Here is one of a series of talks by spiritual
leader Lola McDowell Lee, spanning two decades
from the early 70s through the 90s. Lola was
a Zen Roshi, whose Rinzai lineage included Dr.
Henry Plutov and renowned Zen master Shigetsu
Sasaki. Lola was a religious scholar as well
as an ordained Christian minister. While the
talks are focused mainly on Zen and Buddhism,
Lola drew on many spiritual traditions, including
those of Jesus, Plato, Lao Tzu, the Hindu Vedas,
Meister Eckhart, and Gurdjieff. We are what we
think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or
act with an impure mind and trouble will follow
you as the wheel follows the ox that draws the
cart. We are what we think. All that we are arises
with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make
the world. Speak or act with a pure mind and
happiness will follow you as your shadow, unshakable.
Look how he abused me and beat me. How he threw
me down and robbed me. Live with such thoughts
and you live in hate. Look how he abused me and
beat me, how he threw me down and robbed me.
Abandon such thoughts and live in love. In this
world, hate never yet dispelled hate. Only love
dispels hate. This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible.
You too shall pass away knowing this. How can
you quarrel? How easily the wind overturns a
frail tree. Seek happiness in the senses, indulge
in food and sleep, and you too will be uprooted.
The wind cannot overturn a mountain. Temptation
cannot touch the man who is awake, strong and
humble, who masters himself. and minds the law.
If a man's thoughts are muddy, if he is reckless
and full of deceit, how can he wear the yellow
robe? Whoever is master of his own nature, bright,
clear, and true, he may indeed wear the yellow
robe. The deluded Imagining trivial things to
be vital to life, follow their vain fancies and
never attain the highest knowledge. But the wise,
knowing what is trivial and what is vital, set
their thoughts on the supreme goal and attain
the highest knowledge. As rain seeps through
an ill -thatched hut, passion will creep through
an untrained mind. As rain cannot seep through
a well -fetched hut, passion cannot seep through
a well -trained mind. Hmm? Yeah, that's the beginning.
Now this, after the Shakyamuni Buddha. passed
away. They began to write down what he had taught.
They wrote it on palm leaves. And there is today
a group of people, a school, I guess you could
call it, for lack of a better word. They still
have a lot of old palm leaves with things written
on them. And so there is one for everybody. That's
right. Tony knows. And if there's not one for
you, you don't belong to that group. So you're
not one of the chosen. And what is on this palm
leaf for you then will tell you all about you.
Boy, is it a trap. Anyway, but palm leaves, you
see, they're supposed to be so old, they're still
writing on palm leaves. One wears out, they write
it on a new one. The palm leaves are all there.
Anyway, the sangha, you know, the group of monks
and nuns after he passed away had a, Big get
-together. And of course, even though they were
of the upper echelon, some of these men, you
know, why they still each had their own opinion.
And so lots of conflict. My way is right. Oh,
no, no, no. My way is right. No, no, no, no.
My way is right. So finally, they divided themselves.
into two groups. You know, one is called the
Hinayana, or the Theravadan, or the small vehicle,
and the other is the Mahayana, the great vehicle.
The Hinayana, or the small vehicle, they settled
around Burma and Thailand and Sri Lanka. And
you know, Buddha used to go to Sri Lanka occasionally,
and that's where he gave the Lankavatarasutra.
It was one time when he was visiting there. And
in this Hinayana, in this particular section
of the world, the language that they use and
the language that the Buddhist teachings are
written in the Hinayana thing is called Pali,
P -A -L -I, Pali, which is a kind of a descendant
of the Sanskrit. So in Sanskrit, you know the
word Dharma. In Pali, it becomes Dhamma. And
in Sanskrit, the word karma becomes kama. And
the nirvana becomes nibbana. So when you read
this type of writing where they don't translate
these words, you know that this is from the Theravadan
sect of Buddhism, okay, a small bit. Now, the
actual scriptures of Buddhism, Orthodox Buddhism,
are divided into three sections. And each one
of these sections is called a basket. It's a
basket that holds the teaching of a particular
kind. And this is called a pataka. So sometimes
you see books written, and they will say the
tri -pataka of Buddhism, the three baskets of
Buddhism. Tri -pataka, three baskets. And now
the sutra, pataka, or basket, as a group of discourses
or lectures, I guess we can say, the talks that
were given by the Buddha or one of his direct
disciples. I mean, you see with the 1 ,500 monks
that he had there, and not every one of them
could be a direct disciple. So let's say he had
50 around him. That's a big bunch. And then each
one of these 50 would have so many students,
and then down the line, you see. So direct, Maka
Shapa was his direct student, and we would say
Sariputra was, Ananda was. And the basket of
discipline, the second basket, is called the
Vinyana, not Vinyana, Vinaya, Vinaya Pitaka.
