Okay. Well, good morning once again. I thought I'd talk for a little bit and then if you have some questions or comments, etc., then we'll go into that for a little bit and then the rest of the morning I think we'll take a little break and then we'll sit and walk and sit and have lunch, something like that. So a little visiting. First of all, I want to say a little bit about how I, you know, all of this is, it's kind of just languaging, and sometimes languaging is a little useful for, you know, having some feeling for experience or reality or how to be with things or understand things, etc.

[01:06]

And meditation, of course, is a bit different than our everyday life and in some ways I think about it as fairly simple. I think most of you know I'm in this movie that's made by a woman named Doris Dory, German film director, and she's been making movies for years. Doris in, you know, her way as, you know, each of us is in our own way, you know, quite an unusual person. At the Berlin Film Festival when the movie first came out, I mean, there was something magical about this movie because from the time she and I talked about it to the Berlin Film Festival was less than a year and a half. I mean, it's like unheard of, you know, that you could think of a movie and have it in a film festival a year and a half later. That's a lot

[02:19]

of people, you know, buying in. The production company, the German film board, the Bavarian film board, people getting on board and wanting to see it happen and then Doris getting her crew together and filming and then editing and then the jazz group, you know, a year and a half and it's at the film festival. So we were at the film festival and, you know, we did a lot of interviews and sometimes Doris and I did interviews together and sometimes the interviewer and Doris would be kind enough to speak in English for my benefit. And then sometimes the interviewer would question her in German and me in English, you know, so I wouldn't know what she was saying. But one of the interviewers asked Doris, so when did you get interested in meditation? And Doris says, oh, 13, 14 years ago. And I'm sitting there and I said, Doris, nobody just gets interested in meditation.

[03:28]

What went wrong? What happened? Because if your life is going okay out there, you know, why bother? And Doris said, well, my husband was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given, I forget, you know, six months, six weeks to live. And they had their daughters now, 19 or 20, Carla. And at the time, you know, their daughter was a year and a half, two years old. And Doris said that she was just beside herself and had no idea what to do and was terrified and upset and scared and sad. And somebody sent her a little book about meditation and basically it said, sit down, sit still, shut up.

[04:45]

And she tried it and it helped. You know, sometimes it helps to take long walks or pull the weeds to the dishes. So she got interested in meditation. And her husband lived a bit longer than he was diagnosed to live, but died a couple years later. So normally we're using energy, you know, our energy goes pretty automatically into movement and into speech. And our energy gets drawn to things or attracted to things or we want to satisfy some wish or desire.

[06:07]

So we're moving towards things, we're moving away from things, we're reaching out for things, we're pushing things away, we're talking about what's going on with me, what I want, what I don't want, where I'm going, where I'm not going, what I'm doing, what I'm not doing, how I'm feeling, how I'm not feeling. And this is all pretty, you know, it's pretty routinized or habitual. There's a habitual energy that goes into various activities and various patterns of speech. And, you know, as I mentioned last night, some of us, you know, enjoy talking and other people enjoy, you know, are more listening and some of us worry about what to say and others have no, you know, don't seem to have much concern. From my point of view anyway. Why are they going on about that?

[07:12]

So anyway, our energy, we have energy, you know, habits or patterns. And then when you sit down and sit still and are quiet, what happens to the energy? You know, it's not going in its usual way. It's not, you know, arising and then going here or there or pulling back or away or... and it's not talking or... So our energy patterns that are normally organized to accomplish what we want to have accomplished, you know, aren't able to do that. And so then the energy is in your body. And there's a chance then that your energy can become, you know, a, so to speak, spiritual energy. A tentative designation here, spiritual energy.

[08:22]

And begin to move in your body in ways that it's not used to moving and it will find ways to move in your body. And there are, you know, so to speak, energy channels in the body. And this energy as it's developed, you know, in your body will start to, you know, move through, go to move through the energy channels. And one of the things that happens is it will come to places it can't go, it can't go through there. And normally when the energy can't go through some place then it goes into activity or speech. Not a problem. But now there's the possibility the energy is going to be pushing at something that seems to be in the way.

