In the Buddhist tradition, a sutra refers to the meeting of the teacher’s mind and the student’s mind. This is the fifth of 35 sutra sessions held in Los Angeles. In these Ken converses informally with students about life and practice.

What do you want to change?

Ken: December 6th, Sunday, 2009. Okay. Where do I want to start? About three things I want to do today. I’m going to make the statement that all of you here are here because you want to change something about you or change something about your life. Would that be correct? Okay. So what I want to hear from four or five of you—you don’t have to go into all the gory details, all the background and things like that, but just in a sentence or two—what are some of the kinds of things you want to change about you or your life? Who’s first? Yes. Here we are.

Student: I’m a writer, so I want to be able to accept my imagination, accept all the things I think about, and not reject them when I’m sitting down trying to write. And I find that focusing on my breath and being mindful allows me to sit in one place for a while and work.

Ken: Okay. Thank you. Anybody else?

Student: Become aware that I close myself. I close my heart.

Ken: You close your heart? Yeah.

Student: Yes. And so I’m working on that. And I’d like to be able to feel more open more of the time.

Ken: I’d like to follow that up just a little bit. Why do you want to be more open?

Student: At times I feel that I close off my feelings. And I’ve recently just become more aware of that. So that’s more of a focus of mine recently.

Ken: But I’m presuming that being open to your feelings somehow feels better than being closed to them. Is that right?

Student: I’m not articulating it. Well, I’ve never been focused on my heart in my life, and I feel that focus more now.

Ken: It’s a whole new world. Okay. Yeah. Who else? Yes. One here and then one here. You can go ahead if you wish.

Student: It’s something, actually, I was just working on at the point that the bell went. I want to have a different relationship to back pain.

Ken: Ah, okay.

Student: I’ve been working on it since I started meditating.

Ken: Back pain? Yeah. Okay. And up here.

Student: I hate the way my voice sounds on tape. Oh, well. Pretty much I was a mess, inside my head, outside in my external life. For the longest, I was looking where to place the blame. And in the end, I realized that nobody was at fault, even myself. And all that I’ve come to understand through practice. I’m very grateful for practice.

Ken: Thank you. All right. Anybody else? Yes.

Student: I’d like to be able to function even when all of my buttons are pushed.

Exploring “I” and life

Ken: It’s a fairly tall order. [Laughter] Okay, thank you very much. Now, I phrased this question in a particular way. I said something about you or your life that you would want to change. And this gentleman here pointed out that through his practice, he’s come to see, well, maybe things aren’t so good. That’s just how they’ve come about. There isn’t someone to blame for this, because often we’re looking for someone to blame. You know, “You made my life miserable,” as if that’s going to help us. So that’s a very important step, to realize, okay, this is how things are.

And then, some are focused on very specific things, like how to deal with back pain, or writing and so forth, and others talking about discovering aspects of themselves or life that they didn’t know about, for instance, or having an open heart. Now, as I said, I phrased the question in a very particular way, about you or your life that you want to change. There’s two things there, you or your life. My question now is, are they the same or different?

Student: They’re overlapping. Perhaps a little different.

Ken: Okay. What’s the difference? Because I think you’re right. We all think that they’re a bit different. Like, there’s my life, which is kind of in some strange way out there. And there’s me here. Right? And so you say, okay, they’re overlapping. But, there’s my life and there’s me. But I’m curious about that. What’s the actual difference?

Student: Well, I’d rather say what the overlap is. The overlap is how I bring myself to external circumstances. But external circumstances, in my opinion, are external.

Ken: Ah. Well, now we get into deep waters.

Student: I don’t want to talk today.

Ken: You’re here. Okay, well, maybe you can pass the baton to somebody else. So we think of life as these external circumstances, and me as something that’s here. That’s what I understood. Well, there’s overlap. Yeah, yeah, but with the one the emphasis is out there and the other the emphasis is in here. And we have that actually that exact expression in Buddhism. And in Tibetan, it’s bzung ‘dzin (pron. zung dzin), bzung is what we regard as being out there. And ‘dzin is what we hold on to inside now.