These are the rules of the Sangha. It's sort
of like when we have Sashin you follow certain
rules, the rules of the discipline. Okay, and
the Abhidharma, Pitaka, it has been called the
basket of metaphysics. What it is, is all the
works that have followed and come from them,
which analyze the philosophy behind the teaching.
You see, Buddha would say something, and then
people would take that and say, well he means
this, and he means this, and he means this, and
they would build up a whole philosophy about
what he meant when he said one thing. So now
this is the third basket, the abhidharma basket.
Now this particular dharma, what they call this
basket, is not really considered a sutra. A sutra
is a thread that leads you back to the source.
It is not considered actually a sutra, but it
is included in the basket of discourses. the
Sutra Pataka. And you'll see why. Now most of
these Sutras, these talks that have been preserved
in the Kali Kanan were mostly for the monks and
for the nuns. I mean you read some of them and
you think, I can't do that. But the Dhammapada
is meant for everyone. It's for the lay student.
And it has about 426 verses, which are supposed
to be read and reflected upon and meditated upon.
You take a phrase and you meditate about it like
a con. And the meditation in bypassing here.
In orthodox Buddhism is called the vipassana
method, which is the effortless effort meditation.
It is the simple sitting and observing what is
going on from top to bottom. And this is out
of the samsara yoga thing. It is a very successful
method. Simply observing. What rises? simply
observing what rises. You have got nothing to
do with it. It's quite volitional. It does it
all of its own, sitting observing what rises.
You bring nothing to the fore. You're not thinking.
You're simply observing. You're watching. You're
the witness. You simply let it rise. You observe
what is going on and you make no judgment because
the minute you make judgment upon it, You're
in the picture and you're supposed to stay out
of the picture. Effortless effort, meditation,
vipassana, excellent. So anyway, together with
the four noble truths and the eightfold noble
path, we have this method and then we have these
three things for transforming our lives. And
right off, in the first chapter of these twin
verses, it gives the direction, the cue. You
go this way. What is presented, you see, is this
pair of possibilities of human conduct. We have
a negative, so -called negative possibility,
the catering to ourselves. the catering to our
conditioned personal ego desires. And then comes
the positive possibility, which seems somehow
to run contrary to our personal nature. So the
negative possibility, this is accomplished without
much strain. It doesn't take any effort really,
you know. get out there and say, well, this is
fine, it's the ego, so what, you know, but this
is what I want, what I want. You know, not much
string. And it can even be satisfying for a while,
temporarily, you know, this ego satisfaction.
Sure. You'd be surprised how many people are
out there doing their thing with the music and
all that, you know, the guitars and, you know,
they finally get to play on stage. Wowie, boy,
they've made the world. That's ego satisfaction.
Now this, what we call a positive possibility,
seemingly goes against the conditioning of our
pleasure principle. And to make this switch,
you know, to the other possibility takes a lot
of effort, takes a great deal of effort. It is
to some as if they're choosing pain instead of
pleasure. And yet I think they'd be surprised
in just trying to choose pleasure all the time,
how much pain they cause for themselves. But
we have these two possibilities. And each and
every one of us, all of us, we are given. Again,
and again, and again, and again, the opportunity
to make the choice, whether you're going to choose
the negative or the positive. Today, sometime
today, I will venture to say within an hour after
you leave here, you will probably have an opportunity
to choose the negative easy way or the positive
difficult way. First of all, you're here. So
you made a choice already today. You chose the
positive difficult instead of the negative easy.
