am I feeling? And I'm thinking, why is it even there? I don't even know what it was there. and sometimes yeah and the way i handle this is to get through my fear whatever it is i can talk in front of the group really go into interacting with people right and i noticed when i'm when i express myself looking back now it disappears completely that's feeling you know i feel it's just like expressing myself And then it comes back again, that anxiety. Right. And I think that's what you're talking about.

[55:51]

Exactly. So the solution is, I think, is to experience the anxiety as much as I can. I have to continue to express myself. Exactly. But there's a tendency to... The anxiety arises with self-expression, which is going on all the time. You feel the anxiety, and what's nice to do is then get into anticipating something or make an image out of it, and then become afraid, and then yourself can go out and have an interaction with the fear, which is good. Once you rise to the fear, you should definitely go out there and play with it. But temporarily the anxiety is allayed. But as soon as you've done your good work of facing the fear and interacting with it and become fearless in that process, then you have the fearlessness out of intimacy with fear and also the fearlessness to go back and be yourself and face this fundamental human situation. which you can distract yourself from by fear and even interacting courageously with fear.

[56:58]

Seeing the person before you run away from your anxiety is where you wake up. Buddha, when he woke up, was in anxiety, not in fear. So this is a typical process we go through. This is pretty good. Come back. At the beginning of some magazine, some Buddhist magazine, there's a little short story, and I wanted to find it, but I didn't have time to find it. But basically the story goes like, not a story, but the statement goes like this. You know, we're human beings, we're born, we get a body. We're actually, we have this equipment, we can think of things, we can listen to music, we can see sunsets. And some people are quite fortunate, you know. They can see quite a few sunsets, like here, and over the ocean, you know. You get up in the morning and it's sunrise and you can go wash clothes and hang beautiful, you know, white sheets on lines and watch them move in the breeze and you can say hello to children and say you love your friends and you can have lunch.

[58:06]

And then you go to sleep at night. Why can't we just go through life like that? And why isn't that enough for us? And, you know, watch your P's and Q's, of course. Be a good person and enjoy your life. Of course, if you, like, go and rip other people's clothes off the line, you know, pretty soon your eyes will get gouged out and you won't be able to see the sunset anymore. But even if you're careful and you have a nice life where you can see lots of sunsets and sunrises and have good food and good friends, still, people are the people who feel anxiety. who take good enough care to be able to, like, not have to deal with major problems, of, like, major, you know, feedback that you haven't been taking care of yourself, and major fear, then still, something's, not exactly, but it's kind of missing, namely, non-being isn't included in your life, and you feel anxious about it.

[59:08]

And the pain may be fairly subtle at some points, but at some points it's extremely... Subtle things are often the most difficult things to face. We turn away... by making them into something easier to face, like a monster. So... See, some people who haven't spoken yet... Yes? What is your name? Judy. Judy. Can you say anything about meeting with non-being? If you're in that anxious place and you want to not run away and you're able to keep contact, can you say anything about that rapport, that meeting? Yeah. I would like to have one whole session talking about meeting non-being. Okay? So maybe then I'll be about that. Okay? What I'd like to do now is, in a few minutes, have meditation.

[60:09]

Your name is Marcia? I'd like to return to the boundaries and the unrelative self. And the what self? The unrelative. Is it Bill? Michael. It was Bill originally, and I changed it to Michael. Because before that it was Michael. It seems to me that our whole ride was about trying to find those boundaries. I mean, to define ourselves. That's one of the things. It's not all about that, no. But that's a very important part of it, is to find the boundaries. And it's kind of a starting point. And that's kind of what makes us anxious. Definitely. Well, it's not trying to find it. It's once you find it, then you feel anxious. And you already have some vague sense of what it is, even though you may not be clear. And that vague sense... So when you get more clear, you'll feel more anxious because you'll be more clear about what you could be threatened by. If you have a vague sense of yourself, you know, that's why in some group, some cultures where there's a high level of collectivism and they have rituals, you feel a little less anxious because, you know, well, they might get them first, right?

[61:26]

But do you ever get to a point where you feel less anxious? You feel less anxious primarily by being less alive and less yourself and your boundaries. Take a lot of drugs, you feel less anxious. I understand. I've never taken heroin, but I understand that when people are on, when they have the stuff running through the blood, they don't feel anxious from what I understand. Wow. Have you ever heard about that? Anxiety. There's various other drugs which temporarily ally anxiety or like wipe it out completely for a little while. Alcohol. Yeah, this has to be alcohol. No drinking allowed here, but probably if we drank a lot of alcohol temporarily. what we're talking about anymore. Anxiety and fear, what do you mean? Anyway, relax, here, have another look. Anyway, these are kind of like, these ways are forbidden at Zen Center, actually.

