I tell you anything, you might think I know something. And if I tell you something, you will probably stick to it and you'll think it's the truth. And then you'll give up your own capacity to find out for yourself. And you'll think you're being spiritual. So what can I tell you? Well, you won't stick to it, oh well. Tonight I wanted to continue talking about enjoyment. I talked about enjoyment on Monday. Enjoyment, as I mentioned, it's one of, there's a particular context for this, you know, enjoyment in Buddhism is to connect with the object of awareness, with your heart, that you show

[01:08]

up, that you don't distance yourself, or distance the object of awareness. A day or two ago, Greg gave me a tape that he made a song up about the Bodhisattva, never disparage, I will never disparage you, never distance you, very sweet. So anyway, to enjoy something is to connect, and be with, and resonate with. And as I mentioned on Monday, there's, you know, this in a certain way addresses two basic issues or problems we have. One is that we believe that in order to have enjoyment in our life, we need to control or manipulate the objects of our awareness, other people, we need to make them behave the way they should so that we'll be happy, you know, if they behave differently or better,

[02:10]

we would be happy. This of course is already like disempowering, isn't it? Your happiness is dependent on them. It puts you in a rather helpless position. So of course, besides everything else, you resent them for putting you in that position, even though you put yourself there. But the idea in Buddhism of course is that you could, we could enjoy whatever object that comes into our awareness, whether it's people, things, the weather, sensations, thoughts, feelings, you know, even things that are painful, we could actually have our heart go out or be with those things, not separate from those things, and our heart would resonate with it, with the object. And I mentioned on Monday that this is, you know, rather scary for a lot of people, the

[03:21]

basic idea of enjoyment, because we worry about going over into greed, excitement, lust, and so forth. And we think we need to be more level-headed, or what have you, you know. Maybe scientific, I'm going to talk about that tonight. The other basic problem besides this idea that we need to control things, which is, if you're practicing enjoyment, and if you're enjoying your breath, the sensations of your weight on the chair, the sensations of heat, letting them be what they are, not wishing for something else, then, you know, this right away, you don't, what would you need to manipulate them, or control? And to not have to control others, you know, for your enjoyment, would be how restful that

[04:25]

is, and how, you know, less you'd have to resent them, and then how, you know, difficult it is to get anybody to change their behavior for you. I mean, sometimes you think, well, if you really loved me, you'd, and then you set up these things like, you know, how people could prove their love, you know, the extremes that they could go to, and how well does that work? If you're, you do that too well, they won't be around for paramount, probably. You may set up too many of those things, if you really loved me, things, you would, you would never be sad, and, and you're never being sad, but also prove how much I love you. Because, if you knew how much I loved you, you wouldn't be sad, right? We do a lot of these kind of things, by way of control, so, if you're enjoying, in the

[05:28]

midst of enjoying, enjoyment, you don't have to worry about control. You don't have to get into these struggles, with yourself, or with other people, about how they're behaving, or not behaving, or doing, or not doing, or saying, or not saying, and all of that, because you're, you're connected already, with your heart, to your experience, and to them, however they are. And this is related to the second issue I was mentioning, is that we tend to believe that our happiness will be happier, if we stay separate. Because if you start to connect, who knows what will happen? You lose, you're not in control anymore, right? If you're, as long as you're separate, you have the illusion of, I'm in control of me, but if I'm connected to somebody else, who knows what they'll do, or say, or, right?

[06:30]

So, if I'm connected to my own experience, who knows what my experience will be? And this is even at the level of inhalation and exhalation. If you don't control your inhale, or your exhale, who knows what will happen next? And I don't know, my experience of that, at least for a time, was, that's really scary. Not knowing what my breath will do next. I'd better make sure it keeps on inhaling at this point, hopefully. It's had enough, okay. So, to let something happen, and let it move you, let your breath move you, and let your breath make the decision of how long or short the inhalation and exhalation is, and what the nature of your breath is like, and what the sensations will arise from that. And you don't have control over that, and you could just be moved by and connect with whatever it is. That's very enjoyable, but there's this quality of letting go of your separateness.

[07:30]

Which we value, and of course, that's also American, you know, being an individual. And this is, you know, we end up having this sense of, we worry then about surrender. And some religious traditions emphasize surrender. So, some of us were talking this morning, do you need a teacher, or, you know. But the idea of the teacher, then, is not somebody who's going to tell you what to do, and you would surrender to that. But the idea of the teacher is to introduce you to the teacher in you. Help you meet you who are the teacher. And tonight, you know, enjoyment is just a kind of, you know, this is just language, right? It's play. As I mentioned last night, enjoyment could also be acceptance, or gratitude, or thankfulness.