Sure, it's easier to stay in bed. Okay, now watch
for the next opportunity. Just watch for it.
I mean, you can go do what you want to anyway.
But just watch and know that this is what you've
done. Just to know what you're doing instead
of running around in a blind fog. Yeah. So then
you watch what you're doing, how you're doing,
and why. No judging. Just what you're doing,
why you do it, and how you do it. Diverged in
a wood. And I, I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference. That's
Robert Frost, huh? I took the one less traveled
by. And it has made all the difference. You know,
and there's this little story, I think, a little
anecdote, I think everybody knows. This certain
man became very successful, head of a company
and multimillionaire and while he was still quite
young, I mean like 30. And so one day a man asked
for an interview. which he gave him. And in the
thing was, he asked him, you know, what do you
think contributed most to your success? And the
man answered right away, hard work. So this other
fellow stood there for a while and he stood there
and the silence got kind of long and finally
he said, what's the second? You see, this is
our problem. Isn't it? Yeah, this is our problem.
See, I took the one less traveled by. Not just
going along. Easy does it, huh? Hard work. Meditation
now. Meditation is the training of the mind.
To be able to concentrate the mind. To be able
to make the mind one -pointed at will. That's
a very difficult discipline. I mean, now are
you all one -pointed? Right? All... Are you one
-pointed? You're laughing. You're not one -pointed.
Difficult. Hard work. And now this man, the Buddha,
whom we call the Buddha, he had taken such pains
to communicate... his meanings to people. He
took such pains with it, and yet most of these
people to whom he was talking would probably
never have the time, nor the means, nor the desire
to practice meditation. And yet he gave and he
gave and he gave, 49 years worth, he gave. It
has been said that he was an incorrigible optimist.
And there's somewhere, there's something that
he supposedly said, I am confident with the highest
of confidence. He felt sure that he could go
anywhere in India and find the needle in the
haystack. That person who would come up to him
after the sermon and say, I want to know more.
I want to know more about how to prevent hostile
thoughts from rising and taking over. Please
teach me. The needle in the haystack, huh? But
anyway, it's just, you know, hope lies in the
heart eternal. Oh, God. Now, Buddhism. All of
Buddhism. the Orthodox Buddhists, and all of
the sects, and I, Kagan, Abhidhammasaka, which
is the Kagan, all of Zen, all the sects, they
all revolve around one point, which is the enlightenment
experience. Enlightenment experience. Now enlightenment
is bodhi, B -O -D -H -I, bodhi. And the word
bodhi and the word buddha come from the same
root word in Sanskrit, buddha, B -U -D -H, buddha.
Which means to wake, to become aware of. So...
One is supposed to become awakened from a life
of relativity and from conditioning to the unconditioned
life. Unconditioned life. And that unconditioned
life includes, you know, this non -attachment,
non -discrimination, non -identification, non
-judgment, non -ego, and so on, and on, and so
on, et cetera. Yeah, I'm gonna learn another
language here one of these days. His teaching,
the Buddhist teaching, based on his enlightenment,
and his purpose to direct every one of us, to
this very same enlightenment, the samyak sambodhi,
the perfect state which knows no equal. Now,
as so at the very beginning, the very first,
the importance is stressed. We must realize what
we believe. We must know what we believe. We
must know what we believe and we must know that
we act on what we believe. We must know how we
think. We must know that our thinking does not
stand outside of ourselves, away from ourselves.
What we think and what we feel in a religious
manner is not out there. So that what all of
this is about concerns us personally. So he urged
his followers to value their personal experiences.
to value them, not to rely on some other authority,
because it is not out there. You rely on your
own authority. And so each one of us, because
it is a personal experience, and we must rely
on something in ourselves, each of us, he said,
to exert yourself for your own Emancipation.
By oneself indeed is evil done from the sutras.
By oneself is one injured. By oneself is evil
left undone. By oneself is one purified. So purity
and impurity of course belongs to oneself. No
one purifies another. You all scoop up your own
water out of the stream. If there is to be an
awakening, you are the one that must wake up.
