The object of Buddhist discipline, or methods of psychological training, is, as it were,
 to bring about a state of affairs in which the individual feels himself to be everything
 that there is, the whole cosmos focused, expressing itself here. Now, in that way, your sense
 of identity would be turned inside out. You wouldn't forget who you were, you wouldn't
 forget your name and address, your telephone number, your social security number, and what
 sort of role you're supposed to occupy in society. But you would know that this particular
 role that you play, this particular personality that you are, is superficial, and the real
 you is all that there is. And that inversion, turning upside down of the sense of identity,
 of the state of consciousness which the average person has, is the objective of Buddhistic
 disciplines.
 The method of teaching something in Buddhism is rather different from methods of teaching
 which we use in the Western world. In the Western world, a good teacher is regarded
 as someone who makes the subject matter easy for the student, a person who explains things
 cleverly and clearly, so you can take a course in mathematics without tears. In the Oriental
 world, they have an almost exactly opposite conception, and that is that a good teacher
 is a person who makes you find out something for yourself. In other words, learn to swim
 by throwing the baby into the water.
 There's a story used in Zen about how a burglar taught his child to burgle. He took him one
 night on a burgling expedition, and locked him up in a chest in the house that he was
 burgling and left him. And the poor little boy was all alone, locked up in the chest,
 and he began to think, "How on earth am I going to get out?" So he suddenly called
 out, "Fire! Fire!" And everybody began running all over the place, and they heard
 this shriek coming from inside the chest, and they unlocked it, and he rushed out and
 shot out into the garden. And just then, everybody was in hot pursuit, calling out, "Thief!
 Thief!" And he went by a well, and he picked up a rock and dropped it in the well. And
 everybody thought, "The poor fellow has jumped into the well and committed suicide." And
 he got away. He got home, and his father said, "Congratulations, you have learned the art."
 So do you see, William Blake once said, "A fool who persists in his folly will become
 wise." And so the method of teaching used by these great Eastern teachers is to make
 fools persist in their folly, but very rigorously and very consistently and very hard. So then,
 if I may now, having given you the analogy, the image, let's go to the specific situation.
 Supposing you want to study Buddhism under a Zen master, what will happen to you? Well,
 first of all, let's ask the question, why would you want to do this anyway? I mean,
 I can make the situation fairly universal. It might not be a Zen master that you go to.
 It might be a Methodist minister. It might be a Catholic priest. It might be a psychoanalyst.
 But what's the matter with you? Why do you go? And surely the reason that we all would
 be seekers is that we feel some disquiet about ourselves. Many of us want to get rid of ourselves.
 We can't stand ourselves. And so we watch television and go to the movies and read mystery
 stories and join churches in order to forget ourselves, in order to merge with something
 greater than ourselves. We want to get away from this ridiculous thing locked up in a
 bag of skin. So I have a problem. I hurt. I suffer. I'm neurotic, or whatever it is.
 And one goes to the teacher and says, "My problem's me. Change me." Now, if you go
 to a Zen teacher, he'll say, "Well, I have nothing to teach." There is no problem.
 Everything's perfectly clear. And you think that one over. And you say, "He's probably
 being cagey." He's testing me out to see if I really want to be his student. So I know,
 according to everybody else who's been through this, that in order to get this man to take
 me on, I must persist. Do you know our saying, "Anybody who goes to a psychiatrist ought
 to have his head examined"? That's a very—there's a double take in that saying, you see? So
 in the same way, anybody who goes with a spiritual problem to a Zen master defines himself as
 a nut. And the teacher does everything possible to make him as nutty as possible. But the
 teacher says, "Quite honestly, I haven't anything to tell you. I don't teach anything.
 I have no doctrine. As I said to you in the beginning of this talk, I have nothing whatsoever
 to sell you." So the student thinks, "My, this is very deep, because this 'nothing'
 that he's talking about, this 'nothing' that he teaches, is what they call in Buddhism
 shunyata. Now shunyata is the Sanskrit for nothingness, and it's supposed to be the
 ultimate reality. But as you know, if you know anything about these doctrines, this
 doesn't mean real nothingness, not kind of just nothing there at all, not just blank,
 but it means no-thingness. It's the transcendental reality behind all separate and individual
 things, and that's something very deep and profound. So he knows that when the teacher
 said, "I have nothing to teach," he meant this very esoteric no-thing. Well, he might
 also say, "Then if you have nothing to teach, what are all these students doing around here?"
 And the teacher says, "They are not doing anything. They're just a lot of stupid people
 who live here." And he knows again, you see, the stupid doesn't mean just straight stupid,
 but the higher stupidity of being people who are humble and don't have intellectual pride.
 So finally, the student, having gone out of his way to define himself as a damn fool in
 need of help, he's absolutely worked himself into this situation. He's defined himself
 as a nut. And then the teacher accepts him. And the teacher says, "Now, I'm going to ask
 you a question. I want to know who you are before your father and mother conceived you."