How many of you have problems with your mind? [Laughter] Well, again, what is the difference between your mind and your life? You don’t see the difference? Oh.

Student: That’s just recent, but I don’t see the difference anymore.

Ken: You don’t see the difference between your mind and your life?

Student: Yeah, it’s how I see it. And the way my mind works, or the way I work changes, the way I see the current life or times in the past.

Ken: Are you okay to go one step further?

Student: Sure.

Ken: Okay, so you’re talking about my mind. So what’s the difference between you and your mind?

Student: I don’t see the difference.

Ken: But we we talk about it as if there is a difference. It’s very interesting.

Student: Talk about the difference.

Ken: Yeah. Okay. You had a comment on this did you? Yes.

Student: I just think that we use mind and self to imagine the more stable elements of our lives. We imagine that there’s a most stable and a less stable set of features of our lives. And I think that the mind and self locution gets attached to the more stable aspects that we imagine are there. I’m not saying that they’re really there. I don’t really know, actually. Sometimes I ask myself and I say, I don’t know if there really are stable features, but but I think that’s the way we like to use the word.

Ken: I think you’re right. And this touches into a couple of other themes, particularly one of the principles in Buddhist practice is that everything changes. So from the perspective that you’re talking about, there isn’t anything that’s actually stable.

Student: Yeah. There are times, though, where I notice an intention or a habit of thought that’s still exerting itself. And I had completely forgotten that it was even there. And I recall, wow, I decided to start thinking that way 15 years ago or 20 years ago. And I’m just now noticing that it’s still there and it’s still exerting itself. And now maybe there’s an opportunity for it to shift into something else. So those really long-term things do pop up sometimes. Yeah.

Ken: And you’re quite right. So here’s where we go, one more step now. What I’m working towards here is the view that what we are is our life. And we often think we are something that is separate from it. But what we are is our life. Or, we could put it in another way. What we are is our experience. Now, there are some important things that follow from this. The first thing is there isn’t a me, something in here that’s separate from all of this.

Meditation on opening to experience

Ken: And, there’s a way of practicing meditation which actually helps us to appreciate that. And is a way of coming to experience that, at least a little bit. And I think it might be worthwhile going through it. And some of you have done this before, it only takes a few minutes. So, just wherever you are now, just again, rest in the experience of breathing. And for this one, keep your eyes open. And as you’re breathing, rather than think: “I’m watching the breath,” think: “I’m just going to open to the experience of breathing,” which of course, involves opening to the experience of my body because my body is doing the breathing. So feel all of the parts of your body that are engaged in breathing.

But that’s not all that’s involved in the experience of breathing. There are all the tactile sensations of the breath moving through the nostrils, through the back of our throat, into our lungs, and movement of the diaphragm. And then there’s all the different emotional reactions that are going on. Maybe there’s some agitation in the body, it’s not used to sitting still. Maybe there’s a feeling of relief and peace because now I have a chance to sit still. Maybe there are feelings that seem to come from nowhere and have no particular reason. They’re just there. And then there are all the thoughts and stories that come and go. They’re all part of the experience of breathing.

And then there’s everything we experience through our senses: the room, the play of light and color and shadow, the sound of the traffic, the sound of my voice, and any other sounds there may be, the sound of your own breath. Physical sensations of your body resting on the cushion or seat. Sensation of your clothes and contact with your body. Can you experience all of this at the same time? Not moving attention around from one part to another, but actually opening to experience everything at the same time. The body breathing, the movement of the breath, all the different sensory sensations of sight and sound and touch, even taste and smell. All of the emotional feelings, thoughts and associations, everything.

Now, let your heart open to everything that you experience. That involves a number of things. To let our heart open to everything we experience, we have to let go of judging it as good or bad or whatever. And it may feel also like there’s a kind of softening inside. And maybe there’s some fear or discomfort with that. So just experience all of that along with everything else. And then ask yourself the question, what experience is all of this? But don’t try to answer the question. Just rest in the shift that you may experience when you ask that question.