You have to eat your own food, you have to drink
your own water, you have to sleep for yourself,
you have to go to the bathroom for yourself.
Also, You cannot employ someone else to go to
heaven or hell for you. You've got to go for
yourself. It's a personal experience. Enlightenment
is a personal experience. Now this man, Gautama,
Shoptamuni, from the tribe, He went to the forest,
you know, and he sat with these teachers for
a number of years, and he had his experiences,
and he was a man of... Well, people said of him,
you know, the man, the shining one. You know,
he had such an aura about him. You know, all
this tranquility and this peace that was with
him. and so on. And here was his teacher. And
yet he of himself had a great doubt. So and he
had all these years of discipline in these forests,
you know, and during which time he became an
aesthetic. He was starving. He had a few grains
of rice to eat every day. And then he saw the
folly of this. Then it was, you know, erroneous.
Because if you're that weak, you know, from starving,
nothing is going to happen to you anyway. Your
body can't stand it. So then he decided he would
sit on his own. And he did. And as a legend goes,
he went and sat under this Bodhi tree, this wake
-up tree. Bodhi tree. And something, while he
was sitting there, something happened to him.
And there's all kinds of stories about the things
in the Mara came and tempted him and the snake.
There's a big storm and here we were sitting
in this meditation and the snake that wound itself
around him to protect him. But something happened
to him sitting under this tree. Something that
was most fundamental. Something that was ultimate.
and it set all his doubts at rest, this experience
he had. It settled not only his intellectual
doubts, but his spiritual anguish. And some people
do have spiritual anguish. It's not just confined
to Buddhism. There was St. John of the Cross,
and of course we have in a similar manner the
Book of Job and his struggles. We could put it
in that context. Anyway, this man whom we now
call the Buddha, his enlightenment was of such
stature, such depth, you know, that 49 years
of teaching did not exhaust it, had not reached
the depths or the heights of it yet when he died.
and then after him came Nagarjuna, Asvagosha,
Vasa Bandhu and Asanga and a lot more. Kamurojiva
who went to China also. They all delved into
this teaching that this man had left behind and
they absorbed it and they became enlightened
and then they further developed aspects, particular
aspects of it for others. Quite something, huh?
And little Ananda, little Ananda, who was the
Buddha's cousin and who was his attendant for
many years and he had this great memory, he couldn't
enter the realm of his teacher. You know, he
was still, try as he would, he couldn't quite
attain. And after the Buddha's death, Mahakashapa,
became the great patriarch. And according to
the tradition, this convocation took place, or
this division, all this disagreement took place.
And Ananda was not allowed to attend. He was
not allowed to take part in it in any way. Even
though he had been this close to the Buddha,
And he had this wonderful memory. Mahakashapa
wouldn't let him go. He wouldn't let him come
to any good. So, you know, when this big gnoll
came to him, grieving, you know, he went out
into the forest and he stumbled around the forest
all night. And toward the morning in his stumbling,
he stumbled over the roots of a tree and he fell
down. And all of a sudden he was enlightened.
He realized the truth. And then as the story
goes, he ran back to Mahakashapa and he knocked
on the door and he says, I have attained. I have
attained. Open the door. I have attained. So
Mahakashapa says, well, come on in. The door
is locked. The door is locked. Ananda, why don't
you then come in through the keyhole? That's
the story. Ananda was the third Buddha, Mahakashapa,
and then comes Ananda in the lineage. So he must
have come in through the keyhole, huh? He must
have. If one really sits down, and is together
with himself and reads some of the words of the
Buddha. You know, you can see that they, these
words come out of this great eternal silence
so that you should read them in silence. You
should receive these words in silence. So then
you could experience, you know, their purity.
They're their crystal clearness, so direct to
the point for all the talking around and around.
Now intellectually, you know, we understand a
lot of words, Sid. You know, simple words. You
know, simple words they are, a lot of them. But
their simplicity evidently is a problem. Jesus'
words were simple. Birds have their nests and
foxes have their holes, but the son of man hath
nowhere to lay his head. Very simple, very well
put. We want to make something else out of it.
