Act as If Nothing Bother's You || alan watts black screen || alan watts no music

- A student wants to get rid of desire so as not to suffer. The teacher asks the student to try not to desire, to calm the mind, and to stop as much desire as he can. - The golden age was the time of unpremeditated, spontaneous behavior. But when people began to see that they could provide for the future, anxiety came into the world. - Speaker A tells the audience about the nature of Buddhism and its method. The reason is that the discovery which constitutes the foundation of Buddhism can't be stated.

Student comes back and says, well, how do I get rid of Trishna? If Trishna desire is the cause of suffering, couldn't I get rid of desire so as not to suffer? And the teacher says, well, you try. And this then is the first part of the discipline. To try not to desire, to calm your mind, to practice centering, to practice getting rid of all what they call Klesha, K L e s, a disturbing thoughts, distractions, evil passions, immoderate appetites, and come to upeksha, or equanimity of mind. And so the student practices that. And this is a very difficult and arduous discipline. And all the time he sees the teacher watching him with a slightly sour expression on his face. And he knows, of course, or thinks he knows that the teacher is fully aware of his inmost thoughts. Because, you know, it's the indian way they go to meeting with the teacher. And the teacher sits under a tree and smokes a cigarette or a pipe or something. And all the students sit around cross legged and they meditate. And sometimes the teacher meditates and they can see him occasionally looking at them like this, you know, and they think, uh oh, teacher knows what I'm thinking because he has the power of infinite vision, you see, and all seeingness. And this bugs them completely because, you see, you remember how it was in school when you were trying to do something and the teacher walked around and looked over your shoulder. It puts you off completely. And so the hindu teacher or the buddhist teacher deliberately puts his students off. And finally he raises in their minds an insoluble problem, that if you are trying to stop desire so that you will not suffer, arent you still desiring to stop desire? Or the students may very well find that out for themselves. And they say to the teacher, but how are we to stop desire when we are desiring to stop desire? So then the teacher can engage them in an extremely marvelous trap, which is to say, he can play it in a number of different directions. One direction is to say, well, don't try to stop all desire, but try to stop as much desire as you can. Stop. You see where this is going to go? Then they're going to say, well, I'm a little excessive about desiring to stop desire. Well, if you're naturally excessive about it, he says, try to be as slightly excessive as you can. You see, how do you see what's leading here? If you follow that course, you are being brought to center in the same way as I demonstrated before. You're being brought to yourself, to accept yourself as you are here and now, totally. But you can't do that directly, because if you try to accept yourself, you will always find that in yourself there is a spirit of the non acceptance of things, and you have to accept that. So the teacher would say, don't try to accept yourself more than you can accept yourself, accept yourself as much as you can accept yourself. Because then, you see, you are also accepting the part of you that doesn't accept. Or he may try on another tack. He may say, all right, now, if you've seen that, it's that desiring not to desire is simply another form of desiree. You're trying, for example, to get rid of your sensuous appetites. You are going to give up booze and women and pate de foie gras, or whatever it may be, and you then think, well, now, yes, this I must do. And eventually you find that you are becoming proud of your success in mastering your appetites, and you're beginning to depend on that. So the teacher says, do you see? You're in the same trap as you always were. Formerly you sought spiritual security in booze and women and so on. Now you're seeking it in holiness. Formerly you bound yourself with chains of iron. Now you're bound with chains of gold. Formerly you boasted to all the boys how many sins you committed. Now you're boasting before the lord of how many virtues you have. Same trap. Why do you do it? So the student eventually finds there's no way at all to not desire. Even desiring not to desire is desiring. Even trying to accept oneself is a way of trying to escape from oneself, because one hopes psychotherapeutically that by accepting yourself, you will get rid of your nasty symptoms. So you're not accepting them. You're not accepting them by the gimmick, by the pretense of trying to accept them. So this is the way in which the dialogue of Buddhism begins to work. And as it progresses, step by step. Let me try and show you a little bit more how it works, because I'm shortening it enormously in order to give you an outline of the whole thing. What is going on between the teacher and the student, the Buddha and his disciples is not merely a dialogue. There is the verbal dialogue. Yes, that goes on, but also it spread over a long period of time. And in the intervals the students are practicing meditations. They are making efforts to control their minds and emotions and practicing those things which are the buddhist equivalents of yoga, so that in parallel to the intellectual discussion there is going on a total devotion of one's whole being to a quest morning, noon and night. And so you see, this works up a very considerable psychic alertness. It makes the student put a very considerable psychic investment in the task. And as he goes on, you see, he becomes more and more frustrated because as the trap closes and he finds that it's impossible to do the right thing because the right thing is always done for the wrong reason. When the wrong man uses the right means the right means work in the wrong way. You see, there is something you could do to attain liberation or as the Christian would say, union with Goddesse if you could do it. But the Christian would say, by reason of original sin, you can't. Because through original sin everybody is basically selfish. And you can't be unselfish for a selfish reason. But you have only selfish reasons. So to him that hath shall be given but of course, he doesn't need it from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Poor fellow, what is he to do? So you see, in this way, the teacher closes a trap on the student where he finds himself completely impotent. Not only can he not do anything that will bring about his salvation he is also unable not to do anything. One might say, you must do nothing. You must be completely