Don't Be A Saint - Alan Watts

it has been well said that Buddhism is Hinduism  stripped for export you see Hinduism is a way of   life that goes far far beyond what we in the west  call religion it involves cookery everyday Family   Life house building uh just everything it's  the whole Hindu way of life and so you can't   export it just as you can't export Shinto from  Japan it belongs to the soil and the culture but   there are essential elements in it that can  be transmitted outside the culture of India   and Buddhism was one of the ways of doing just  that so one might say simply this to try and   sum up what Buddhism is about the word Buddha  is derived from the root Budd in Sanskrit bu   U DH which means to be awake so the Buddha is the  the awakened man the man who woke up what does he   wake up from obviously a dream and what kind of  a dream is this well I would call it uh a state   of hypnosis and this state of hypnosis although  I'm using hypnosis in a rather archaic sense of   the word is a state of being entranced Spellbound  fascinated and this is called in Sanskrit avidya a   v i d y a Vidya is knowledge in Sanskrit and it  is the root from which we get viere in Latin to   see and so Vision in English so putting the  a in front of it means non aidia not seeing   ignorance ignorance where uh you see but you  ignore everything that you're not looking at   when you put the beak of a chicken on a white  chalk line and the chicken is fascinated with   that and can't get away from the chalk line  that's Avidia so in the same way our beaks   were put on a chalk line when we were hypnotized  into the notion of attending to Life by conscious   attention Alone by the spotlight to the exclusion  of the floodlight and so we began to imagine that   we were separate individuals what is called in  Buddhism Sakaya drishti the view of separateness   and a Buddha is one who has overcome that he  is awakened from that illusion from that state   of hypnosis and he knows that uh well I can't  put what he knows in any positive terms this is   the special thing about Buddhism everything in  Buddhism sounds negative let's put it this way   let's suppose uh you engage yourself in a in a uh  relationship with the Buddha or with one I mean   there are hundreds of Buddhas one we call Goa is  just the historical Buddha that everybody knows   about but one Buddha leads to another because  as a result of his relationships with people   he turns them into Buddhas too awakened people  now you meet one of these people and he's going   to give you a rough time but one one of the the  Buddhas running around these days is Krishna mty   and Krishna MTI uh absolutely destroys everybody's  religion he okay why do you believe this why are   you hanging on to that why do you want to insist  that this idea is so see and he shows you that all   your fixed formulations all the ideas to which you  cling are spurious and then you suddenly get into   a kind of vertigo dizziness that you feel suddenly  that you're no longer standing on the firm ground   but that the Universe has suddenly turned into  water or Worse air or Worse still empty space   there's nothing to hold on to now you see often  when one discusses religion with people they say   well I I need a religion because I need something  to hold on to well that's the way not to use a   religion because if you use religion as something  to hold on to your religion is an expression of   unfaith faith is where you let go not where you  hold on when the cat falls off the tree the cat   relaxes you see and so the cat lands with a soft  thud and doesn't get hurt because the cat has   Faith but if the cat in midair were suddenly to  grab itself with all four feet and and tighten up   you see it would be hurt and that's what people  do when they say Rock of Ages C for me let me   hide myself in thee they want something to hold  on to you see and that is unfaith so the method   of Buddhism it's called the Dharma doesn't mean  the law it means the method the method is to knock   the stuffing out of you to take away everything  to which you cling to cleanse you completely of   all beliefs all ideas all concepts of what life  is about so that you are completely let go so Budd   M has no doctrines at all that you have to  believe in I don't care what background you   come from whether you're a Roman Catholic or  at one extreme or a logical positivist at the   other both are clinging to something you see and  so the method of Buddhism is to knock out the   underpinnings and say well we just not only do we  not believe in anything we don't even believe in   not believing in anything you know you crawl into  a hole and pull the hole in after you but in this   case you do the exact opposite of that that's  a defensive move to crawl into a hole in this   way you crawl into great space and then pull  the space out after [Laughter] you and uh to   go through this is pretty pretty rough because  you can do it on what seems at first to be a   merely intellect ual level so you can engage a  group of people in the discussion and you can   start whenever they propose an idea that is their  sort of guiding principle of life you demolish it   show that it doesn't hold water and step by  step you unearth by talking with them what   are the fundamental ideas they're operating  on everybody is everybody is a philosopher   everybody has metaphysics although they may  not know what it is cu they've never examined   but by this method you bring it out and you  demolish it and this suddenly what seemed like   a very nice intellectual discussion turns into  sheer murder uh people get really anxious