[09:25]

And this is also known as pain. So some of the pain that you have in your sitting is the fact that the energy is, you know, going to move through there and it can't go through there. There's something blocking its way. Now there's also, you know, I don't want to say, you know, I don't want you to think that all pain is this kind of pain. Because some of the pain, you just move and screw it, you know, sit differently. Don't bother with that pain. But there's other pain or, you know, involuntary movements that is this kind of event. Or the, you know, what we heard earlier about, you know, your legs hurt and then there's some tears and then your legs don't hurt. Well, that's because what was blocking the energy there is some old emotion that, you know, hasn't come to the surface.

[10:27]

And once that old emotion and clinging or holding on to what happened in the past, once it surfaces, energy goes through there. And it doesn't hurt anymore. So this energy, which is normally going into activity and verbals, verbalizations, is doing a kind of work in your body, in your being to move through you and to clear energy pathways. And again, you know, this isn't all of the pain, but this is a good deal of, you know, the pain that we have is old materials, memories, thoughts, habits of mind, judgments, directives, fixed thinking. That usually, for the most part, is associated with emotions.

[11:28]

And, you know, classically or what, you know, most of the world is doing and what we've done most of our lives is to see if I can structure a life where I don't have to ever encounter that, the issues that are stuck inside of me. I just see if I can, you know, set things up so I don't ever have to have that sadness or that. And we've all had our, you know, losses and difficulties, whether it's at a young age or older, because there's, you know, there's loss and there's abandonment and there's betrayals and there's wounds. You know, there's sadness and grief and sorrow and angers and resentments and frustrations. And some, you know, people, you know, have been through really, you know, pretty horrible, horrendous life experiences. And we, you know, carry this.

[12:46]

If you're, you know, familiar with the works of Alice Miller, she writes book after book about this, how childhood trauma informs adult life and how, you know, great artists, you know, brilliant artists, you know, whether it's Dostoevsky or Nietzsche or Schiller or Rambeau had each in their way these difficult childhoods. They're very brilliant, but they never get around to acknowledging that the pain, the pain in their life, and partly she calls this, you know, protecting the innocence of the parents. You don't want to say it was their fault because you love them. So even though fictionally brilliant authors can write about kids going through the difficulties that they had as children, it's not something that they ever want to say actually happened to them. And it's not something they acknowledge, and then again, to actually be able to let go of something, you have to acknowledge it.

[13:53]

It has to surface in some way, and then you can acknowledge it in your consciousness. You can acknowledge it, and once you acknowledge it, there's a point where you can let go of it. So, as you could tell this morning, you know, each of us is involved in our world in some way, and things are coming up for us. But, you know, as you continue to meditate certainly, it would not be at all surprising to have this kind of material come to the surface as the energy starts to move in your body.

[14:56]

And people who study these things have, you know, different issues in different parts of the body. And you may or may not agree with their body mapping. You might find, you know, that your body mapping is somewhat different, and that your issues are in somewhat different places. But I've worked with some people who are, you know, quite extraordinary in terms of what they can touch and sense in somebody's body. And so, for instance, for them, you know, the knees have to do with abandonment issues. Right knee is, you know, more about abandonment by, you know, having been abandoned by male, or abandoning male. Left knee is more about abandoning female, or having been abandoned by female. And then you have pain there that hurts, and you have knee injuries there.

[16:03]

Because it's weak, and it's holding, and it's not, the energy's not moving in there, and there tends to be injury, because the energy's not just moving. And you don't have stable vitality in that area. And you tend to get injured in some place where you're holding on to old material. Shoulders are about trust. You know, can you let the world in, or do you want to hide from the world? Are you, you know, are you scared about the world? And do you feel small in relationship to the world, or, you know, are you willing to appear in the world? Are you willing to connect with the world? Do you trust what's happening here? How do your shoulders hold themselves? Or, as I was mentioning last night, you know, if, if you want to protect others from what, who you are, because you see yourself so painfully inadequate or troublesome, and somehow not good enough, then you can tighten your shoulders so that others can't know what's going on with you.