[08:36]

I am, and I do think, by the way, and I was kind of playing the other night too, because I said, I'm going to give you the secret, this is the secret. But, you know, Suzuki Roshi, about every other lecture would say, and the most important point is, and then it would be something else. That's the way to make sure you listen, you know. But I also feel then, in that sense, it's really important for, you know, another kind of a secret, and I'm not going to talk so much about this tonight, but I did want to remind you that it's also a secret to dream up. Dream up what to do in your life, what you want. And dream up your own language for it. I feel like this is incredibly important and valuable. And, you know, so for me, in this context of, you know, enjoyment, well, I want to connect.

[09:48]

I want to connect with people, and with things, and with my experience. And I see that in terms of intimacy, and becoming intimate, being intimate, touching and being touched, and knowing and being known, seeing and being seen, coming out of hiding, not hiding who I am, you know, coming forward in my life, and letting you come forward to me. And where we don't have to hide from each other, and pretend. So this is really nice for me to be here at Tessa Hara, because there's lots, you know, less pretense here, than there is in most of the world. There's less pretense or performance, much less hiding. And people are much more transparent. What's happening with them is more transparent. And of course, sometimes we worry about that.

[10:52]

Uh-oh, what am I revealing? Because we worry about being angry, or sad, or discouraged, or stubborn, or, you know, any number of things, disappointed. And that it might show, and that we might somehow infect others. Or they would think less of us, because they actually saw what was going on with us. And actually, you know, we tend to think more of one another. Several people, this week, while I'm here, they say, it's so nice to have you here, because you're so natural, and you don't pretend, and you're just who you are. And that feels really good. And so, and then, and somebody said, oh, it was such a relief when you got angry the other day, because nobody else is doing that. And I don't know what they do with it. And where do they hide it? And, you know, where do they keep it? And it's not like when I get angry, I'm going to attack people,

[11:56]

or, you know, pull out a weapon, or blow them away, or, you know. But I'm willing to be angry. And I'm willing to feel my anger. And then I may say something to somebody, or I may not. But people can see it. I've never been very good at hiding things. And I feel more comfortable at not having that skill. And this quality, then, of, you know, seeing and being seen, knowing and being known, this is connection. See, this is connection, and not being separate. And it's intimacy. And this has been my wish for many years. This is my choice. You know, I'm not doing some Buddhist program. You know, I decided...

[12:59]

And partly, you know, this is from Suzuki Roshi, but it's also partly from Baker Roshi, because, and Baker Roshi used to say, you know, Buddhism is no... I mean, Suzuki said, sometimes you're the teacher, sometimes you're the student. You think, and I was talking with some people this morning, and, you know, about once a year, he would get into a rant in the Zen during Zazen. I remember four times in the six years that I was practicing with Suzuki Roshi. And, like, during the second period of Zazen, he would say, he would just start talking. And he'd say, you think I'm the teacher, and that you're the student. This is a mistake. You think I'm going to tell you things, but then you can do what I say. This is wrong. And he'd say, sometimes the teacher is the student, sometimes the student is the teacher. You need to find out things for yourself. And he'd go on and on like this for about five minutes. And then he'd jump up from his seat with his little stick, and he'd hit everybody in the Zen down.

[14:00]

One after another. And for the first few people, he'd say, who is the teacher? Bam, bam. Who is the student? Next one, bam, bam. And he would double hit. You know, just on one shoulder. Bam, bam. Very quick. And, you know, by the end, hitting, like, 90 people, you know, he'd be out of breath. Maybe you could hear him. And then he'd sit down. And it sort of would clear the air for a while. And I used to find that rather annoying, you know. What do you mean I'm the teacher? I mean, I'm just a student. I know nothing. But if you're not going to find out how to live your life, if you think, oh, I'm going to do what somebody else, follow the instructions somebody else gives for doing Zen or doing yoga or cooking, I'm just going to follow the instructions.

[15:02]

I'm going to do what I'm told. That's called disempowering yourself. That's making yourself small, insignificant. You know, you have no capacity. You need somebody else to tell you what to do. It's giving up your capacity to discover, create, imagine, to be interested in things, to take an interest, to find out, to look into something, to study, to investigate. And you're going to give all that up and just do what you're told. So, you know, this is, and, and Becker used to say, if it's not yours, it's not Buddhism. Something like that. And he emphasized, it should be your language. Buddhism, you know, you need to take the language of Buddhism and make it yours. Why would you want just some abstract language? So, I mean, I can't relate to the language of Buddhism. Have you noticed that? Do you hear much about Buddhism tonight?