they   develop all the trembles and the symptoms of  extreme anxiety and so they finally say to the   guru the teacher well heaven's sakes what do you  believe in he says I'm not proposing anything I   didn't set anything up well how do you navigate  how do you how do you exist this is what's the problem because you see uh what we're moving from  as as I suggested a moment ago we're moving from   a state of affairs where we are accustomed to  navigation on land to a state of affairs where   we're in the water and this is very critical  for today because the impact of modern science   on Western culture has been very similar to this  in you say in Christianity we sing hymns like How   firm a foundation and Rock of Ages in Festa B and  Mighty Fortress Is Our God uh we' have something   to stand on the church's One Foundation is Jesus  Christ her Lord you know and it's this firm   thing all right suddenly all that disappears or  becomes implausible and we find ourselves swimming   or Sinking now when you find that you're living  in the midst of the universe of Relativity well   there's nothing you could hold on to you got  to learn how to swim and to swim youve got to   relax and stop stop grabbing so this is what  Buddhism does when it says it's the art of   let go of non-attachment non-attachment doesn't  mean that you uh lose your appetite for dinner   it means simply that you stop grabbing you get  rid of stickiness stickiness in the sense of for   example when a wheel has a an axle that's too  tight and it sticks you want to loosen it up a   bit you don't want it too loose you don't want it  floppy like a lot of people when you tell them to   to relax they become like a limp rag it's not  relaxing relaxing is having still tone but um   it's a certain it's a middle way so this is what  this is entirely what Buddhism is about it's   about learning uh for example if I may put it in a  vivid way when you were born you were kicked off a precipice and you're you there's nothing that  can stop you falling and although there are a   lot of rocks falling with you with trees growing  on them and all sorts of things like that you can   cling to one of those rocks if you like as it goes  down with you for safety but it's not safe nothing   is safe everything is for fall apart everything  is in a state of change and uh there's no way of   stopping it and when you are really resigned  to that and when you really accept that then   there's nothing left to be afraid of and when  there's nothing left to be afraid of and you've   given everything up and uh you know that uh even  you know a lot of people in religion cling to   suffering because they know they are right as long  as they hurt oh I bless the good Lord for my boils   for my mental and bodily pains for without them  my faith all congeals and I am doomed to Hell's   n ending Flames uh you know there are a lot of  people who know that they're right so long as they   suffer but that's an illusion too even suffering  offers no Security even suicide offers no security   in Buddhism you see there is no security at all  you simply have to face this fact that everything   is in flux and go go go go with it and so the  question then is simply how to convince people   of this if anybody wants to be convinced you know  it's not the sort of thing you shove down people's   throats you don't convert them to this because  if they don't want to be converted they won't let   go so Buddhism therefore involves a very special  relationship between the questioner and the person   to whom the question is addressed the pupil and  the teacher and now then Buddhism came to China   as early as 60 AD but didn't at that time make a  very great impression it was not until about about   the year 400 that a very great Sanskrit scholar by  the name of kumarajiva came and started teaching   Chinese Scholars Sanskrit and they worked with  him to translate Sanskrit into Chinese and they   translated the Buddhist scriptures they didn't  of course do them all at that time because the   Buddhist scriptures occupy about as many as  much space as the encyclopedia britanica in   fact a little more the Indians are great talkers  well anyway uh they found that when they translate   this into Chinese you had to find equivalent  Chinese words for the Sanskrit ideas and they   found these from the from the Dost philosophy well  slowly then Indian attitudes began to be modified   by Chinese attitudes because the Chinese read into  these translations daoist meanings so things got   a little altered now here came the alteration that  is crucial first of all in Indian Buddhism there's   very little humor but Chinese uh life is full of  humor the greatest philosopher of China janga you   know is the only philosopher who is in I think  in the whole world who is profoundly humorous   there's a book in the um modern Library published  by Random House called the wisdom of laer and uh   this is translated by linu tang and he includes  along with the translation of laa huge sections   of tra and this is absolutely fascinating because  of the humor of it Indian Buddhism had very little   humor some yes but very little next it was all  tied up with celibacy which to the Chinese was   absolutely incomprehensible because Chinese  civilization is rigged around the family to   a far greater extent than ours is which is saying  something and uh they could just couldn't see any   point or any wisdom ins celibacy when Buddhism  came to China it still retained a certain element   of celibacy but for different reasons than than  Hindu the Chinese way of celibacy is not that   sex is naughty but it's terribly convenient