[17:15]

And there's, you know, terror lines in the body, and there's betrayal lines. There's disappointment, shame, humiliation. You know, there's shame lines. Where do they go? So, in sitting, you know, if you sit over time and over a number of years, you know, the energy will start to vibrate in areas where it hasn't vibrated before. And you can feel something you haven't ever, you've spent your whole life not wanting to feel. And at last you have the chance. And at some point, you know, you feel very, you know, you feel so relieved to finally have, you know, the grief or the sorrow or the shame that you've been put off your life, you know, that you've been postponing, you know, for, you know, all your life.

[18:25]

And you can finally allow it to surface and let go of it, and then not spending the rest of your life defending yourself from ever experiencing that, and attacking others for, you know, making you feel that way. And so forth, you know. And your life changes, and then you can, you're more, you're in, you know, more connection with yourself and others. Because you don't have to disconnect in order to hide what's happening with you or to hide from what others might think of you. You can actually be in connection. So, this is partly what, you know, in Zen, you know, Zen isn't, you know, particularly articulate about these kind of things.

[19:33]

And what I'm suggesting to you or saying to you is just, it's, again, it's a tentative kind of languaging to talk about something. For instance, in Zen, they more like say, um, sitting is beyond human agency. It's beyond your figuring it out or making it happen or not happen. You know, meditation is beyond your doing. It's not something that you're doing or not doing. Sit down, sit still, shut up, let it happen. You're not in charge. It will take care of itself. You will get undone. You will be exposed, you know. Things will come up and surface. You'll let go of them. You'll get on with your life. And, you know, things will shift for you. And, you know, and the suggestion is, you know, why don't you, you know, just go ahead and trust this to happen without, you know, your great skill or your skill or lack of skill. It's not much to do with it, you know.

[20:34]

It's something you put some time in on the cushion and things will unfold. And on the other hand, you know, we're certainly using, you know, we can, you can sit down and, you know, whether it's as dramatic as Doris and her husband being diagnosed with terminal cancer and having a young daughter it's, you know, you're stressed about your work or, you know, your life and, you know, finances or relationships or whatever, you know. Meditation just in a simple way can be a way to come back to yourself and have some quiet time with yourself. And a chance to check in and see what's coming up. And to kind of have a little distance and not be, a distance in the sense of not be right away involved in your action, reaction, acting, acting, speaking, verbalizing, solving, fixing, changing, you know.

[21:47]

Like, sit down, be quiet for a while, sit with the difficulty and something comes to you, you know, you know what to do, how to, where to go from here. And that where to go from here often doesn't come, or most of the time, you know, where to go from here doesn't come in a language that's readily understandable. Am I making sense here, you know? It's not like you can sit and then the voice says, quit that job or stay with that work or something, you know, but what to do comes to you in a way that then you actually have to, like, unpack or find your way into what was that that came to you. I mean, once in a while things happen like that. I love the story, you know, I've studied cranial sacral with a man named Hugh Milne.

[22:53]

If you have a, if you've done, if you do body work at all and you are interested in this kind of thing, it's fascinating. Hugh Milne, he has the, you know, Milne Institute, M-I-L-N-E. He and his wife, Georgia, live in Big Sur. And he does courses, cranial sacral 1, 2, 3, and they start, I guess, they're like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they are some of the most amazing things I've done. And he's very unusual because he's teaching both technique and intuition, and most people who teach that kind of work are either teaching techniques or intuition, but not both. Here's how you do it. Apply the protocols. Go through the protocol, the procedure, you know. And other people are saying, well, just feel it. What? But he tells us, I just love the story.

[23:54]

He said how he first started doing this work, his parents, he was Scottish. His parents had a clinic, a sort of health clinic spa in Scotland. And then sometimes people would come there and stay there for a week or two weeks and they have a kind of cleanse or, you know, all these massages and spas and whatever. So when he was about 16 or 17, his mother taught him how to do the massage that they would give to people there. So it's one of the first days that he was doing massage. You know, he'd done five or six or seven massages and he's just exhausted, you know, 45 minute or 50 minute massages, you know. And, you know, stop for lunch and do, you know, three or four more. So it's the end of the day and the last person comes in, throws off his clothes, light it up, flops on down on the table. It's somebody who'd been coming there for, you know, years and knew what to do.