[16:04]

So I just, I've taken Buddhism, I've made Buddhism into my language. And it's me, you know, my language. And so I can use enjoyment and it's a Buddhist concept and I'll use it. And I'm also going to talk about wisdom tonight. We'll get there. This, this is a little introduction to all of that. But anyway, your own language and for me, this is so enjoyment, very important. And I discovered enjoyment for myself. No one said, oh, you need to practice enjoyment. It took me years. I was a very serious student. Why would you enjoy anything? You need to practice hard. You need to try hard. You need to, you know, you need to muscle your way through things.

[17:07]

This is America after all. You have a problem, muscle your way through. And so I was very serious. And then, you know, I had been sitting for, I don't know, it was probably about five years. I was doing a session up at the city center. And I was very tired one night. I mean, sessions are intense. To sit 12 or 14 periods of meditation and, and, you know, sit the three meals. And it's very demanding, very intense. And by the end of the day, you're tired. And I thought maybe while I sit here breathing, I could just actually let my inhalation, like I could actually like enjoy it. Maybe, maybe that would feel really good. Maybe that would help me wake up. I just dreamed it up. Nobody said, oh, you need to practice enjoyment.

[18:11]

And so I, I let my inhalation and I, I could feel the, I thought I better just let the air, I better feel the air in my face and then let the inhalation. And then pretty soon I was so, oh, how sweet. And then I would exhale and then let go of all the tension, fatigue, and then inhale. And, and after a while, I just felt so wonderful. I've been so tired, so exhausted. And I just dreamed up what to do. You know, Buddhism is not about just doing what you're told. Otherwise, I mean, it's not indifferent. I mean, I joke about it, but you know, this is historically, you know, when people say, I just followed orders, you know, we have a problem with it. But most of us spend our life trying to find better orders to follow and then seeing if we could follow them and seeing how we can abandon ourself and, and, and disempower our capacity,

[19:14]

ourself and our capacity to find things out. It's amazing. So enjoyment is something that cuts through this. And do you say, is it then any, isn't it? I mean, of course, then the society, which is based on doing what you're told, do you think that they're going to have a problem with enjoyment? Duh. You know, it's with genuine sensual pleasure. Of course. So now we're ready. Talk about this. Enjoyment, because I was thinking about this recently, because I was writing an article for the yoga channel. You can read it in December. But their column for the, their cooking column in the yoga journal is called eating wisely. So I said from my column, you know, the key to eating wisely is enjoyment.

[20:17]

See, this is whoever says that, whoever thinks that, because usually we think the way to eat wisely is to make wise choices, follow the proper guidelines, do what you're told. Somebody else has figured out these proper guidelines, these wise choices. You just need to follow them. And if you follow the wise choices that somebody else has made, now you're eating wisely. So from what I've just said, I mean, you see, I mean, and then how well does this work? Are they the proper guidelines? Do they work for you in your life today, tomorrow? You know, or do you need some other guidelines? Usually after you can't follow the one guidelines for a while, then you get a different diet. Let's try this other one. The problem was the guidelines are wrong. I need some better, a different guideline. I need to follow a different diet. This one didn't work for me. I better do what somebody else says. And still you're not trying to figure out what you think

[21:21]

or feel or experience, you know. And then in order to follow the guidelines, you have to give up, sacrifice your own capacity to notice anything, your own capacity to discover or observe or experience for yourself what's what. You give all that up because you're going to follow these guidelines and you wouldn't want to notice anything different from the guidelines because you're trying to follow them. And that would be success. And then, of course, we're doing Zen practice like this. Why don't I follow the proper guidelines? We do marriages like this and our lives like this. Just let's get the proper guidelines and follow them. Okay. And then if you do, once in a while, succeed at that, do you feel happy, fulfilled, buoyant, you know, large, expansive? No, you feel small and you feel, well, now I'm following these guidelines, but they're not. Or we feel like, well, I'm doing pretty well at following these,

[22:29]

now I need to really follow them. So even our success at disempowering ourselves, of course, doesn't lead to some empowerment. It leads to our being small, judgmental, petty. You know, I'm doing what I'm told. Why aren't you? I'm following these guidelines. I'm doing, I'm living the right way. Why don't you live the right way? So enjoyment is actually something that you could just decide. I'm going to experience for myself, connect to my experience, sense for myself, not for myself, investigate, study, discover, take an interest, examine, and I will sense and feel and experience and live and learn from what I notice. And this is what Buddhism calls wisdom. So wisdom, in just colloquial language, in the kind of language that Siddhartha used,