 That is to say, you've come to me with a problem, and you've said, "I have a problem. I want
 to get one up on this universe." Now, who is it that wants to get one up? I mean, who
 are you? Who is this thing called your ego, your soul, your I, your identity, for whom
 your parents provided a body? Show me that. And he says, "Father, I'm from Missouri, and
 I don't want any words. I want to be shown." So, the student may open his mouth to make
 an answer, but the teacher says, "Uh-uh. Not yet. You're not ready." And he takes him back
 and introduces him to the chief student, all those so-called Zen monks who live together.
 And the chief student says, "Now, what we do here is so-and-so. We have this discipline,
 but the main part of the discipline is meditation. And we all sit cross-legged in a row, and
 we do that. And you sit cross-legged, and you learn how to breathe and be still." In
 other words, to do nothing. But you mustn't go to sleep, and you mustn't get into a trance.
 You have to stay wide awake, not thinking anything, but perfectly doing nothing. And
 there's a monk walking down all the time with a flat stick, rather long, about so long.
 And if you go to sleep, or if you get into a trance, or if you get dreamy, he hits you
 on the back, so that you'll stay quite clear and wide awake, but still doing nothing. And
 the idea is that out of this state of profoundly doing nothing, you will be able to tell the
 teacher who you really are. In other words, the question, "Who are you before your father
 and mother conceived you?" is a request for an act of perfect sincerity and spontaneity.
 As if I were to say to you, "Look, will you be absolutely genuine with me? No deception,
 please. I want you to do something that expresses you without the slightest deception. No more
 role-acting, no more playing games with me. I want to see you." Now imagine. Could you
 really be that honest with somebody else? Especially a spiritual teacher. And you know
 he looks right through you. He sees all your secret thoughts. And he knows the very second
 when you've been a little bit phony. And that bugs you. Just like the psychiatrist. You're
 sitting in there discussing your problems with him and you start picking your nose.
 And the psychiatrist suddenly says to you, "Is your finger comfortable there? You like
 that?" And you know your Freudian slip is showing. What do fingers symbolize? What do
 nostrils symbolize? Uh-oh, uh-oh. And then you quickly put your hand down and sort of
 -- and you say, "Oh no, it's nothing, it's nothing. I was just picking my nose." And
 the analyst says, "Oh really? Then why are you justifying it? Why are you trying to explain
 it away? He has you everywhere you turn, you see?" Well, that's the whole art of psychoanalysis.
 And it's Zen, it's the same thing. In other words, when you're challenged to be perfectly
 genuine, it's like saying to a child, "Now darling, come out here and play and don't
 be self-conscious." Or it's like I would say to you, "Now look, if you come here tonight
 at exactly midnight and put your hands on this stage, you can wish and have granted
 any wish you want, provided you don't think of a green elephant." And so everybody will
 come, they'll put their hands here, and they will be very careful not to think about a
 green elephant. Well, now do you see the point? That everybody -- if we transfer this to the
 dimension of spirituality, where the highest ideal is to be unselfish, to let go of oneself,
 when you are trying to be unselfish, you're doing it for a selfish reason. You can't be
 unselfish by a decision of the will any more than you can decide not to think of a green
 elephant. There is a story about Confucius, who one day met Lao Tzu, who was a great Chinese
 philosopher. And Lao Tzu said, "Sir, what is your system?" And Confucius said, "It is
 charity and love of one's neighbor and elimination of self-interest." Lao Tzu said, "Stuff and
 nonsense. Your elimination of self is a positive manifestation of self. Look at the universe.
 The stars keep their order, the trees and plants grow upwards without exception, the
 waters flow. Be like this. All your nonsense about elimination of self is like beating
 a drum in search of a fugitive." So, in this way, these are all examples of the thing,
 the trickery the Master is playing on you. You came to him with the idea in your mind
 that you are a separate, independent, isolated individual. And what he is simply saying to
 you is, "Show me this individual." I had a friend who was studying Zen in Japan and he
 got pretty desperate to produce the answer of who he really is. And on his way to an
 interview with the Master to give an answer to the problem, he noticed a very common sight
 in Japan, a big bullfrog sitting around in the garden. And he swooped this bullfrog up
 in his hand and dropped it in the sleeve of his kimono. And then he went into the Master,
 and to give the answer of who he was, he suddenly produced the bullfrog. And the Master said,
 "Too intellectual." In other words, this answer is too contrived. It's too much like Zen.
 You've been reading too many books. It's not the genuine thing.
 So after a while, you see, what happens is this. When the student finds that there is
 absolutely no way of being his true self, not only is there no way of doing it, there
 is also no way of doing it by not doing it. You can't do it by doing something. You can't
 do it by not doing something. Let me, to make this clearer, put it into Christian terms.