Now, this is a way of opening to our life. As you do this, what happens to the sense of yourself? Anybody. The woman in the green.

Student: I think it both dissolves and expands.

Ken: Dissolves and expands. So I’m interpreting that to mean that you became less aware of yourself and it became more diffuse. Would that be it?

Student: Yes. I think thoughts were arising that I was aware of, but it was more diffuse. You’re right. Yeah.

Ken: The thoughts and experience still arises, but it isn’t like I’m thinking this or I’m sensing that. That right? Anybody else’s experience? Yes. Right here.

Student: There’s a there’s a kind of whiteout that happens, like all the colors of the spectrum sort of create white. The sense is that I was I was bringing awareness to everything. It became all nothing, or vastness.

Ken: Some people experience something like that, and this particular way of bringing attention to our experience transforms energy. So you’re experiencing things in a different way. But it does suggest that things aren’t what they seem to be. Yes. Is there another comment? Did you have one? No. Okay. Over here. Yes.

Student: When you asked, “What is experiencing all this?” and you said to notice the shift, it was really weird because, what is it experiencing the thoughts? What’s the me factor in it? When it shifted, it was really weird because what was experiencing all that? I couldn’t really …

Ken: You couldn’t see anything?

Student: Yeah.

Ken: Very good. I know it’s a bit weird, isn’t it? Yeah. Thanks. But it’s very important, because there we are. What is experiencing all of this? And there’s nothing there. And yet the experience arises, is arising. Right? So this is a way to come to know that “I” and my life, they don’t actually overlap. They’re one and the same. But that’s not normally how we experience things. But by doing this kind of practice over and over again, you can accustom yourself to experiencing things this way. Now, it has certain practical advantages. You may think, how do you navigate the world?

Practical implications of opening to experience

Ken: Okay, let’s just take a hypothetical situation. There you are. You’re open to everything that experience is. And somebody says something that would normally push one of your buttons. What happens? Well, it’s just there. I had this experience many years ago. There was a situation had precipitated a tension between a person who was studying with me and me. Never happens. And the tension was sufficiently acute that she wanted to have a third party facilitator. So we sat down with someone that we both knew and we had this little discussion. And in the middle of it, she turned to me and she said, “You are a homophobic misogynist.”

And I looked at her and said, “You probably could have picked any other two words in the English language and hit something. But that one, you didn’t hit anything.” Because it was just that. Just an experience. There was no no reaction in me whatsoever to any of that. And when we are open to all of our experience, there isn’t this “I” to react to things.

So we can train ourselves. I want to take another look at this business between “I” and my life. We started off by saying, we want to change things. Well, if “I” and my life are the same, then if I’m going to change me, I have to change my life. And if I change my life, I’m going to have to change me. And how easy is it to do this? Well, it’s pretty difficult. How many of you find yourself doing things you’d really rather not be doing, but you keep on doing them anyway for some reason? It’s called habit, right? We all have them.

How do we set about changing things? Well, in this country, we’re very used to changing things just by like turning on a switch. And it doesn’t work in this case. We can’t just, okay, I’m going to change this, and suddenly it’s different. Because everything that we are, including the way that we think, everything that we experience, including the way we experience it, is the result of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of evolution in us. What we are, what our life is, is something that is evolved from the time when he first came into the world, possibly before. And because it is something all of this is the product of evolution, you can’t just change it like that. But what we can do, is intended to introduce a new dynamic in the evolution. And that’s essentially what we’re doing when we sit and practice meditation. We’re introducing a new dynamic.

Now, this person is a writer. And he’s noticed, I’m presuming, that when he writes that he’s shutting as many ideas down as you are putting on paper, or onto the screen, I don’t know how you write. It’s worse for me because I try to write too. And I’m fine as long as I’m not sitting in front of my computer. I have all kinds of ideas, but as soon as I sit in front of my computer, everything shuts down. Do you find that? And then I have no ideas and I can’t even spell my name. So both of these ways of relating to the experience of writing are things that have evolved over a period of time. And it would be nice just to turn a switch and make it different. But it doesn’t work that way. What we can do, however, is start doing things a little differently. And that’s what we’re doing when we practice meditation.