not to  have a [Laughter] wife in other words the ideal of   of the uninvolved life uh has a certain appeal  but they could never never get through into their   heads the notion that uh sexual desire was bad  which plays has always played a fairly strong   role in Hindu thinking not in the same way as  it has in the west they don't have a the Hindus   don't have a guilt take on it but they think that  it it dissipates your spiritual energies and you   see the in in yoga they envisage the idea that  at the base of the spine there is what is called   the Kundalini the the the serpent power or the the  force of psychic energy and so long as it remains   at the base of the spine this force is dissipated  in sexuality Now yoga is to suck this thing up   the spine and get it into the head and so then you  withdraw from the manifestation of this energy or   the dissipation of it in sexuality and uh it's  put on a higher level only uh which end is up uh you can do it the other way too they  have What's called the right hand way of   doing it and the left hand way of doing  it I'm not going to go into that now but   the the Chinese didn't see it that way they  couldn't see that it was a dissipation of energy uh so what they wanted to aim at was a way of  living Buddhism and being awake but at the same   time remaining active in the ordinary life of  the world it's what's called in their phraseology   being King on the outside and a sage on the inside   managing practical Affairs completely  involved in whatever life is but at the   same time inwardly living on top of a  mountain being Cloud hidden whereabouts unknown so Chinese Zen is the  preeminent expression of this   because it is the mixture of Indian Buddhism  and Chinese ISM plus a certain confusion practicality Zen developed out of the work  of kumarajiva came into China as I said four   400 or a little before he had two disciples  who began to work on Buddhism from a daoist   point of view and they were actually  The Originators of Zen then apparently   about uh shortly before 500 as the dates now  check out another Indian came to China whose   name was Bodhi Dharma and Bodhi Dharma was  the person who touched off Zen as a specific movement bod Dharma had a pupil  by the name of um AA qu in Chinese   AA is Japanese pronunciation like Zen is the  Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese Chan and   uh the story is that when AKA came to Bod Dharma  bodh Dharma refused to accept him as a student all   Zen Masters do this they reject you and this  stimulates you you see to come back stronger   if I mean if you're going to learn at all and AAR  came back stronger and stronger and stronger and   Bodhi Dharma resisted him stronger and stronger  and finally he cut off his left arm and presented   it to bodh Dharma and said look here's my left  arm given to you as a token that nothing in the   world matters to me except to find out what  you're all about all right he said what do   you want to know AAR said I have no peace of  mind please please pacify my mind in Chinese   mind is um this word pronounced shin and shin  is here Shin is the heart mind it's the psychic Center and so bodh Dharma said bring out  your shin here before me and I will pacify   it AA said when I look for it I can't  find it bodh Dharma said then it's B ified and eka immediately understood what  all the thing was about that's the experience   called Satori in Japanese wo in Chinese  Mandarin and in the Cantonese [Laughter] dialect uh it's just what we call in our  modern psychological jargon the AHA phenomenon uh the AHA phenomenon aha now I see well now um what was all this this Zen  is uh a translation of the Sanskrit word Jana and so this is being  pronounced in Chinese and Zen   in Japanese is unfortunately untranslatable  in English it designates a certain State of Consciousness that is sometimes called meditation but that won't do it all contemplation   isn't really the point Chinese have  a different word for contemplation and uh sometimes one pointedness of mind I would prefer to translate this word with  the notion of total presence of mind when we say   a person is crazy we often say they're not  all there now go to the opposite of that and   visualize a person who is completely there or who  is completely here person who lives totally and   absolutely now that doesn't mean he's incapable  of thinking about the past or the future because   thoughts about the past and about the future are  included in the present you have them now but   imagine the kind of person who is not distracted  who when he talks to you it really gives you his   whole being who doesn't as it were look over your  shoulder and wander after something else somebody   who first of all he's completely here and he's so  much here that you can't phase him now this idea   of phasing is crucial in Zen you see I referred a  moment ago to attachment that Buddhism is living   free from attachments and I made the point  that this is not abandoned a sense of a good   appetite for dinner but it's stopping sticking in  psychological jargon you don't block a mind of no   hesitation it's sometimes called in Chinese  the phrase Mo Chu is used of going straight ahead so supposing somebody walks up to you on  the street and says are you saved now most of   us who are intelligent people feel embarrassed  by such a question you know what this wretched   Salvation Army person or Jehovah's Witness  doing asking me whether I'm saved or not   and we all a little bit you know what do  you do with a nut like that so but as in   Zen this is a perfect moment to respond see  to the most embarrassing question