passive. But you can't do that because the moment you try to be passive you're doing something. So you get into the state which they call in Zen Buddhism a mosquito biting an iron bull. Or as we would say in our western idiom the state when the irresistible force meets the immovable object where something must be done but simply cannot be done. And in this state of maximum frustration there is an opportunity to understand the situation to understand that I, the meaning of the state I cannot do. I cannot not do. The meaning of the state is that the separate I which you thought yourself to be is an illusion. That's why it cannot do and why it cannot not do. You see, what is our I, our ego? Sometime in the development of man maybe three, four, 5000 years ago we developed self consciousness in a peculiar way. We began to realize that by directed thought we could control our environment. And then it was, you see that we had a sense of responsibility. Let's just assume, for the sake of argument that there was a time when nobody deliberated. They did exactly what they felt like. When you were hungry, you ate. When you were thirsty, you drank. When you were angry, you hit something. When you were happy, you danced but you never stopped to think what was the right thing to do. You just trusted your intuition, your instincts, your unconscious, or whatever it might be called. Well, that was great, because nobody worried. Nobody had any problems when it was like that. See, a baby is in the same situation today. Now, maybe you were unsuccessful. Maybe the thing you did spontaneously was absolutely the wrong thing. And the tiger ate you up. Well, that was all right, because it really doesn't matter if the tiger eats you up. So long as you weren't spending your previous time worrying about it. See, everybody dies. And if you die, clunk, like that, that's that. You don't spend all your life before you die worrying about death. You don't spend all your time before you get sick worrying about getting sick. And when you see, you move on that level of unpremeditated, spontaneous behavior. That's the golden age. And the reason people look back with nostalgia to the golden age is because that was the time of irresponsibility. But when people began to see that they could provide for the future. And that they could look after things and take care and direct everything, immediately anxiety came into the world. See, that was the fall of man. Because then the moment you start doing that, you begin to think. Now, having thought this question through and decided that such and such as the right thing to do, have I thought it over carefully enough? Now, that's a real bugaboo of a question. You know, you go out of the house and you wonder, did I turn off the gas stove? I think I did. But on the other hand, I'm not quite sure. Let's go back and see. So, having gone about five blocks, you walk back. Yes, you did turn it off. So you go out again. You wonder again. Now, I wonder if I really looked or whether I was so keen on finding out that I did turn it off. That some sort of wishful thinking perverted my my consciousness. And whether I hadn't better check that I really did look properly, you see. Well, this way you never get away. You're trapped. So this, you see, is the problem of all self conscious beings. They are. They feel responsibility. Then they feel responsible for being responsible. And responsible for being responsible for being responsible. And there's no end to it. So then, in this obscure way, everybody wants to get back to the golden age. But they say if I just acted as I felt I. And was completely spontaneous, goodness only knows what would happen. Jesus, you see, said to do that. He did. And everybody reads it in the King James Bible where it means nothing. Take no thought. For the morrow what ye shall eat, what ye shall drink, and wherewithal ye shall be clothed. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they toil not, neither do they spin. But I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, o ye of little faith? Oh, I mean, it sounds lovely read in church. But what it says, everybody says, uh uh uh uh. Oh, no, that's the sermon on the mount. And that's not practical. Nobody can do that. That may be for a few saints, but after all, in our practical life as practicing christians in the modern world, we can't do that kind of thing. Well, isn't that funny? Why can't you do it? I mean, that's the real reason for saying it in the first place. Jesus said many very strange things. For example, in the parable of the Pharisee and the publicant, how the Pharisee goes up into the front row and says how good he is, and that he's fulfilled all his obligations and paid the tithes. And then there's this publican who goes into the back and sits there and beats his breast and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And Jesus says, now, that man was the right man. He was justified. But the moment hes told that story, everybody creeps into the back row and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And theyre all in the front row again. Nobody can do it. You see, thats why the story is told in the same way. He says, take no thought for the morrow. Stop being anxious. Like going to a psychiatrist says to you, oh, don't worry me. Stop being nervous. Can you see? Nobody can. And also they find out, you see, that really, in the end, nobody can be God. Nobody can make life any better by being responsible about it. Because whatever you gain in that direction, you lose. At the same time, by being responsible, we've created civilization, medicine, care of the poor, everything. But what a headache the thing has become. As we solve all our problems, we make more problems. Every problem you solve gives you ten new problems. I'm not saying don't do that, but don't think you're going to get anywhere by doing that. That's one way of arranging it. That's one kind of dance you can have is to improve everything and have technology, but it doesn't really solve anything. And it's only in the moment you see when you fully understand that your situation as a human being is completely insoluble, that there is no answer, and that you give up looking for the answer. That's, whew, that's nirvana, and that's how Buddhism works. In the first session last night, I was making two principal points about the nature of Buddhism. Number one, that it's a dharma or method, and its method is a dialogue, or what is sometimes called dialectic. It is basically a conversation, a dialogue, the beginning of which is not necessarily at all the same thing as the end. The reason is that the discovery which constitutes the foundation of Buddhism, the experience of awakening, can't be stated. Or at least if it can be stated, it can't be stated in such a way that the mere statement will communicate.