[24:54]

And he said he was standing there leaning against the wall and what is he ever going to do? And he couldn't imagine doing another massage. And a voice, he heard this voice that said, touch his feet. And he went over and put his hand on the man's feet, you know, for five or eight or ten minutes. And then the voice said, put your hand on his sacrum. So he gave this person craniosacral, you know, directed craniosacral. Just came to him. And... Yeah, that's one you can listen to, yeah. And, you know, not all of them are. Anyway, after the massage, you know, he was a little worried.

[26:03]

You know, and the man gets up and he says, what were you doing? And he says, oh, that's just the massage we give people here. And the man says, I've been coming here for 30 years and that's not what you just do to people. But it was the most amazing experience I've ever had here. And at that point you can't, you know, tell somebody, you know, what you were doing. You see, you weren't doing anything. You were meditating. You just had your hands there and you were receiving another person. Receiving another person is like meditation. You know, you're not doing something to them. You're not sort of like, I'm going to help you release this tension you've got here, you know. I think you've got some myofascial, you know, tightness.

[27:05]

Let's take care of that for you. And, you know, you're not doing anything. You're just receiving. And this is something that's so hard to explain to anybody who's not in this world, you know, of this kind of possibility. So this is not, so to sit with, you know, as the energy works inside of you and encounters the places it's going to, the energy in your body, you know, that's not going into its usual activity and usual speech is going to be moving in the channels or attempting to move in the channels and attempting to get the body to move in the channels. It's trying to get the blockages out of the way. So one of my metaphors for this, you know, is, you know, as things come up like this, you know, you might feel, for instance, like you have anger coming up or sadness.

[28:16]

You know, all kinds of things. And you feel like, if I let this happen, I'm just, I could be, I could be angry forever. But actually what happens is the energy, there's just the anger and that blockage there. And it's like, it's like turning on the pipes that are rusted and, you know, you turn on the pipes and debris comes out and then after a while the energy runs clear. The water runs clear. This is like what happens through your, in your sitting experience. And what it's like to, you know, you're turning on the faucet and, you know, when you sit then, you know, a lot of your experience is the rust and debris that's coming out. And you don't notice so much that now the water's running clear after that happens because by then the energy's gone on to another blockage. But anyway, your life is unfolding and you're finding your way.

[29:18]

And we don't, you know, it's very mysterious how we find our way or what to do. Because, you know, and there's no way to, we keep thinking there would be some way and, you know, to, if I was, if I was savvy or skillful, I could, you know, avoid these kind of disasters and experience these kind of blessings and, you know. But, you know, everything is there. And it's not the, you know, it's not the point of our life to avoid some things and experience others. But actually, you know, one of the things that Buddhism is emphasizing in our teaching is that there's, you know, that's the first noble truth. That's the first thing to know is that you're never going to be able to control things that way and just experience what you want to and avoid the things you don't want to.

[30:23]

So, and in order to have any moment of experience, everything is there in every moment. So, if you want to receive, you know, the beauty, then you receive the, you know, the ugliness and the pain. To really have it touch you, you know, you always are meeting both sides and meeting everything. And to meet one thing, you have to be, you have to meet everything, whether it's you yourself. To meet yourself, you're going to have to meet someone who's a wonderful, good-hearted person and someone who is a pain. And this is true with the other people in your lives. And, you know, your friends, your family, your children, your parents. And, yeah, that's the way it is, right? And some people will decide to, you know, hang in there with them. And I've often thought, you know, if I wasn't me, I would not spend much time with this person.

[31:26]

But it's not like anybody else is willing to do this. Damn, I guess it's going to be up to me to hang out with me and be the person to, you know, know me and trust me and believe in me and, you know, I'm going to have to be that person. It doesn't seem to be much. Anyway. But, you know, at times in my life it's taken a lot of convincing. And I have then had friends, you know, who have helped convince me that it would be a benefit, not only to myself, but to others for me to do that kind of work. Okay. I've talked enough. Shucks. So, any comments, questions here before we take a little break? This kind of talk is, I'm sure, you know, some of you are probably encouraging and then some of you are kind of discouraging.

