[Music] Hello, I'm Bill Hartley, publisher of Audio Renaissance, and I'm very pleased to introduce you to Alan Watts Teaches Meditation, the most recent addition to our library of Alan Watts tapes. The material for this program has been made available to Audio Renaissance through our association with Alan Watts' son, Mark Watts, and the vast archival collection of recordings of Alan Watts maintained by the Electronic University. Portions of the material used in this recording were previously available under the title "Why Not Now?" produced by Gary Usher for Ascension Records. The Electronic University wishes to acknowledge Mr. Usher's contribution and to thank him wherever he may be. And now, may I introduce Alan Watts, teaching meditation. [Music] The art of meditation is a way of getting into touch with reality. And the reason for it is that most civilized people are out of touch with reality because they confuse the world as it is with the world as they think about it, and talk about it, and describe it. For on the one hand, there is the real world, and on the other, a whole system of symbols about that world which we have in our minds. These are very, very useful symbols. All civilization depends on them. But like all good things, they have their disadvantages. And the principal disadvantage of symbols is that we confuse them with reality, just as we confuse money with actual wealth. And our names about ourselves, our ideas of ourselves, our images of ourselves, with ourselves. Now of course, reality, from a philosopher's point of view, is a dangerous word. A philosopher will ask me, "What do I mean by reality? Am I talking about the physical world of nature, or am I talking about a spiritual world, or what?" And to that I have a very simple answer. When we talk about the material world, that is actually a philosophical concept. So in the same way, if I say that reality is spiritual, that's also a philosophical concept. And reality itself is not a concept. Reality is... [Bell rings] And we won't give it a name. Now it's amazing what doesn't exist in the real world. For example, in the real world there aren't any things, nor are there any events. That doesn't mean to say that the real world is a perfectly featureless blank. It means that it is a marvelous system of wiggles, in which we describe things and events in the same way as we would project images on a Rorschach plot, or pick out particular groups of stars in the sky and call them constellations, as if they were separate groups of stars. Well, they're groups of stars in the mind's eye, in our system of concepts. They are not out there as constellations, already grouped in the sky. So in the same way, the difference between myself and all the rest of the universe is nothing more than an idea. It is not a real difference. And meditation is the way in which we come to feel our basic inseparability from the whole universe. And what that requires is that we shut up. That is to say, that we become interiorly silent, and cease from the interminable chatter that goes on inside our skulls. Because, you see, most of us think compulsively all the time. That is to say, we talk to ourselves. I remember when I was a boy, we had a common saying, "Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness." Now, obviously, if I talk all the time, I don't hear what anyone else has to say. And so, in exactly the same way, if I think all the time, that is to say, if I talk to myself all the time, I don't have anything to think about except thoughts. And therefore, I'm living entirely in the world of symbols, and I'm never in relationship with reality. All right, now that's the first basic reason for meditation. But there is another sense, and this is going to be a little bit more difficult to understand, why we could say that meditation doesn't have a reason, or doesn't have a purpose. And in this respect, it's unlike almost all other things that we do, except perhaps making music and dancing. Because when we make music, we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music, to get to the end of the piece, then obviously the fastest players would be the best. And so, likewise, when we are dancing, we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor, as we would be if we were taking a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point. When we play music, the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. And therefore, if you meditate for an ulterior motive, that is to say, to improve your mind, to improve your character, to be more efficient in life, you've got your eye on the future and you are not meditating. Because the future is a concept. It doesn't exist. As the proverb says, "Tomorrow never comes." There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be. Because time is always now. And that's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only a present, only an eternal now. So, it's funny then, isn't it, that one meditates for no reason at all, except, we could say, for the enjoyment of it. But I would interpose the