When I first started meditation practice, quite literally, I could not sit for more than a minute. I would go, like, I’m out of here, and that was it. And everybody else would be sitting there like this, and they’re just going … How can you do that? You’re nuts. I was so uncomfortable, not just physically, but emotionally, and cognitively, and probably a whole bunch of other ways, too. I couldn’t do regular meditation, and I ended up doing 100,000 prostrations instead, because I had to move. That helped a little bit, but it was actually so bad I had to do that five times. And a bunch of other stuff too. And by then I could look like I was meditating, sort of. But I still wasn’t really practicing.

But all of these efforts gradually started to give rise to a different dynamic in me. So when I say, as I did at the beginning, here’s your experience, the experience of breathing, that’s the bowl here and the the striker is our attention. Place the attention in the experience of breathing and rest there. That’s the new dynamic. Now, because of our habituation, it doesn’t last very long. Attention falls off quite quickly. But one of the great features of mind is there’s always this moment of recognition. We always come back to ourselves, and we go, oh. And then we do it again, and we do it again, and again, and again. And it feels like we’re doing nothing, right? We’re not getting anywhere. And one thing we’re attached to in this country, if anything, it’s progress.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, an Aikido teacher from Hawaii was in LA, and through a mutual friend, we’d set up to have dinner together. We had a very, very nice dinner. He’s a Westerner, and he studied with a someone who sounds quite remarkable, in Hawaii. So, he’s a very good teacher. And we had a very, very interesting conversation. And afterwards—also at the dinner was his senior student—I had an email exchange with his senior student. He said that, this teacher’s teacher in Hawaii, who is Japanese, said he found it very, very different teaching Aikido to Americans compared to teaching Aikido to Japanese people. And he said that one of the things is that when he taught something to a Japanese person, they went off and did it 10,000 times. They just practiced it. When he taught them to Americans, same thing, they do it ten times and ask, “Why are we doing this?” He’d never been asked that question, why are we doing this? this Japanese teacher. And so he started to think about it, and it opened up a whole new dimension in his experience and practice of Aikido. Like, why are we doing this? It made them look at things much more deeply, because the way that they worked was, just you just did it.

Now what’s best here? Both worlds. One of the weaknesses for many people in our culture in learning some of these disciplines is they do them 10 times and then they say, well, why are we doing this? It doesn’t seem to be having any effect. Well, it doesn’t have any effect until you’ve done it 10,000 times.

My favorite example here is Cal Ripken Jr., the shortstop for the Baltimore Orioles, known as the Iron Man because he holds the record for the number of consecutive games. This guy every day fielded 1000 balls as practice. So, his whole body, and his whole perceptual system, and the way he thought, everything, absolutely everything in his system was tuned to fielding a ball, because he just did it so much. The same applies to musicians. The same applies to many, many other athletes.

Change as evolution

Ken: And if we’re going to change our life, then it’s not enough just to do something a couple of times and think things are going to change. No. Consistency of effort, over a period of time, we would just keep doing it and doing it and doing it. This is how we start a new way of evolution in our lives. And very often, we won’t notice anything for some time.

I teach a number of business people meditation, and I always have to go through the same thing with them, though it looks a little different. Many of them, because they’re very disciplined people, when I tell them to practice, they just practice. Bang, half an hour a day, bum bum bum bum. It just happens. But after about two or three months, they come in with the following question. “Ken, I want to do a cost benefit analysis here.” Because they’ve been doing the practice, two or three months have gone by, they haven’t noticed any difference. “The quality of my attention doesn’t seem to be improving.” Any of you have that experience?

Well, there’s only one thing I can do with them at this point, because it’s pointless arguing with them. The changes have already started taking place. I can tell because they usually report that things are going better at work, and not only are things going better at work, they’re also getting better in their family. But they’re not noticing anything, so they’re not satisfied. So what I do is, I have to wave my hands and get up with a bunch of smoke and mirrors, and things like that, and confuse them with all kinds of things. And keep them practicing for another two or three months. Because after around five or six months, they begin to say, “Hmm.” The changes that are happening around five or six months aren’t the ones they expected to happen.