are you   saved but Zen comes back in a very funny way  uh in Zen uh one doesn't give philosophical   answers to a question like that you give  practical answers I had a boiled egg this [Music] morning because whenever you are  asked about matters sacred theoretical and   philosophical you answer in terms of things  earthy and practical but then on the other   hand when you asked about things earthy and  practical iCal you answer in terms of things   religious and philosophical is dinner ready  you know who's asking this question who are you so this is then the flavor of Zen is you know  bodh Dharma is supposed to have meditated so   long that his legs fell [Music] off and he's  usually drawn this way something like this [Music] anyway it looks like a Shmo but  uh in Japan you buy these toys that are   darumas and they are so weighted in here  that you can never knock them over you can   bat it on the floor bat it this way  bat it that way but it always comes   up again and so the poem says seven  times down eight times up such is life so uh this is the the the  principle of not being phased not being attached so to play the game you can't phase me   this is uh very important in the art of  lifemanship fundamental gamesmanship because   you see when the Zen monks moved into Kyoto  uh they took over the best part of town simply   fantastic how this happened the beautiful Hills  were occupied by The brigands Who later became   the Japanese nobility uh the great dios these  were the toughest characters and the Zen monks   played a game with them which was that you know  you possess all these lands and you are powerful   and so on but so what it's all falling apart  then what will you do well they said that's   too bad we don't know and the Zen monk said no  you haven't got the hang of the thing you see so   they found that they couldn't terrify Zen monks  that uh they played all sorts of Tricks but the   Zen monks were better Masters at it see supposing  you say to somebody uh look I'm not afraid of you   you can do anything you like you can kill me or  anything at all well if I go and kill the fellow   who says this I'll never find out whether he was  afraid or [Laughter] not so they outfaced these   people and said you you we have a secret you see  that you don't have and we'll teach your your uh   servitors to be great warriors because they'll  learn the secret too and they won't be afraid   of anything and this is what they did and so the  dios the noblemen uh built great monasteries for   these Zen Masters and monks on their best land the  finest artists of Japan made Gold Leaf screens uh   for almost every room in the place and although  nobody owns anything individually the community   owns it collectively with the protection  of the daos and they had a tremendous scene going now to us that sounds extremely weird even  immoral you don't expect religious people to do   things like that no I know you don't uh if if  the religious people are self-righteous and   have no humor but these people didn't go around  pretending that they were specially good they   didn't dupe themselves they were people who  understood what human nature is that in every   one of us there is an element of irreducible  rascality in Jewish theology this is called the yahar ye z r h a r a the Yahara the element of  irreducible rascality which was created by God   because God has one too and that's why when you  are really affectionate with somebody else when   for example men I don't know what women do in  their private lives between each other but men   uh as we all know say to someone they're  very fond of why you old bastard you know   just like that you know there's a certain way of  saying to a person uh there's a certain glint of   recognition and so there's a Z poem which  says when two Zen Masters meet each other   on the road they need no introduction when a  thief meets a thief they recognize each other instantly and this goes back you see  again Into the Heart of Chinese philosophy that human nature is considered to be basically  good and even the rascally elements of it are good   they are the sort of salt in the human stew there  has to be this little thing that human passions   and that the the natural uh contentiousness and  greed or whatever that we have is an essential   element in our makeup and that when people lose  sight of that they go mad nothing for example   is more dangerous than a saint that is say an  unconscious Saint who thinks that he is right   and who Endeavors to live an absolutely Pure Life  and to eliminate all selfish thoughts somebody who   undertakes that task is going to be a menace to  all around because he loses his humor he loses   his real humility which is knowing that after all  since we're humans we have certain needs we are   need to eat we need uh sex we need this that and  the other and this this sort of has a a quality of   humor to it and uh so this is why in Zen art the  sages are always drawn to look a little bit like bums you know that Pai or h as he's called  what's called The Laughing Buddha the fat   Buddha with an immense belly uh and carrying  around an enormous bag of rubbish into which he   indiscriminately puts anything he finds around  and then gives it away to Children this is the   sort of uh type which the Chinese call the old  Rogue and the old Rogue as a type of the poet   Sage Monk and Scholar you see is greatly admired  he's the nonviolent brigand the Rolling Stone the   free man or in our words The Joker The Joker you  see is the card that can be play any role in the pack so then Zen developed in  China after Bodhi dharma's time and came to a a sort