[23:30]

is not sticking to anything. Wisdom isn't about making the right choice or the best choice. It's not sticking to something. Because when you stick to something, then you stop noticing, you stop examining, stop experiencing because, so that you wouldn't notice or experience something that meant your truth or what you were sticking to was being called into question, right? You wouldn't want to notice something that called your truth into question. So now you shut down your capacity to experience and to know and find out and investigate and discover so that you can stick to the truth, what you should be doing, the proper guidelines, the spiritual way, the right way to eat, the right way to live, the way to live, have a marriage, whatever it is. So we make ourselves small and we lessen our capacity to experience

[24:30]

in order to stick to something. So wisdom is not sticking to anything. Wisdom is making clear, accurate choices based on the way things are. And to make those clear, accurate choices based on the way things are, we have to be able to experience, notice, examine for ourselves how are things. All right? So usually, if you have the proper guidelines or what somebody lays out, this is the spiritual way, the wise choices. And then you can, this is actually the way to remain a child indefinitely, doing what you're told. With the, you know, while creating the illusion, I'm an adult, I'm making wise choices. But all along, you're just doing what you were told. But that's not a choice at all. You know, it's not a choice at all when you're just doing what you're told. You didn't choose anything. You just followed.

[25:33]

So in Zen, we're actually trying to cultivate this capacity to experience for ourself. And it looks like we have, you know, a way to do things. It looks like we have these forms. But the form thing, you get to notice something because you don't have to think about what to do. You can sit and start to notice just what's happening. And of course, it can be overwhelming and confusing and baffling and you have all these thoughts and all these feelings, all these sensations. And what's what and what to do, etc. So, you know, it obviously takes some time to shift from doing what you're told to experiencing for yourself what's what and finding your way, so to speak, in the dark. You know, not having the answer and what to do to aim for and you're knowing and you know, and you know, and you have the directions and you just do what you should and then you say you're right. Why doesn't everybody agree? What's wrong with them? They ought to approve and love me for this.

[26:38]

So, so this is wisdom. Is to make, is to be able to choose. And then this would be to be able to investigate, you know, open-mindedly what's going on. And what, you know, what we call non-discrimination. So, it's the capacity to choose based on non-discrimination. So, as far as I can tell, you know, this is what some people would call science, right? That if you discover something new that a previous, that calls the previous truth into question, you let go of the previous truth and you have your new truth because it's what you noticed. But of course, science doesn't like you as an individual to be doing this. Science as an institution, right? You shouldn't be investigating for yourself. That's just anecdotal. That's not a truth that we can impose on everyone and especially sell it to people who feel disempowered in their lives as being scientific.

[27:46]

All you get to say is, well, in my experience, what I've noticed is so, from the point of view of science, they can't sell that to anybody. So, that's not science, but that's actually science. But so, now, rather than calling it science, why don't we just call it enjoyment? Because what finally helps you to notice things is that you connect and the connecting is in the enjoyment. So, your capacity to enjoy your experience actually helps you to notice more about it. And to sense things. I mean, so, this is something that science doesn't study, you know. You notice more when you're enjoying, when you're, when you have enjoyment or when you don't have enjoyment. There was one scientific study I heard about though that, you know what they discovered? That food that is aesthetically prepared and beautifully presented is more nourishing than food that's not, the same food that's not.

[28:50]

Somebody did a study. Isn't that nice? Isn't that, see, that's scientific. But, I mean, I anecdotally could have, you know, I've always felt that way. And certainly, I've enjoyed eating more and I eat more different vegetables when I started cooking them to the way I like them. You know, so, I certainly eat more widely and more different vegetables and things because I like the way I cook them rather than the way other people often cook them. So, I'm better nourished. But I'm convinced anyway that, again, you know, it's my experience. This is just anecdotally. That enjoyment, enjoying your experience, you start to notice what's going on. If, when you're not enjoying your experience, and again, this enjoyment is the capacity to resonate with or be moved by or touch

[29:56]

whatever it is, you know, physical pain, sadness, anger, frustration, disappointment, and not abandoning. It's also known as not abandoning yourself. And in that kind of state, you notice more. When you abandon yourself, when you're distancing the object of awareness, you're distancing yourself from the object of awareness, you can't find out much about it. So, like, one of the first things we do if we get angry is often to try to distance ourselves from it or deny. Deny we're angry, deny we're disappointed, deny we're hurt, deny we're sad. We go into denial or distancing from it. So then, what would you find out about any of those things? And actually, of course, you know, our feelings are nourishing, and it's our,