They aren’t sitting in perfect bliss, their mind clearer, like the open sky. But they’re noticing other things. They’re noticing like a quiet confidence in themselves that they may not have met or experienced before. Or, they aren’t as reactive to people, but they can’t put their finger quite on why they aren’t reactive. Or, things that used to get to them aren’t triggering them. Or, they just find themselves a little more at peace, both at work and the family. And so after around five or six months, then usually, I don’t have to distract them. They become they become self-motivating in their practice and then we can go even deeper.

But this is the way evolution works. Things don’t change immediately. But with consistency of effort they do over a period of time. And so we need to do things 10,000 times. And it’s also important to ask, why? Because it is only by asking why—why am I doing this?—that we get in touch with our motivation, our intention, and we become clear in ourselves. Okay. This is why I’m doing it, because it means this to me. Or, this is why I’m doing it, because it’s going to set X, Y, and Z in motion. So both of these approaches, if we bring them together, that’s the that’s the best world.

Now, when we look at what has to change, a great deal has to change. How many of you were immediately comfortable when you first started sitting on a cushion? The body has to adjust. My body never adjusted. I used to sit on a cushion. I made myself extremely ill doing so. And eventually, I just realized this just wasn’t for me. And I sit in a chair and then my practice actually progressed quite nicely. So there’s also recognition of limits and individual capabilities.

The relationship with our emotions has to change. Usually we just get carried away by emotions, hugely. And we end up acting, doing, saying things that we really would rather we didn’t. But, it happened. And what has to change there? Every time we react on the basis of emotions, it’s because there’s something in us we couldn’t experience.

I had this experience not very long ago when I had this little bout with AT&T. I spent two weeks screaming on the end of the phone. Didn’t change anything. They just ground through their own process and everything eventually got sorted out. And as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, “Why get angry? You’re the one who loses sleep, not them.” I lost a lot of sleep, because I was so angry. So yeah, we get taken over by emotions. And then there’s the ways of thinking, some of which are more constructive, some of which are less constructive. And so all of that has to change: our bodies, our emotions, our ways of thinking. And all we can do is start nudging things in the right direction, in a better direction.

And we do this by practicing the strange discipline of just resting in our experience. And this actually is enough because things come to us and go, come, go, come, and go, and we’re not getting carried away by them. That’s the new dynamic. That we’re experiencing things without being carried away by them. It’s not that we stop experiencing things. That’s not it. We experience things without being carried away by them, and that’s what creates more and more possibility for us.

Holiday challenges

Ken: Now we’re coming up to the holiday season. How many of you are a little anxious about the holiday season? Visits with family, other stuff that goes on, all kinds of things. Well, a lot of people ask me about this, and if you go on my website, you’ll find a podcast. We actually even have it in transcript form now called What to Do About Christmas. And you might find it helpful, but I’m just going to summarize it here because we’re in this season, and maybe it’s helpful to you. This time of year is difficult to us, difficult for us for at least three reasons.

The first is it reminds us that another year has gone by and now we’re even more in debt, possibly. Or, we haven’t made any progress in our live. Or, we’re still doing the same old thing. Or, we’re not doing what we really want to be doing, etc., or any number of things. It’s just a reminder, oh, when am I going to take care of this or, take care of that, etc. So it’s both the passing of our lives, the reminder of things done, and that may not we may not have fulfilled our own ideals, or hopes, or wishes for ourselves. So that’s one aspect.

And there are two ways to relate to change—because we can’t do anything about it, things just keep changing. Two ways we can relate are, one, we can get depressed about it and think, oh, everything’s changing, etc., or, we can see change as possibility. You know, if things didn’t change, if everything didn’t change, then we’d be stuck just the way we are now. And I don’t think any of us want that. So change also represents possibility.