essential principle that meditation is supposed to be fun. It's not something you do as a grim duty. The trouble with religion, as we know it, is that it is so mixed up with grim duties. We do it because it's good for you. It's a kind of self-punishment. Well, meditation, when correctly done, has nothing to do with all that. It's a kind of digging the present. It's a kind of grooving with the eternal now. And brings us into a state of peace, where we can understand that the point of life, the place where it's at, is simply here and now. Well now, in the art of meditation there are various props, supports. One thing that we are going to use as a means of stilling chatter in the mind is pure sound. And for that reason, it's useful to have a gong. This is a Japanese Buddhist gong, made of bronze and shaped like a bowl. If you don't have one of these, you can get the rounded end of an oxygen tank. Have a machinist saw it off roughly into the shape of a bowl and use that. Or you can use your own voice, chanting. Another prop in meditation is the use of incense. And that is because the sense of smell is our repressed sense. And because it's our repressed sense, it has a very powerful influence on us. And therefore we associate certain smells with certain states of mind. And so the smell of incense is associated with peace and contemplation. And so it's advantageous to burn incense in meditation. The other prop is a string of beads. And these beads are used in meditation for an unconscious method of timing yourself. Instead of looking at a watch, you move a bead each time you breathe in and out. So that at a certain rate, you see there are always 108 beads on a rosary. And when you get to slow breathing, halfway around the rosary is about 40 minutes. And that is the usual length of time for which one sits in meditation, because otherwise you get uncomfortable and you get stiff legs and problems of that kind. Now then, the other thing, first of all, that we have to go into is how does one sit in meditation? You can sit any way you want. You can sit in a chair, or you can sit like I'm sitting, which is the Japanese way of sitting. Or you can sit in the lotus posture, which is more difficult, which is cross-legged with the feet on the thighs, soles upwards. And the younger you start that in life, the easier you'll find it to do. Or you can just sit cross-legged on a raised cushion above the floor. Now the point of this is that if you keep your back erect, I don't mean stiff like this, nor slumped like this, but just easily erect, you are centered and easily balanced, and you have a feeling of being thoroughly rooted to the ground. And that sort of physical stability is very important for the avoidance of distraction and generally feeling settled. Here and now, "J'y suis, j'y reste," as the French say. I'm here and I'm going to stay. Well now, the easiest way to get into the meditative state is to begin by listening. If you simply close your eyes and allow yourself to hear all the sounds that are going on around you. Just listen to the general hum and buzz of the world as if you were listening to music. Don't try to identify the sounds you're hearing. Don't put names on them. Simply allow them to play with your eardrums. And let them go. In other words, you could put it, "Let your ears hear whatever they want to hear." Don't judge the sounds. There are no, as it were, proper sounds or improper sounds, and it doesn't matter if somebody coughs or sneezes or drops something. It's all just sound. And if I am talking to you right now and you're doing this, I want you to listen to the sound of my voice just as if it were noise. Don't try to make any sense out of what I'm saying, because your brain will take care of that automatically. You don't have to try to understand anything. Just listen to the sound. As you pursue that experiment, you will very naturally find that you can't help naming sounds, identifying them, that you will go on thinking, that is to say, talking to yourself inside your head automatically. But it's important that you don't try to repress those thoughts by forcing them out of your mind, because that will have precisely the same effect as if you were trying to smooth rough water with a flat iron. You're just going to disturb it all the more. What you do is this. As you hear sounds coming up in your head, thoughts, you simply listen to them as part of the general noise going on, just as you would be listening to the sound of my voice, or just as you would be listening to cars going by or to birds chattering outside the window. So look at your own thoughts as just noises. And soon you will find that the so-called outside world and the so-called inside world come together. They are a happening. Your thoughts are a happening, just like the sounds going on outside. And everything is simply a happening, and all you're doing is watching it. Now, in this process, another thing that is happening that is very important is that you're breathing. And as you start meditation, you allow your breath to run just as it