We're very complex. To understand simplicity,
we must become simple at heart. Simple in the
heart. And we read words sometimes and they're
called moral precepts. Moral precepts. And they
convey similar ideas to what I read this morning
from the Dhammapada. And we skip over it very
blithely, but I already know this. I shouldn't
lie, I shouldn't steal, and so on. I shouldn't
drink. That's almost on the top of the list as
far as Buddha was concerned. If you did know,
really know, you wouldn't skip over them. Each
phrase would become maybe like an essence to
be savored. Like a turn of a phrase. Sometimes
you know a phrase sticks in the mind because
you like it so. Or you savor some food that you
thoroughly enjoy. So some of these. Simple little
phrases. And I found a copy, I was telling Roslyn,
of the Philokalia. And they have something very
similar in that old book. It's old fashioned
language. You know this, but if you have read
the Pilgrim, there's a Pilgrim on the way. the
way of the pilgrim, you know, his wandering around
Russia, his devotion, and reading his book, and
of course he became, you can read it right in
the lines, he doesn't ever say it, he keeps himself
so humble all the time, but oh you should, it
comes right out of the pages, it leaps at you,
you know, and it says in there, in this little
book, almost right at the beginning, if you find
yourself hating your fellow men and resist this
hatred. And you see that it grows weak and withdraws.
Do not rejoice in your heart, for this withdrawal
is a trick of the evil spirits. Which is usually
the opposite of what we think, huh? I'll fight
it and I'll fight it until I whip it. And when
it begins to withdraw, ha ha, I've conquered.
Now this Dhammapada, the Dharma, the Dhamma.
existence itself in which there is no hierarchy,
no hierarchy. There's nothing small and there's
nothing great. The brightest star and the smallest
blade of grass exist in this universe as equals.
The Dhamma also means justice. equality and virtue.
We may have our ideas of what is right and what
is wrong, but when you look at existence without
any prejudice, with no prejudice you look out
there nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong. Looking
at existence, birth is right, death is right,
beauty is right, ugliness is right. Nothing is
wrong. way of looking at the world is very partial.
We are like a person who is hiding behind the
door and he's looking at the scene through a
keyhole. Through the keyhole one sees things.
One sees movement. One sees people, and cars,
and horses, and dogs, and cats, and so on. One
moment they're here, the next moment they're
not. One moment not here, next moment here, and
the next moment gone. This is how we ordinarily
look at existence. We have a future, we have
a present, and we have a past. All seen through
this keyhole. And we should drop this keyhole
vision. If you could see the hole, everything
is as it should be. Everything is right. Nothing
is wrong. That's one way of looking at this word,
domino. It also can mean God. which word we have
made altogether too personal. So we avoid kind
of the use of it because we have been brought
up with this, God is a personal father to whom
we can ask all kinds of things, requests to be
made to make my life easier. Dhamma can mean
discipline. The one who wants to know the truth
disciplines himself. It depends on how much you
want to know the truth as to how hard you will
discipline yourself. Discipline means the capacity
to learn. So it is being here. Here. That is
being available to learning. Being receptive.
to learning. Not everybody is. One must be ready
to drop beliefs and prejudices. One must be willing
to set the thinking aside and to look into this
matter, this matter, huh? This matter being religion,
this matter, this road, this matter without any
a priori conception. And the more you sit, the
more you realize, oh my God, I don't believe
that. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Difficult to
find out what you do believe and what your prejudices
are. You don't have any idea how shocked I was
to find out I was arrogant. Being a German, I'm
arrogant. All of a sudden, this is brought to
my attention. I'm not either. Dharma or Dhamma
also means the ultimate truth. When the thinking
disappears, all of a sudden you can really hold
this focus and there's no thinking in the picture.
When the ego disappears, what remains? It's a
little difficult, you know, we're so hooked on
this thinking, but if your thinking disappears,
how are you going to think the truth? You can't.
You cannot. And your thinking has got to be set
aside in order to perceive the truth. But now,
what are you going to do with it when you can't
think? The truth is us and us and us and us.