Then the second thing is, this time of year, it brings up a bunch of emotional stuff, hopes that we had for our families, to be happy, and things like that. And all of these old things, old emotional needs, and hopes, and aspirations. And many people, they get together with their families and they’re finally going to have a happy Christmas. And they get all their hopes up, and then somebody picks a fight and it just degenerates into a big mess again, and everybody feels terrible about it, etc. You know, it’s almost like a Christmas ritual.

But there’s another way to look at this. And that is, it’s never going to happen. It’s just never, ever going to happen. So why don’t I just relate to things as they are instead of the way I want them to be? Because when we relate to things as the way we want them to be, we are either living in the past, or living in the future. The one place we aren’t living is in the present. And actually, all of our lives only take place in the present. So, when you live in the past and live in the future, you’ve actually stepped out of your life.

Now, relating to things as they are, rather than the way we want them to be, means we have to be able to experience all of those hopes and things and let them go. And that’s exactly the ability that you’re cultivating in your meditation, where these things come up, and you just experience them without being swept away by them, and without getting lost in them.

And then the last one is a little trickier. How many of you are concerned with being somebody? Yeah. How are you doing? It’s a no-win thing, you know? And, the moment you become someone, of course, you become a target. So, people often enter into, or go visit family, and things like that, and they want to be seen by their parents, or appreciated in some way that they were never appreciated. It’s all about being someone. And people get tripped up by that one. It’s probably the most common basis for hurt and emotional pain this time of year.

Many years ago, I had an assistant, a young woman who came from, let’s say, a somewhat difficult past. And while she was working for me, she decided that she was going to visit her family, which caused her a great deal of anxiety over Christmas. So I said, “Why are you going?”

And at first she said, “Well, I want to take care of them.” But her role as caretaker was never appreciated, so that was just going to be a source of emotional pain, etc. We went through one thing after another, and eventually she said, “I want to see them with my adult eyes,” because it had been many years since she’d been back home.

I said, “Ah, that’s a good one.” So, made it very clear, “This is your intention to see your family with adult eyes.” Now that’s one possible intention. I just give that as an example. And she went and visited with them.

But when anything happened that would normally upset her, she said, “Ah, this is what I came for, to see what is happening with adult eyes.” And she didn’t get caught by it. It still hurt, but not the way it would before, because she wasn’t caught up on the whole thing. Now, other people that I’ve worked with, they will say when we really drill it down and say, “Why are you going?”

“I’m going to honor my parents.”

That’s a perfectly good motivation. So when your parents start ragging on you about something, you don’t have to get caught by it, because that’s not your intention in being there. It’s to honor your parents. So by becoming really, really clear about your intention at this time of year, you can create the conditions so that you don’t hurt anybody and you aren’t hurt by anybody. Why? And this is what’s really interesting.

How many of you have some area of your life, some activity, in which you can just pour your energy into and you become completely engaged? Maybe it’s hiking, maybe it’s skiing, just think of something. Okay? Now I just want you to remember doing that, what that’s like for you. When you’re doing it, how aware are you of yourself? Hmm? No you’re not. So, by pouring your energy into something, you become one with your life. And you let go of this idea of being somebody. So that’s my suggestion for this time of year, when you’re visiting your family, or with whatever you’re doing. Be really clear about why you’re there, and then pour your energy into that. And that way you stop being somebody and you’re just there doing that. Well, you didn’t want to speak today.

Holiday expectations

Student: I want to speak. What about the sheer busyness and pressure that brings to many people? Even if you’re not going home. Just the presents, the wrapping of presents, the mailing of presents, that sort of thing.

Ken: Well, you’re quite right. There’s a lot of activity. And, as I like to say, we can do anything we want in our lives. We just can’t do everything. So part of being really clear about your intention here is being clear about what you can do and what you can’t do. And that way you stop taking on too much. You follow?

Student: Yes, but the people to whom these things were addressed may have expectations. And I know what you’re going to say, but one doesn’t want to hurt their feelings.