wills. In other words, don't do at first any breathing exercise, but just watch your breath breathing the way it wants to breathe. And notice a curious thing about this. You say in the ordinary way, "I breathe," because you feel that breathing is something that you are doing voluntarily, just in the same way as you might be walking or talking. But you will also notice that when you are not thinking about breathing, your breathing goes on just the same. So the curious thing about breath is that it can be looked at both as a voluntary and an involuntary action. You can feel on the one hand, "I am doing it," and on the other hand, "It is happening to me." And that is why breathing is a most important part of meditation, because it is going to show you, as you become aware of your breath, that the hard and fast division that we make between what we do on the one hand and what happens to us on the other is arbitrary. So that as you watch your breathing, you will become aware that both the voluntary and the involuntary aspects of your experience are all one happening. Now that may at first seem a little scary, because you may think, "Well, am I just the puppet of a happening, the mere passive witness of something that is going on completely beyond my control?" Or on the other hand, "Am I really doing everything that is going along?" Well, if I were, I should be God. And that would be very embarrassing, because I would be in charge of everything, and that would be a terribly responsible position. The truth of the matter, as you will see it, is that both things are true. You can see it that everything is happening to you, and on the other hand, you're doing everything. For example, it's your eyes that are turning the sun into light. It's the nerve ends in your skin that are turning electric vibrations in the air into heat and temperature. It's your eardrums that are turning vibrations in the air into sound, and in that way, you are creating the world. But when we're not talking about it, when we're not philosophizing about it, then there is just this happening, this... [Ding] And we won't give it a name. Now then, when you breathe for a while, just letting it happen, and not forcing it in any way, you will discover a curious thing, that without making any effort, you can breathe more and more deeply. In other words, supposing you simply are breathing out, and breathing out is important because it's the breath of relaxation, as when we say, "Phew!" and heave a sigh of relief. So when you are breathing out, you get the sensation that your breath is falling out. Dropping, dropping, dropping out, with the same sort of feeling you have as if you were settling down into an extremely comfortable bed. And you just get as heavy as possible and let yourself go. And you let your breath go out in just that way. And when it's thoroughly comfortably out, and it feels like coming back again, you don't pull it back in, you let it fall back in. Letting your lungs expand, expand, expand, until they feel very comfortably full, and you wait a moment and let it stay there, and then once again, you let it fall out. And so in this way, you will discover that your breath gets quite naturally, easier and easier, and slower and slower, and more and more powerful. So that with these various aids, listening to sound, listening to your own interior feelings and thoughts, just as if there was something going on, not something you are doing, but just happenings, and watching your breath as a happening that is neither voluntary nor involuntary, you are simply aware of these basic sensations, then you begin to be in the state of meditation. But don't hurry anything, don't worry about the future, don't worry about what progress you're making, just be entirely content to be aware of what is. Don't be terribly selective, particularly say, "I should think of this and not of that." Just watch whatever is happening. Now then, to make this somewhat easier, to have the mind free from discursive verbal thinking, sound or chanted sound is extremely useful. If you, for example, simply listen to the gong, [gong] and let that sound be the whole of your experience, it's quite simple, it requires no effort. [gong] And then along with that, especially if you don't have a gong, we can use what are called in the Sanskrit language, mantra. Mantra are chanted sounds which are used not so much for their meaning as for the simple tone. And they go along with that easy kind of slow breath. One of the basic mantras is of course the sound "om". That sound is used because if you spell it out, A-U-M, it runs from the back of your throat to your lips and therefore it contains the whole range of the voice. And for that reason it represents the total energy of the universe. This word is called the pranava, the name for the ultimate reality, for the which than which there is no witcher. And so, in this way then, if you chant it, [gong] OM and it's varied like this. [gong] OM [gong] OM And you can keep that up for quite a long time and eventually you will find as you go on chanting