[30:59]

you know, different language and different tongues, but, you know, it has something to do with our true nature. And in a kind of very simple way, you know, the passion of our life can appear in various guises and various feelings. But it's the passion of our life. And again, it's one of the wonderful things for me about coming to Tessonara is that there is incredible passion. People are very... And it's passion that's not necessarily, you know, being expressed as passion. Right? You know, it's not like being at Carbon Hotsprings or something. But there's an intensity of presence here. You know, there's... People are practicing presence, being present, showing up. And there's a passion for experiencing, you know, and realizing. So another way to think about all these feelings is that as you experience and are,

[32:04]

you know, connected with and have your... are willing to have your feelings, you know, this is also realizing yourself. It's making yourself real. That's Buddhist language, realizing. It's not like realizing that is enlightenment. Who cares? You know, about this enlightening business, which sounds so distant from everything. But that's the subject for another night. I think I talked about it earlier in the summer. You should have been here. Tonight we're talking about realizing. And so to have your feelings is to realize yourself, to make yourself real rather than have yourself in hiding. Rather than you have yourself, you know, tucked away somewhere. Your real passion. And here people's passion comes forward. So just briefly also as an example, you know,

[33:33]

and I was because I was thinking about food. You know, people in terms of making choices. What choice do you make? And, you know, where and do you follow what somebody else says? Or do you follow your own experience? So I was thinking of what are for me, I realized that several of my most memorable eating experiences are out picking berries. You know, out in the sunlight, picking berries off the vine. I can remember, you know, when I was about six years old being in South Dakota and, you know, hiking a mile down the roads and then off to some swimming hole and there were poison berries there. And just a few weeks ago, I was at Earthbound Ponds and we picked raspberries and they were so huge and juicy. People were, people were picking these raspberries and putting them in each other's mouth. They were that good. You know, I saved you some of the biggest ones.

[34:38]

And last year, I was at Fairview Gardens in Goleta and there were strawberries there. It was heavenly. Couldn't, I mean, there's just, it's just amazing. And a few years ago in Inverness, I used to put blackberries there, the vines we used to pick from aren't there anymore. And it's just amazing, blackberries, fresh from the vine. And there's a kind of tartness and sweetness and juiciness and this mince. And then there's a way that berries just kind of burst in your mouth, you know, the flavor bursts out of them. And I'm telling you, you know, this is not the same as Pop Tarts. I don't care if they're, you know, packed with nature's goodness or, you know, people make up all kinds of stories. And then, but then, then of course people say to me, but, you know, Ed, you, you might choose to pick berries rather than eating Pop Tarts, but not my kids. But, you know, to me, that just proves my point.

[35:45]

I mean, they haven't learned what true enjoyment is though. And, and because it's a study, it's a practice. And, you know, some of us at a pretty young age have learned to substitute cheap thrills for real enjoyment. It's sad. But that's choice, you know, that's choice. And then you can say, well, I can't go out and pick berries every day. But still, you know, that's just good. This is just a kind of, you know, gross example. But still, if you follow enjoyment in eating, you make different choices than if you are, when you're not following enjoyment, then you're willing to settle for something that's not truly enjoyable. And you eat something and overeat something not truly enjoyable because you're not enjoying anything. And you need to eat your energy body, your sensuous body into submission. So it, so it doesn't, so it stops demanding some real enjoyment.

[36:49]

And you need to stop plenty of non-enjoyable things in there until it just shuts up and doesn't ask for enjoyment anymore. And then you will be, you know, overweight and what have you, you know. Or you will feel, I don't know, when I do that, you know, I end up feeling full and I can't feel, and physically I'm sort of drained and stagnant. I eat too many potato chips and there's a salt and grease in here. It's, it's, this is not, this is pretty simple. It's just your capacity to notice. And your willingness, your willingness to actually notice what's what, to experience for yourself, to know and experience for yourself, to express yourself, to make choices for yourself. And that you don't actually have to disempower yourself and, you know, try to follow somebody else's standards or guidelines or something.

[37:50]

Or what to do. So I didn't mention it, but perhaps while I'm silent we have a chance to enjoy the silence, the cricket, the breath, body, a little bit of sweat. Good night. Um, and I think in that kind of space also we have,

[39:05]

which is a kind of enjoyment, let me see, we have also a sense of our fundamental good-heartedness. Of what good-hearted souls we are. And I'm sorry, but it doesn't have that word, but you know, I could call it, you know, what good-hearted pieces of emptiness we are. Or emptiness, emptiness is a, what number? Anyway, thank you very much. Um, the, uh, area outside the dining room, which I did have silence in the courtyard here after it, but thank you.

[39:48]

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