of golden age in the tong and  Sun dynasties the Golden Age of Zen lies between   713 ad and approximately 1100 1200 11 to 1200  that's the great creative period in which all all   the marvelous Masters emerged and during which Zen  exercised a profound influence on the development   of Chinese poetry and painting calligraphy and  scholarship then between 11 and 1200 uh it shifted   to Japan and uh underwent a new development rather  different in quality and in tone and after it had   done that for some Curious reason but it's very  complicated historical question it slowly faded   away in China so that as we find it today it is  principally a Japanese phenomenon and it is slowly   fading in Japan and slowly growing in the west  it's a very funny thing now then let me indicate   what Zen training what its method is how does it  work I said before what is involved is a dialogue   an interchange between two people one who's  defined himself as a student and has therefore   defined the other as the teacher there is no  teacher until a student arrives no problem until   a question is raised so students create teachers  if you ask a question you get 30 blows with a   stick if you don't ask a question you get 30 blows  with a stick because you simply you put yourself   in statu pilari you've defined yourself as having  a problem now nobody really has a problem but the   Maya the game of life is to pretend that you do  going back to fundamental Hinduism the godhead   or the self pretends it's all of us and so gets  lost and so has a ball dreams all this going on   so uh when you are on your way out from the dream  it suddenly occurs to you that you have a problem   life is suffering you would like to get out of  this so one such student went to a zen master   and he said we have to dress and eat every day and  how do we get out of all that in other words you   might ask the question in this way we have to  work get up Monday morning go to the office do   all this routine beans sell something and so on  how do we get out of the Rat Race so we have to   dress and eat every day and how do we get rid of  all that and the master said we dress we eat the   student said I don't understand he replied if you  don't understand put on your clothes and eat your food this is the kind of dialogue so  characteristic of Zan so the position is this   the master on being approached by a student about  the problem of Life says I have nothing to teach you I a zen master I have nothing to say Zen is  not words and furthermore everything is perfectly clear there was a Confucian scholar who went to a  zen master and said what is your secret teaching   and he replied there is a saying in your  own teacher confucious which Explains It   All don't you remember when confucious said to  his disciples do you suppose that I'm concealing   something from you I've held nothing back and the  scholar didn't get this so a few days later they   were walking together in the mountains and they  passed the wild Laurel Bush and the Zen master   said to the Confucian scholar do you smell it  he said yes he said you see I'm holding nothing back so the position of the Zen master is  there is nothing to tell you there is no we   we're not offering you any Panacea any solution  any Doctrine any big big goody uh to the problem   of life because the problem is an illusion well  then the student under these circumstances thinks   well this is some sort of a come on um he's  testing my sincerity and of course the nothing   which he has to teach is the The Mystery of the  great void see he doesn't he doesn't take it as   meaning just plain old ordinary nothing but  the great void and so uh he persists and the   teacher makes him persist until he gets way  out on a limb he has to persist so much that   he practically dedicates his life saying just  as the way haa symbolically cut off his arm the   student is put in the position of dedicating his  life to solving this thing and getting what that   teacher has and of course there wasn't anything  all along but he's been put in that position so   uh then uh once he's in statu pilari uh once he  becomes a student he's put through all kinds of   Hoops they make him learn to meditate to sit  cross-legged practice zazen and then they also   add to the trouble by asking impossible questions  which are called Coan and these questions are are   palpably obsurd what they are saying essentially  uh at least the elementary Coan are all concerned   with this are requests for behavior on the  part of the student that will be perfectly genuine in other words show me who you are  now wait a minute I don't want to see uh any   social definition of you I don't want to know  your name your address who your parents were   I want to see the absolutely authentic you it's  like EX essentialist talk about authentic being   or it might be in the same way a Confessor  father Confessor and a Christian sense could   say now give me a really good confession what  is the thing bad bad thing you've really done   and you confess to him adulteries and murders  and thefts and sacrilege and blasphemies and   curing and so on and he says oh no no no no  no come off it those are only trivial things   come on now what is the really awful  thing you've done I don't know what me this is the backwards way of doing exactly the  same thing as zen master is doing saying who are   you really are you anybody is anybody home have  you got anything and they what they they do things   like uh making you shout see this this word is  very important word in Zen uh nothing moo it's   represented by the empty circle the word moo in  Japanese so they