[62:34]

We have other ways at Zen Center called not being yourself. Just, you know, don't express yourself. Just stay in your seat, be good little boys and girls, stay in your seat, don't say anything, you know, that would be... Perhaps ruffle anybody's feathers. Keep your clothes on. Brush your teeth. Follow the schedule. Do your work. And maybe there won't be any anxiety. Stay in the present and there won't be any fear. This is good. But it doesn't work. You still feel some anxious anxiety. Because you know there are certain things you'd like to say. So rather than just sort of like know that there's certain things you're like, say them. And it isn't that once you say them that you don't feel any anxiety, you feel it more clearly when you do express yourself. And having a sense of yourself, you need to have a sense of yourself in order to know what is your self-expression, what you have to say.

[63:38]

So part of yourself and then say, what does that person have to say? and then let that person talk and see how that feels for that person. When you feel the anxiety and you feel the person, you are doing the work that is required. This thing which you really are, which is not exactly a small self and it's not exactly a big self. It is just that your small self Your small self and her small self and her small self and his small self, all these small selves are perfectly endowed with the wisdom and compassion of all the Buddhas. Now, there may be other reasons to face this anxiety, but that's the one I'm interested in. That we realize our fundamentally wondrous nature.

[64:39]

which is found in the limited person that we are, and is found all around it too. Everywhere. It's all pervasive wisdom and compassion. That can be realized if you're willing to be yourself, to be compassionate enough to inhabit your body, even in the midst of anxiety. And it's difficult work. It's especially difficult, I think, when someone is not acknowledging you. It's especially difficult when someone's not acknowledging you. Yes. It's also difficult when someone is acknowledging you. But maybe especially difficult when someone is not acknowledging you. But for other people, and you too, it's difficult when they are acknowledging you, because when they are acknowledging you, perhaps they might feel so good that they're acknowledging you that you might say, well, maybe I'll take a break on expressing myself then, because now that I'm acknowledged, And you might like it so much that you stop acknowledging them and just sit back and be acknowledged.

[65:45]

Come on, have some more. And then if you stop noticing them, then you're not really yourself because part of what you are is that you really do care about other people and you really do want to acknowledge them and really do want to feel them. That's what you actually are. But when you're being acknowledged, sometimes you want to take a little break from that. When you're not being acknowledged, part of what you are is somebody that wants to be expressed. You want to express yourself, but since you're not acknowledged, you really can't express yourself very well. That's part of the meeting, which I'll get into more later. Okay, now, I guess what I'd like to do is this. Here's my plan for the rest of the morning. We go into the zendo now and sit for a little while. that you go be yourself in that room. Okay? Are you people ready to do that? Let's go as a group. And then after that, come back here.

[66:47]

To go ahead and organize the union would be if it would be beneficial. That's the reason to do it. That's my opinion. I don't think you should organize unions if it's not going to be helpful. But if it is helpful, I think it would be good if we did it. How are you going to tell whether it's helpful or not? Well, the best way to tell if it's helpful or not is to be enlightened. Are you going to be enlightened? Well, first of all, are you afraid to organize the union? If so, usually when you're afraid, if you think you're afraid, if you think you're afraid when you're afraid, you usually are. That's my experience.

[67:49]

Most people that feel afraid are. A lot of people who don't feel afraid, in other words, a lot of people who don't think they're afraid are. They just, they're so much in denial, they don't notice. They're, Their behavior is primarily driven by fear, but they don't know it. Therefore, they're acting out of fear rather than out of what's beneficial. They can't see anything about what's beneficial because they have their eye closed to their fear, so they can't see anything else. The problem about closing your eyes to one thing is you'll miss a few other things, too. If you open your eyes to your fear, you can see a whole bunch of things. Like, for example, you can see, you know, well, you can see a lot of other things. It's possible to have your eyes open to fear, but not open to anxiety. If you can open your eyes to your fear and your anxiety, then you can really start to see.

[68:50]

And then if you see something beneficial to do, it may be that you're seeing what's beneficial to do with your eyes open, rather than just closing your eyes to the dark. with good intentions. So, if I was in a workplace and I thought it would be beneficial to, or I thought it was, or I even just thought of organizing a union because I thought it might be beneficial, if I started feeling anxiety, my recommendation to myself would be to engage my own fear. Then engaging my own fear feel my anxiety, then engaging with my anxiety, wake up, and from that state, see if I still think it's good to organize the unions, and if I do with that kind of vision, go right ahead, see how I can. In the meantime, before you wake up, you can still do what you think is good. I'm just saying that we are hindered in our efforts to do beneficial work if we do not open our eyes to what's going on with ourself.