that the words of the chant will simply have become pure sound. And you won't be thinking about it. You won't have any images about the sound going on in your mind. You will simply become completely absorbed in sound and therefore you will find yourself living in an eternal now in which there is no past and there is no future and there is no thing called difference between what you are as knower and what you are as the known between yourself and the world of nature outside you. It all becomes one doing, one happening. Now in addition to those slow moving chants, you may find it according to your temperament, easier to do a fast moving one. These have a sort of rhythm to them that is absorbing. Say, a chant that many of you have heard that goes, Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, Hare Krsna, Hare Krisna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, It doesn't matter what it means. Actually, Krsna and Rama are the names of Hindu divinities. But that's not the point. The point is just to get with that thing that is running, running, running. Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare and so on. And if you are a Christian or a Jew and you feel more inclined to use a meditation word that is more congenial to you, you can use, say, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah." Or if you are a Mohammedan, You can use the Allah, the name of God, they have a way of doing it, you know, which gets very exciting. Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah! And you'll be out of your mind. But you see, to go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important because by going out of your mind you come to your senses. And if you stay in your mind all the time, you are over rational, in other words you're like a very rigid bridge which because it has got no give, no craziness in it, is going to be blown down in the first hurricane. See, when we try to control the mind, a lot of yoga teachers try to get you to control your own mind mainly to prove to you that you can't do it. There's nothing, you know, a fool who persists in his folly will become wise. So what they do is they speed up the folly. And so you get concentrating. And you can have a certain amount of superficial and initial success by a process commonly called self-hypnosis. And you can think you're making progress. And a good teacher will let you go along that way for a while until he really throws you with one. Why are you concentrating? See Buddhism works this way. Buddha said if you suffer, you suffer because you desire. And your desires are either unattainable or always being disappointed or something. So cut out desire. So those disciples went away and they stamped on desire, jumped on desire, cut the throat of desire and threw out desire. But then they came back and Buddha said, "But you are still desiring not to desire." They wondered how to get rid of that. But you see, it works like this. All spiritual discipline works this way, I'll show you. It's done in the form of a child's game. You know, there's the church and there's the steeple. Open the door and there are the people. And here's the parson going upstairs and there he is saying his prayers, "Catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him." You never can because the would-be catchee is the catcher. So then, that's like desiring not to desire. Or loving out of a sense of duty. Trying to be spontaneous because you ought to be. See? All that is nonsense. Lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps. So when you see that that's nonsense, there naturally comes over you a quietness. In seeing that you cannot control your mind, you realize there is no controller. What you took to be the thinker of thoughts is just one of the thoughts. What you took to be the feeler of the feelings, which was that chronic muscular strain, is just one of the feelings. What you took to be the experiencer of experience is just part of the experience. So there isn't any thinker of thoughts, feeler of feelings. We get into that bind because we have a grammatical rule that verbs have to have subjects. And the funny thing about that is that verbs are processes and subjects are nouns, which are supposed to be things. How does a noun start a verb? How does a thing put a process into action? But it can't. But we always insist that there is this subject called the knower. And without a knower, there can't be knowing. Well, that's just a grammatical rule. It isn't a rule of nature. In nature, there's just knowing, like you're feeling it. And I have to say you are feeling it, as if you were somehow different from the feeling. When I say I am feeling, what I mean is there is feeling here. When I say you are feeling, I mean there is feeling there. I have to say even there is feeling. What a cumbersome language we have. Chinese is easier. You don't have to put all that in. You can say things twice as fast in Chinese as you can in any other language. Well anyway, when you come to see that you can do nothing, that the play of thought, of