 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." Now, what are you going to do about that? If you try
 very hard to love God and you ask yourself, "Why am I doing this?" you find out you're
 doing it because you want to be on the side of the big battalions. You want to be right.
 After all, the Lord is the Master of the universe, isn't he? And if you don't love him, you're
 going to be in a pretty sad state. So you realize, "I'm loving him just because I'm afraid of
 what'll happen to me if I don't." And then you think, "That's pretty lousy love, isn't
 it?" And you think, "That's a bad motivation. I wish I could change that. I wish I could
 love the Lord out of a genuine heart." Well, why do you want to change? Uh-uh. See, I realize
 that the reason I want to have a different kind of motive is that I've got the same motive.
 So I say, "Oh, heaven sakes, God, I'm a mess, and will you help me out?" And then he reminds
 you, "Why are you doing that? Now you're just giving up, aren't you? You're asking someone
 else to take over your problem." So you suddenly find, you see, you're stuck. So in this way,
 what is called the Zen problem, or koan, is likened to a person who swallowed a ball of
 red-hot iron. He can't gulp it down, and he can't spit it out. Or it's like a mosquito
 biting an iron bull. It's the nature of a mosquito to bite, and it's the nature of an
 iron bull to be unbiteable. And both go on doing their thing that is their nature. And
 so nothing can happen. And you realize, absolutely you're up against it. Absolutely no answer
 to this problem. No way out. Now what does that mean? If I can't do the right thing by
 doing, and if I can't do the right thing by not doing, what does it mean? It means, of
 course, that I, who is said to do all this, am a hallucination. There is no independent
 self to be produced. There is no way at all of showing it, because it isn't there. So
 you recover from the illusion. You suddenly wake up and think, "What a relief." And they
 call that satori. That's awakening, the first step in awakening. Let me try and translate
 this. When this kind of experience happens, you discover that what you are is no longer
 this sort of isolated center of action and experience locked up in your skin. That by
 being the teacher has asked you to produce that thing, to show it to him genuine and
 naked and you couldn't find it. So it isn't there. And when you see clearly that it isn't
 there, you have a new sense of identity. And you realize that what you are is, as I said,
 the whole world of nature doing this. Now that's a difficult thing for many Western
 people, because it suggests to them a kind of fatalism. It suggests that the individual
 is nothing more than the puppet of cosmic forces. So in the same way, when your own
 inner sense of identity changes from being the separate individual to being what the
 entire cosmos is doing at this place, you become not a puppet, but more truly and more
 expressively an individual than ever. This is the same paradox which the Christian knows
 in the form, "Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it."
 Now I think that this is something of very great importance to the Western world today,
 because we have developed an immensely powerful technology. We have stronger means of changing
 the physical universe than has ever existed before. How are we going to use it? There
 is a Chinese proverb that if the wrong man uses the right means, the right means work
 in the wrong way. Let us assume that our technological knowledge is the right means. What kind of
 people are going to use this knowledge? Are they going to be people who hate nature and
 feel alienated from it, or people who love the physical world and feel that the physical
 world is their own personal body? An extension, the whole physical universe, right out to
 the galaxies, is simply one's extended body.
 Now at the moment, the general attitude of our technologists who are exploring space
 is represented in the term "the conquest of space," and they are building enormous,
 shell-like, phallic objects to go, "Pam!" into the sky. And this is downright ridiculous,
 because who is going to get anywhere on a rocket? You know, it takes a terrible long
 time even to get to the moon, and it's going to take longer than anybody can live to get
 outside the solar system, just to begin with. A proper way to study space is not with rockets,
 but with radio astronomy. Instead of going "Bang!" with a tough fist at the sky,
 become more sensitive. Develop subtler senses—that's radio astronomy—and everything will come
 to you. Be more open, be more receptive, and eventually you will develop an instrument
 that will examine a piece of rock on Mars with greater care than you could if you were
 holding it in your own hand. Let it come to you.
 But you see, this whole attitude of using technology as a method of fighting the world
 will succeed only in destroying the world, as we are doing with absurd and uninformed
 and short-sighted methods of getting rid of insect pests, of forcing our fruit and tomatoes
 to grow, of stripping our hills of trees, and so on and so on, thinking that all this
 is some kind of progress when actually it is turning everything into a junk heap. It
 is said, you know, that Americans who are in the forefront of technological progress
 are materialists. Nothing is further from the truth. American culture is dedicated to
 the hatred of material and to its transformation into junk. Look at Los Angeles. Does it look
 as if it was made by people who loved material? It's all made out of ticky-tacky, which
 is a combination of plaster of Paris, papier-mâché, and plastic glue, and comes in any flavor.
 The important lesson, in other words, is technology and its powers must be handled by true materialists,
 and true materialists are people who love material, who cherish wood and stone and wheat
 and eggs and animals and, above all, the earth, and treat it with a reverence that is due
 to one's own body.
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