[69:57]

And again, if you're going fast, if we're going fast, which we are often going fast, we often don't notice we're afraid. So slowing down is part of the process of waking up. Slowing down is part of the process of feeling and noticing your fear, pain, noticing your anxiety. Going to that room, which we just did, that was a ritual we just did. That was a ritual of coming back and feeling yourself. Did anybody feel themselves in the room? That's what it was for, is to go in there and see what it's like to be you in a big room. It's a ritual to slow down and see what you reveal to you. I want to tell you that oftentimes when people are sitting in meditation hall, I adjust their posture.

[71:05]

Particularly, I adjust their back posture. I don't correct posture. I make suggestions. And my basic suggestion to people, my basic intention in my suggestion is, try this. Try this posture. Would anyone be willing to donate their body to science? Oh, yeah, sure. Sit up. Somebody come up and sit on this table for us, would you? You can have a cushion if you want. Sit facing that way, would you? Or what you're most comfortable with. Are you comfortable?

[72:08]

No, I feel like I'm going to fall off. Do you want more cushion under you? How are you now? Okay. Okay or good? Good. Good? Okay. Now, put your hands like, you know, in this posture like this. Okay, now let's say... So part of what I'm asking you is, when you're sitting, is it okay with you if I adjust your posture? If anybody doesn't want me to do that, tell me, and I won't do it. Okay? But if you don't tell me, I may adjust your posture. And what I usually do when I adjust posture is I usually put my hand on the back, on your spine, I run my hand down the spine just to feel it, see how you're doing, bring my hand back up, and sometimes down again. And then I sometimes make a suggestion with my hands. You see how she's sitting? In her case, the suggestion I would make would be that she bring this part of her spine deeper into her body.

[73:20]

Okay, and also she brought her head up. I would suggest that too. Okay, see a little difference in her posture? wasn't, well, she didn't move that much, maybe, I don't know what, eighth of an inch or fourth of an inch or something like that, but a little bit different, right? My feeling about what I'm suggesting to her is to put yourself, that she inhabit her body more fully. And when you do that, in some sense, you put your body at risk. The feeling is you're putting your body at risk. Risk, you know, you're putting yourself more out there in the world A little bit? I don't know. Do you? Yes. One of the things that happens is most people are protecting it around their heart area, so they sit like this and walk like this. Generally, what I recommend is to go like this. You know, expose your heart. The way to expose your heart is to bring it into your body. In other words, by coming more into yourself, you open yourself up more.

[74:26]

which makes you at risk. You can be hurt now. You always can be hurt, but now you feel it. Also, you have much more capacity. You get bigger. You become more just yourself, not more of somebody else, more yourself. There's other things I sometimes do. Sometimes I bring the person's head up a little bit like this, lengthen his spine a little bit. or encourage them to touch their abdomen with their hands and things like that. Just more ways to like be more yourself. Readiness and Vigilance and... What's another word you use? Alertness. Sensory awareness. Sensory awareness. Something like out into your fingertips or something you said. Like to the end of... Nerve endings.

[75:29]

Feeling yourself to the end of your nerve endings. And I said, no, that's not anxiety. That's how to be yourself. And then when you're left that way, you feel the anxiety. You're really ready. You're aware all around you. It feels like you go back behind you. You know? You're vigilant, you're alert. That's the practice of being yourself. That's what that practice of being yourself is like. And then you feel the anxiety. That's not the anxiety. Like you feel like somebody might come up and touch your back. It might. And that might be just fine. Thank you. So, the posture is an example of, you know, habit your body in a way that you can feel yourself and feel what it's like to be more and more yourself. And then somebody comes around and makes a suggestion to your posture to say, I feel, this is not true necessarily, but I feel like you'd be more yourself if you'd sit like this.

[76:36]

Now you check it out. And sometimes people say, let me do this. They say, the back says, no, I'm not going to, the spine will not move deeper into the body. And I let it go at that. It's almost like it's not the person. It's almost like there's a muscular habit there that will not let the spine move into the body. Okay, fine. If a person sits that way for like a seven-day retreat, at the beginning I go, knock, knock. Could I come in? The answer is no, no. Go away. I've got enough problems. Don't ask that of me too. Let me get through the day. Just checking. Next day, knock, knock. Nope. Next day, knock, knock. Well, maybe. Next day, knock, knock. Okay. But see, what's happening is they're sitting there and they're living with the consequences of not opening up.

[77:39]

which is very, but they're not running away, they're staying in the room, they're slowed down, they're in that room, and they're feeling what it's like to not inhabit the body, and they feel the pain of that. And that's physical pain. And they feel the pain, they feel the pain, and sitting there and keeping feeling it, they soften up. 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, OK, this is not going to be any worse. It just goes right in. And then the person

[78:12]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_84.51