feeling, etc. just goes on by itself as a happening, then you are in a state which we will call meditation. And slowly, without being pushed, your thoughts will come to silence. That is to say, all the verbal, symbolic chatter going on in the skull. Don't try and get rid of it, because that will again produce the illusion that there's a controller. Just it goes on, it goes on, it goes on, and finally it gets tired of itself and bored and stops. And so then there's a silence. And this is a deeper level of meditation. And in that silence, you suddenly begin to see the world as it is. And you don't see any past, and you don't see any future. You don't see any difference between yourself and the rest of it. That's just an idea. You can't put your hand on the difference between myself and you. You know, you can't blow it, you can't bounce it, you can't pull it, it's just an idea. You can't find any material body, because material body is an idea. So is spiritual body. This is somebody's philosophical notions. See, reality isn't material. That's an idea. Reality isn't spiritual. That's an idea. Reality is... So we find, if I've got to put it back into words, that we live in an eternal now. You've got all the time in the world, because you've got all the time there is, which is now. And you are this universe. And you feel this strange feeling, when ideas don't define the differences, you feel that other people's doings are your doings. And that makes it very difficult to blame other people. If you're not sophisticated theologically, you may of course run screaming in the streets and say that you're God. In a way that's what happened to Jesus, because he wasn't sophisticated theologically. He only had Old Testament biblical theology behind him. If he'd had Hindu theology, he could have put it more subtly. But it was only that rather primitive theology of the Old Testament. And that was the conception of God as a monarchical boss. Thanks. And you can't go around and say, "I'm the boss's son." If you're going to say, "I'm God," you must allow it for everyone else, too. But this was a heretical idea from the point of view of Hebrew theology. And so what they did with Jesus was they pedestalized him. That means kicked him upstairs so that he wouldn't be able to influence anyone else. And only you may be God. And that stopped the gospel cold right at the beginning. It couldn't spread. Well anyway, this is therefore to say that the transformation of human consciousness through meditation is frustrated. So long as we think of it in terms of something that I myself can bring about by some kind of wangle, by some sort of gimmick. Because you see, that leads to endless games of spiritual one-upmanship and of guru competitions. Of "my guru is more effective than your guru," "my yoga's faster than your yoga," "I'm more aware of myself than you are," "I'm humbler than you are," "I'm sorrier for my sins than you are," "I love you more than you love me." This interminable goings-on about which people fight and wonder whether they are a little bit more evolved than somebody else and so on. All that can just fall away. And then we get this strange feeling that we have never had, you see, in our lives, except occasionally by accident. Some people get a glimpse that we are no longer this poor little stranger and afraid in a world it never made. Except that you are this universe and you are creating it at every moment. Because you see, it starts now. It didn't begin in the past. There was no past. See, if the universe began in the past, when that happened it was now, see? Well, it's still now. And the universe is still beginning now and it's trailing off like the wake of a ship from now. In the wake of the ship fades out, so does the past. You can look back there to explain things, but the explanation disappears. You'll never find it there. Things are not explained by the past. They are explained by what happens now. That creates the past. And it begins here. That's the birth of responsibility. Because otherwise you can always look over your shoulder and say, "Well, I'm the way I am because my mother dropped me. And she dropped me because she was neurotic because her mother dropped her." And away we go back to Adam and Eve or to a disappearing monkey or something. We never get at it. But in this way, you're faced with it, you're doing all this. That's an extraordinary shock. So cheer up. You can't blame anyone else for the kind of world you're in. And that helps a great deal. Because most of the good things we are trying to do are based on blaming somebody else and to improve them. "Kindly let me help you or you'll drown," said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree. If, therefore, we would stop blaming others, it would be very difficult to go about a war with a straight face. And if you know, you see, that I, in the sense of the person, the front, the ego, it really doesn't exist, then it won't go to your head too badly if you wake up and discover that you're God. I'm not really a musician. But it just so happens