Ken: That’s right. So you are very clear about what you can do. And you do that. And you pour your energy into that, so that when you’re wrapping presents, that’s what you’re doing. You’re wrapping presents and you’re clear about it. And it’s not about meeting their expectations. Because once you talk about meeting their expectations, then you’ve handed your life over to them. You’re doing it because this is what you want to do. And being clear that it’s about what you want to do makes a huge difference in the amount of stress you experience.

I’ll give you an example. When I was skiing in Taos many years ago with a friend we were riding up on the chairlift. And he was describing how a friend of his was coming in from out of town, and he felt obligated to see him. And so we discussed this on the lift. And I pointed out to him that the obligation wasn’t coming from his friend. The obligation was coming from him. This is what being a friend meant to him, that he would spend some time with him. And when he owned it, and went, “Oh, it’s about what being a friend means to me. It’s not coming from him.” Then he felt much lighter about the whole thing.

Student: But what if it was coming from the friend?

Ken: But it never comes from the friend.

Student: Oh, no, that’s not true.

Ken: No. You’re saying that you have these people who have expectations. Now, here, this may be a little difficult, but I have a lot of familiarity, in my own experience, with this one. You choose to engage those expectations.

Student: Lest I hurt their feelings.

Ken: That’s right. And so what is important to you is not hurting their feelings. That’s your intention. And I’m very glad you brought this up. And I appreciate it because by owning that intention, and saying, “My intention here is not to hurt their feelings. That’s what I’m doing. I want them to have an interaction with me in which their feelings aren’t hurt.” There’s limits to what you can do with that, because sometimes you can do everything perfectly and their feelings are still hurt. But that has nothing to do with you, and that’s the way to approach it. You do what feels complete and appropriate to you. So, to use a sports analogy, you leave nothing on the court. And then what happens, happens. But you know that it is nothing to do. And that’s what I mean about being really clear in your intention.

Student: But I still get so tired.

Ken: Okay. Question back here.

Student: Yeah. Regarding, not having to become something. What if you have goals to be a musician, be a writer, be a famous actor? How does not having to become something apply to all that?

Ken: What does a musician do?

Student: Play music.

Ken: Okay. That’s your intention. Not to be a musician, but to play music. Now, you may think I’m splitting hairs here, but it makes a huge difference. You play music.

Student: So, you’re saying, all the other stuff, don’t even pay attention?

Ken: If you get really clear about that, then all kinds of things start to happen, and you have no idea where things are going to go. I’m not sure whether he’s still alive, but there’s a composer in New York who lives on the street. And every now and then, the police pick him up. And whenever they pick him up, he makes a couple of phone calls to these really famous musicians in New York. They come down to the police station. They tell the policeman who this guy is, that he is a superb composer who has taught them about how to do these things, and this is just how he chooses to live. He isn’t the least bit concerned with being anybody, but he does what he does. He busks in the subways, and things like that, and that’s it.

And to give another example, years ago I used to play tennis, and I got a pick up game on a court out in West LA. And this is such a lesson for me. I was rallying with this guy, and it was a really good guy to rally with, back and forth, back and forth. But after half an hour of doing this, I realized this guy could, whenever he wanted, put the ball somewhere on the court and I’d never get to it. But he just liked hitting the ball back and forth.

So after we’d done this for, you know, an hour or so, I suggested we play a set. You know what the score in the set was? Six love in my favor. This guy was not concerned with winning at all. He just liked to hit the ball. He just played tennis. That’s all he did. He wasn’t concerned with being anybody. It was a great lesson for me.

So, pour your energy into the activity, and see what comes from that. Okay? All right. So now I’ve wasted a perfectly good hour and a half of your time, but it’s my pleasure to be here. So let’s just close with the feeling that through this practice that we’ve done together and through the conversation, interaction, that we’ve had, some goodness may have come out of this. Don’t hold on to this goodness for yourself. Form the intention, form the wish, that this goodness somehow, spread through all the world and contribute to the good of the world in some way.

Dedication

Ken: Okay, so let’s just sit with that intention for a minute or two, and then we’ll close.

Goodness comes from this practice now done.
Let me not hold it just in me.
Let it spread to all that is known
and awaken good throughout the world.

Thank you very much. Enjoy your holidays.