[32:41]

What? I can't just rise above it all? Spiritual. Yeah. Spiritual. Yeah, spiritual. You know, I'm reading this, I've just read it and I started reading it again. It's the first time in my life I've ever read through a book and just started again right at the beginning. It's called, I'm Becoming an Alchemist. And so she talks about, you know, a lot of these things. So, that kind of spiritual is what she calls, also known as the astral plane or baggage disclaim. So, you see, you can have that kind of spiritual if you're not claiming your baggage. You know, we all are carrying baggage around, sometimes in our bodies. So, if you disclaim the baggage that you've got in your, you know, body, then you can get spiritual. Makes sense, doesn't it?

[33:45]

I love that, baggage disclaim. It's a little bit like the, I forget who I tell what now, but you know, the Stephen Levine, when somebody says they have their shit together, they're usually standing in it. So, when somebody says, you know, they're getting so spiritual and so full of love and light, it's just, I think to myself, like, watch out for the fall. Oh, boy. I got very stuck on something you said in the beginning about energy, and how you put energy either into moving or talking. And I started thinking about anxiety, and anxiety being like energy that wasn't going through space, you know, and then kind of stuck inside, and it can't come out.

[34:49]

It can't go through those channels, or any of that work, or meditation, or stuff. Yeah, stuck. Yeah. So, that's a great example of one of the possibilities. So, my basic, you know, sensibility over the years has been to, you know, I'm interested in workability, what's workable, what's helpful. So, I'm looking for what, you know, how to work with things. So, it may be that there's aspects of meditation that are useful, that there's, you know, yoga, or qigong, or things that are useful, and there's psychotherapy kind of modalities that are useful.

[35:59]

And, you know, there's dream work, and there's body-based things. And so, you know, to me it's, and so, you know, I'm more interested in, and I was making, I make this distinction in various ways, but I've always been more interested in what Thomas Moore, you know, who did Soulmates, Soulmates and Care of the Soul, he did a number of books about that. He calls, he says, in his book about Soulmates, he says, there are some really good books out there on developing your communication skills and how to make your relationship work. So, if that's what you're interested in, get one of those. My book isn't one of those.

[37:02]

My main interest is helping you expand your poetic imagination. And so, you know, but it's not to say that actually some of those other things wouldn't be helpful for something like anxiety. There may be some actually fairly useful simple tools, you know, that are help. And I don't know that I can give you any of those today, you see. So, and probably what I'm talking about today is, if you have the idea, when you have, when we have the idea, there must be, you know, I'm feeling anxious, and then you start to think, what does this mean about me? Oh, and then if you're anxious, you see, you can only think things that will agree with your anxiousness. Then you can start to be anxious that there's something wrong with me.

[38:06]

And then you can be anxious that if there's something wrong with me, I may not be able to do anything about it. And so on, and you can keep thinking things that confirm and give you a good reason to be anxious. And part of the sensibility then of meditation is that you could just notice it, and then not go into the rest of that. Let go of what it means about you, what it means about who you are, what it means about your, you know, past failures. Because we get in our thinking, you know, we think like, I could actually get rid of this. So there's a difference between, and one of the things we're studying and shifting to the mode of meditation is rather than how to get rid of something, it's like how to compost it, or how to recycle it, or how to transmute it.

[39:13]

And take the energy that's otherwise going into anxiety and do something else with it. So in that kind of metaphor of expanding your poetic imagination, there's many, many kinds of possibilities, and you're kind of dreaming up. You're allowing some dreaming to take place there, in the sense of dreaming up what to do, or how to be with something in a way that it can shift. And you're changing rather than, I'm going to stay the same, and then I'm going to do something about the anxiety, which is not me. And it's true it's not me in a sense. So let me, you know, give you a different kind of example about this, or an example about this that, you know, anyway, this is, it's so hard to talk about these things that partly it just takes a while, but I'm going to try to give you a very simple example.

[40:22]

And then you can see if you can apply it to anxiety. But let's say you're sitting, and you're meditating, and you start to think, wouldn't it be great to be outside? Oh, the fresh air would be so good, and then it's sunny out there, and you know, there's birds, and what am I doing in this stupid room, and you know, I need, you know, I don't understand this, you know. And so something in you, you get, you know, some very, you know, evocative pictures of the reality that you could be in, which is not here. So what's going on? So if you think the point of meditation is to subdue those desires and get rid of them, that would be one approach. And there's probably people who could help you do that. And that's what traditionally Buddhism helps you do, like if you have sensual desires, oh, come on, start seeing the body as a corpse.