that I have in front of me a fabulous instrument which the Japanese call koto. I suppose it would be best described as a table harp. Long instrument stringed with bridges, horizontal harp. It was customary among Chinese poets in the old days to read poetry and strum on the lute or table harp at the same time. And I've got here a curious old text called Saikontan, which means "The Vegetable Root Discourses," written by Kojisei somewhere around 1624. And I thought I'd like to read some of this to you, and to get into the right mood, I suggest that you try to become a little stupid. That is to say, childlike, as if you hardly knew how to talk, and didn't really know very much about anything that's going on. Just listen as you would listen to the wind. If the mind is clear, a dark room has its blue sky. If the mind is somber, broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits. The just man has no mind to seek happiness. Heaven therefore, because of this mindlessness, opens its inmost heart. The bad man busies himself with avoiding misfortunes. Heaven therefore confounds him for this desire. How unsearchable are the ways of heaven. How useless the wisdom of man. The Tao is common property. It should be pointed out to all we meet. Eating is as ordinary as eating rice at home. According to the circumstances, it should be applied circumspectly. The ancients left rice for mice, and did not light lamps out of pity for moths. These thoughts of theirs are the operation point of humanity in life. Lacking this, a man is a mere earthman, a wooden body. The Zen sect says, "When you are hungry, eat. When you are weary, sleep." History aims at the description in common language of beautiful scenery. The sublime is contained in the ordinary, the hardest in the easiest. What is self-conscious and ulterior is far from the truth. What is mindless is near. Will you try and experiment with me? Simply close your eyes, and allow your ears to hear all sounds around you. Don't try to name or identify these sounds. Just hear them as you would listen to music, as when you hear a flute or a guitar, without asking what it means. [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] And as and when I talk, just hear the sound of my voice. Don't bother about what it means. Your brain will take care of that by itself. Just let your eardrums respond as they will to all vibrations now in the air. Don't let yourself, or your ears, be offended by improper or unscheduled sounds. [Music] If, for example, the record is scratchy, okay. You wouldn't object if you were listening to it sitting by a fire of crackling logs. [Music] Let 'em ring. It's just a noise. [Music] And keep your tongue relaxed, floating easily in the lower jaw. Also stop frowning. Allow the space between your eyes to feel easy and open. And just let the vibrations in the air play with your ears. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] (machines whirring) (birds chirping) (machines whirring) (birds chirping) (machines whirring) (machines whirring) (birds chirping) (machines whirring) - You must understand that in meditation, we are concerned only with what is, with reality, nothing else. The past is a memory, the future, an expectation. Neither past nor future actually exist. There is simply eternal now. So don't seek or expect a result from what you're doing. That wouldn't be true meditation. There's no hurry. Just now, you're not going anywhere. Simply be here. Live in the world of sound. Let it play. That's all. (machines whirring) (birds chirping) (machines whirring) (machines whirring) In the world of pure sound, can you actually hear anyone who is listening? Can you hear any difference between all these sounds on the one hand and yourself on the other? Naturally, we use techniques and gimmicks to help the thinking mind to become silent. And one of them is the gong. It is a sound at once pleasing and compelling. It absorbs attention, but watch what happens when it fades out. (gong ringing) (gong ringing) The one sound becomes the many. The single tone is transformed easily and gently into all other noises. And that's how the universe comes into being out of the one energy underlying all events. So if you don't have a gong, you can use your own voice by chanting what Hindus and Buddhists call a mantra. That is a syllable or phrase sung for its sound rather than its meaning. Chief of these is the syllable om or om called the pranava or the sound of God because it involves the whole range of the voice from the back of the throat to the lips. Take the tone from the gong and hum it with me. (gong ringing) Now you can hear all sounds of them. (gong ringing) They're all at some point in the total range of sound from the back of the throat to the lips, making a spectrum of sound as all colors are originally one white light. But don't ask what the sound is or what it means. Just hear it and dig it. Hum with me again. (gong ringing) the sound of God. (gong ringing) (gong ringing) (gong ringing) (gong ringing) (gong ringing) (gong ringing) (gong ringing) (gong