say now say it say moo moo you   know with all your your guts going into it they  say no no no no you you don't know how to say   that come on that's feeble that's nothing let's  really say it they have every kind of trick like that to show you that the more you make an  effort to be genuine the more of a fool you become and they tie you up in nuts until you're  desperate there was an American Zen student who   was on a full bride and um that gave him a year  to study Zen and he got started to panic because   he had only a month to go and he hadn't realized  it and he knew he had to and he went to the sin   master and said damn it he said look uh I've  got I only got a month left the master said   all right we'll have what we call ession ession  is an intense uh meditation practice where you   only sleep 3 hours a night sort of thing and  you meditate all the rest of the time let's go   let's really do it do it do it do it and every  day three times you come to me and present the   answer to your Zen problem your Coan and it got  worse and and it got worse and it got worse and   he got more and more desperate that here was  this full bright going to end and he wouldn't   know what Zen was all about well practically on  the last day he suddenly saw there was nothing to see you know it's all right the way it is and this  tremendous illumination this loaded off his head   was of course what the master was trying to make  him do but now in the ordinary way if you're not   on a full bride and you uh you can stay around  further in Japan the master will then play a   trick on you you'll say now that's wonderful you  got your foot in at the gate you saw you realize   there's nothing to realize you realize the void  there's nothing to cling to you see there no no   barriers no blocks in any direction it's all  transparent but that is just the beginning   and many many it's all a necessity now for you  to discipline yourself much harder to make great   efforts really to get through so what are you  going to do about that uh the student may say   well I don't know I've had enough I think I've  realized what it's all about and he goes away   sometime later he begins to worry because you see  the Great emotional relief of this Insight begins   to wear off and life begins to look ordinary again  and so you thought maybe I did miss something that   was a very good master I went to and I better  go back so back he goes and the teacher comes   on very very tough and says you no you're no  good you didn't stick with it why should I take   you back oh master I'm so sorry I didn't realize  I was young and inexperienced and I now I've come   to my senses so the teacher finally says all  right all right all right you're on probation   so again he starts another Coan and this one  comes in from a completely different point of view and he's got others that come from this  way and from this way and from this way and   from this way and the point is always  so long as I can begal you as teacher   into thinking that something you  can get you need to study with me when I can no longer fool you into  thinking that there's something to get   out of life you'll know that you're alive  you don't get something out of it you're it but so long as you can be phased and you can  be taken in by the teacher you need a teacher   so in the end when the student no  longer needs a teacher and he sees   that it's old boy who's fooled him the  whole way through he says at the same time profound respect and you wonderful  [Laughter] Rascal there's a very strange   thing in the uh I've poked around a  good deal lately in Japan among American   Zen students to find out what's going on and  they tell me that um the initial come on of a   zen master is very tough and very authoritarian  and paternalistic but as you move in he turns   into your older brother and uh is a person  you feel going right along with you beside you   uh helping you in this thing full of friendship  and compassion and everything but occasionally   he will suddenly turn and uh bring on the  authoritarian stuff but they do it in a   very strange way there was a zen master who on a  Saturday morning when he should have been woken   up uh at 8:00 uh no he should have been woken up  at 8 on Saturdays and 7 on weekdays so this was a   Saturday and his uh attendant Mount came and woke  him up at 8 he was immediately looked at the clock   and was absolutely Furious that he'd been woken  up an hour late because he didn't know it was   Saturday so he struck out at this monk in a rage  and the monk said Master but it's Saturday he said oh anger disappeared absolutely Serene no apologies so you see the nature  of this game is the Zen game and I seem to have given away the show to you told  you all the inside mechanics of it but you would   discover that if you tangle with a zen master  and you think you know from what I told you what   are the mechanics of it and you stuck your neck  out to put yourself in the position of being an   Inquirer everything I told you would be useless he  would out with you completely that's what consists   in being a master he's not doing it because he  wants to be superior and to put down other human   beings is doing it out of great compassion  because he feels he knows something which uh if you could find out you would uh just be so  happy and would want to give it to everybody else   but you can't give it away because everybody's  got it what you got to make them do is to see   that they have it and that you don't give  it to them and that's the most difficult task e

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Published: Sun May 12 2024