[41:26]

Or you could possibly have the idea that, alright, well, I'm just going to go outside then, yeah, this meditation is stupid. Now, so the transmutation sort of approach, or the digesting it, or in some way using that energy is, huh, you know what, if there's pleasure and joy somewhere else, what does that say about the way I'm meditating? Probably without much joy or pleasure. Why? Well, this has something to do with how we, you know, where we've come to about the kind of person that I should be, that is a good person to be. And, you know, you have to be careful about joy and, you know, pleasure for various reasons, because you could get in trouble. And you can make these things literal or less literal. And then, so, at some point it might occur to you to say, you know, to your desire, in this case, or your, you know, the awareness that's wandering around for something, the trees and the sky and the birds, or whatever.

[42:53]

Excuse me, but rather than wandering out there, could you help me meditate in a little different way? Could, you know, like, please, come and sit with me and show me how to meditate with a little more joy and ease. And so, this is actually a kind of work, then, to, rather than always be, you know, seeing if you can find a way to express or act on something, it's like, how do I bring that into my mode of being so that it's already here and I don't have to rely or depend on or be attached to certain objects or activities to bring about my ease and joy, which I could have just sitting here. And I could shift, I could be, I could be more in awe by my breath or, you know, my, the sensations of the air or, and I could get lighter and easier.

[43:58]

This is widening your poetic imagination. Now, anxiety, you know, is, depends on who you are, but anxiety is certainly one of the, you know, challenging ones. And some people consider that whole area of anxiety to be possibly the most challenging. But I'm sure that you could find people to debate that, because my pain is worse than yours. But anxiety is in that realm also with the fear and terror. I mean, anxiety is kind of low-grade when it comes to the fear and terror that you could have. You know, like, post-traumatic stress, you know, reenactment, you know, and stuff. Those are real fears. I mean, you know, like, that's based on something. You know, a lot of anxiety is about, you know, it's like, it's substantial.

[44:59]

It's about, you know what I mean, projecting what hasn't occurred. But the anxiety that you're talking about is based on something that really happened. Or, you know, like, I had a lot of anxiety. I had a family member with an ICU for a couple of weeks. I was just terrified the entire time. And the only way I could kind of keep control of it was a lot of drinking. Well, there you go. No, but I didn't mean, you know, that that was kind of it. It wasn't that, you know, it wasn't that I'm afraid to go to the store. I'm afraid of what people think of me. You know, those kinds of things. Anxiety is a kind of projection of what is not necessarily true. James Cameron said, whether or not it's true or not, factually, it's irrelevant. Experienced. It's based on experience. And the experience is what we're talking about. So, one isn't wider or more valid than the other.

[46:03]

They're just catalyzed by different things. And the idea of how to manage it, the idea of how to manage it and read it and embrace it or release it, I think is irrelevant to what is catalyzed. Thank you, thank you, thank you. To simplify, that kind of describes you sort of beware of what you're thinking of. Yeah, there you go. So, if you want something good to happen, think of something good. If you're uptight about something, you're not happy about something, then that will probably not test itself. Yeah. I haven't noticed so much. I think our thinking has a lot to do with this. I haven't so much noticed that bad things happen if I think about them but what I've noticed more than that is actually when I get really anxious about things,

[47:06]

for the most part, none of those things do happen. And that's what I notice. And I also notice my anxiety is not preventing any of these things from happening that I'm anxious about. It's not actually doing anything. So, I can see where this is not working. It's not like it helps for me to be anxious about anything one way or another. Actually, as far as preventing or allowing it to happen. When I get my anxiety, I like to do things that completely break any kind of routine. Crazy stuff, whatever. You really give yourself something to be anxious about. Give yourself something real to be anxious about. Something that's completely off that you may have done 15 years ago that you forgot about

[48:06]

that used to make you feel amazing and who cares if people look at that thing. Okay, well, I'd like to... Let's take a 10-minute break and then we'll come back and sit a little bit before we head out to lunch. Okay? So, by that clock up there, it will be 12.30 when we get back here. But my clock is 10 minutes ahead of that clock and yours is probably somewhere in between those two.

[48:36]

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