ringing) Let me explain again what we are doing. We are going behind words, names, numbers, beliefs and ideas to get back to the naked experience of reality itself. And at this level of awareness, we find no difference between the listener and the sound, the knower and the known, the subject and the object, or between the past, the present and the future. All that's just talk. What is really happening is (gong ringing) (gong ringing) And you may wonder how I can keep the sound going for so long a time. It depends on regulation of the breath, which is basic to the art of meditation. And I'm going to show you how to do this and why. To begin with, just as you've been letting vibrations in the air play with your ears, let your lungs breathe as they will. Don't as yet attempt any breathing exercise. Don't force anything. Simply allow breathing. Now, is this breathing a voluntary or involuntary action? Or both? Or neither? Just feel it without taking sides, without words. And again, hear my voice as if it were wind in the trees or the sound of waves. (air whooshing) (birds chirping) Most of us are short of breath. We never really empty our lungs. But to make a long, complete out-breath, you mustn't force it. Imagine there's a large ball of lead inside your neck and allow it to fall slowly through your body to the floor, pushing and easing the breath out as it drops. Ease the breath out just as you settle and sink down comfortably into a bed. And when the ball reaches the floor, let it drop away as if to the center of the earth. (air whooshing) (birds chirping) Then let the breath come back, back in as a reflex without pulling it. And then imagine another ball of lead in the neck. And again, let it fall out long and easy. (air whooshing) (birds chirping) And once again, [sound of the laser] Now, do you see what's happening? You are generating a great deal of energy without trying or forcing. Two things seem to be happening at once. First, the outflow of breath is simply falling, happening all by itself. Second, it's under perfect control. So from this practice, you learn to experience, to realize, that what happens to you and what you do are one and the same process. There is no real separation between one thing called you and another quite different thing called the universe. When you stop talking and naming, they're quite obviously one. So again, let your breath fall easily out. [sound of the laser] All the way. Let it come back on its own. And then out again. [sound of the laser] And now let's put the sound "Ah" on the next outflow. [sound of the laser] And again, so that you have nothing in mind but... [sound of the laser] [sound of the laser] [sound of the laser] And Hindus use this melodious and now familiar chant. [chants] Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa... [chants] The point is not what it means, but how it feels. What happens to you when there is complete absorption in the chant? A thought, an idea called your ego simply disappeared, didn't it? Then, there is a very effective mantra used by an important sect of Islamic mystics known as Sufis. Like all these different mantras, they will be kept up for quite long periods, say 15 to 20 minutes or more. So what I'm giving you are only samples. You can easily do this one with me. It goes like this. [chants] [chants] Meditation has no purpose, no objective, except to be entirely here and now. It isn't something you do to improve yourself, to get ahead in the world, or to prepare yourself for life. For the division of time into past, present and future is a trick of words and numbers. All memories and expectations exist now, and now only. Because now is what there is and all that there is. We could say that the past flows back from now, like the wake from the prow of a ship, and then just like the wake vanishes. As the wake doesn't drive the ship, the past does not propel or move the present. Unless you, here and now, want to insist that it does, and so give yourself a perpetual alibi for every kind of irresponsibility. But I'm not preaching. That would be a diversion from our feeling centered in this eternal here and now. From feeling it directly as the reality. Again then, just let all sounds going on play upon your eardrums, without trying to name, identify or locate them. [Sound of a train passing by] Relax your tongue. Let it just float in your lower jaw. Close your eyes. [Sound of a train passing by] If you're still thinking in words or calculating about this, that and the other, which you're supposed to be doing, don't try to stop it. Just let your mind do whatever it likes, and hear its chatter as if you were listening to rippling water. [Sound of a train passing by] So then, we're going to try and find out and feel what we mean by the word now. Not the idea, but the actual sensation. [Sound of a train passing by] Get it? [Sound of a train passing by] Like that? Or this? [Sound of a train passing by] Are these two different kinds of now? One, a short, sharp pop, and the other a long, continuous boom? Is now a split, split second, or is it a drawn-out expanse of sensation? [Sound of a train passing by] Try this. Just stand up for a moment, and take three steps forward. One, two, three, and stop. Where at this moment is the first step you took? And where is the next movement you're going to make? Hold it. Be still. Next movement hasn't happened. Past movements aren't here. Where are you? When are you? What is the position of the universe? When is it? Where is it? Take another step. Is this a new now, or the same old now where you always were? The next step is not with your feet, but with your imagination. Recall the first step that you just made. Now when are you? Back then or still here? [Sound of a bell] Don't think a word, just feel. [Sound of a bell] So, please sit down again and relax. [Sound of a running water] [Sound of running water] [Sound of running water] In meditation it's best to sit on the floor. In lotus posture or just cross-legged, or kneeling on a cushion and sitting back on your heels. Spine straight, hands with palms upward, resting upon each other. The reason for this position is that it's firm and grounded, and just uncomfortable enough to keep you from going to sleep. But don't fight the discomfort. Relax into the position just as you have learned how to relax, and to ease out a long, long breath, and so create energy without strain. In the same way, if you have understood that there is no time but now, you will be able without the least difficulty to sit in this way for a long time, as measured by the clock. Once again, the essence of the whole art is to feel, to experience, to sense what is, what happens, without defining it, without saying anything to yourself about it. So let your breath flow easily, heavily, down and out again. No strain. [Breathing] And after it has come back in, once more. [Breathing] Keep it up. We are going to play it along with the sound "mu", a Japanese word which means "that which isn't a thing", a think, a thought, an idea, but reality itself. The very sound. [Music] Take that. [Music] What is "mu"? [Music] How old is "mu"? [Music] What do you mean by "mu"? [Music] Who are you? [Music] [Breathing] Well then, who are you? What is you? What is I? Some people say it's this body, others the mind, the ego or the soul. But all those, body included, are names and notions. Can we experience the self directly? Like a sound, a flame, or any other object. Put your hands on that mysteriously invisible thing known as your head. Keep your eyes open, easily, blinking occasionally without staring. Let's assume that all ordinary ideas of what my self is are either so wrong or so doubtful that we must investigate the matter directly. But to do that, you must first get the sensation, the feeling of your self without forming any idea. Regard words in the head as mere noise. Relax your tongue and let it float easily in your lower jaw. Just stop, look and listen. [Music] [Music] Now, let the various colors and shapes before you play with your eyes just as you have been letting sounds play with your ears. [Music] Where are they? Out in front of your face? Or inside your brain? In the optical nervous system? Is your head in the world? Or is the world in your head? Or both? [Music] [Music] Odd, isn't it? Either you were everything you felt or you just didn't feel yourself the feeler at all, just as you didn't see your eyes. All or nothing. As is said in an ancient Chinese text called "The Secret of the Golden Flower," between the all and the void is only a difference of name. Now, put your hands back on your lap, and look at the world one upon the other. And just let go of it all. [Music] [Music] Let your ears hear whatever they like. [Music] Let the nerve ends in your skin feel whatever they like. [Music] Let your eyes see whatever they like. [Music] Let your nose smell whatever it likes. [Music] Let your mind think whatever it likes. [Music] Let your lungs breathe as they will. [Music] And let things happen as they are happening. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Are these all different senses? [Music] Or just one sense, consciously? [Music] Listen to my voice as you listen to the sound of the rain. [Music] The sound of the rain needs no translation. [Music] No explanation. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] So, now I want to show you another form of meditation, which I heard about from a Zen Buddhist master, who said it was one of the very best ways. [Music] Will you please stand up and put your hands on your hips, with wrists upwards. Now, let's all just laugh. [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] [Laughter] And now sit down again. This Zen master told me that you should do that first thing in the morning when you get up. And it's even better than sitting for a long time and getting your legs stiff. Now, how do you feel? Where was you when you were laughing? What is you now? Listen. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] {END} Wait Time : 0.00 sec Model Load: 1.31 sec Decoding : 6.21 sec Transcribe: 8258.01 sec Total Time: 8265.53 sec