That's what we say to ourselves, huh? You can't
do that. You can't think and have the truth.
The same instance, huh? Afterwards you can think
about it, but hmm. When the thinking and the
ego for one split second is missing, what remains?
Certainly something. Or how could you even know
that you had an experience? Something remains,
huh? And of course to call it something isn't
quite correct. So the Buddha called it nothing.
Well, you know, it's kind of like a seed. In
the autumn, the seed drops to the ground. And
then it's in the wintertime, you know, there's
rain and sleet and hail and snow maybe, you know,
and the little seed is driven into the soil.
So now it's under the ground. And then comes
the spring, and there's this warm sunshine, and
maybe there's some more rain. And the outer coating
of the seed becomes loose and finally it drops
away and it rots, it disintegrates. So now we
have the kernel of the seed left. And with this
kernel of the seed there is more water and more
warmth and it too begins to disintegrate. so
that nothing is left except the essence. Out
of this disintegration comes again another tree
because the tree was in the seed. The whole of
the tree, every twig, every branch, All the flowers,
all the leaves, all the fruit was in the seed.
Did you see it? If you took it apart, would you
see it? No way. You see nothing. You dissect
that seed and you see nothing, but it's there.
Isn't that incredible? It's such a mystery. But
you can experience that and this is of course
the thing that we are going through. Okay, so
much now for the Dhamma. What about the Pada?
Which means a path. It means a way to go. In
religion, there are certain questions and they
are related to what and how. Now the what cannot
be talked about. Actually can't. It can't be
described. I mean if you say the word God, this
is not God. If you say the word truth, this is
not truth. I mean it's not simply a play on words
and things like that. You cannot. It's what.
I mean so somebody says it's something and somebody
else says it's nothing and somebody else says
it's an essence. and the what. But the how, that's
a little different. How shall I go about finding
myself, this true self that I've heard so much
about? Well, what path am I going to follow for
it? Now this can sort of be indicated, you know.
Another person can tell you of the way they traveled,
how they went up the mountain. How they went
through this very arduous climb and they were
tired and they were hungry and they were thirsty.
This is hard work. After this hard work that
they put in on themselves, the what happens on
the peak? You know, Moses, they tell of Moses
going up Mount Sinai, you know, and he was confronted
with the God who gave him some tablets with the
moral precepts called commandments. They never
called them the law and the commandments. I wonder
what really happened. They say that, you know,
Moses, there is a theory around and about that
Moses, was a relative of the Pharaoh. He was
eye -ranking in the hierarchy. And that he did
lead these people out into the desert. But out
there they killed him. And one of the men that
were in the group took over. And he's the one
that really went up the mountain. That's the
theory that's out now. Poor Moses. Anyway, this
search for truth. And if one has this passionate
search for truth, it gives you a foundation.
You stand on a foundation. It's kind of like
standing on cement in yourself. You know, a good
foundation. That's Pada. See, it's the foot.
It's the step. So, you know, because we all know
we have to move from where we are now to become
part of the process. I mean, not that we're not,
we are part of the process, but our thinking
keeps us out of it, away from it, huh? You can't
just remain a little pool all by yourself, isolated
and so on. You know, because it is said only
rivers reach the ocean and it's the ocean that
you want. A pool goes nowhere. It just sits in
itself and finally gets smelly and it's got a
bunch of twigs and it leaves and they all settle
and then finally become stagnant. Is that what
you want to do? I don't think so. So one learns
a flow, you know, be alive, become a river, you
know, a river of life. There is a river of life.
We should be flowing with it. We're not just
supposed to sit on the banks of it and wait.
Don't just be a piece of driftwood. You know,
then you're at the mercy of the wind and the
water and all what else. So you're not knowing
where you're going and not knowing who you are.
Go to the river. Dhammapada. The way to the Dharma.
The way to the ultimate truth. Right? We are
what we think that's what it starts out with
we are what we think all that we are rises with
our thoughts Thoughts rise they come and they
go and we pick and choose We like this. We don't
like that. You know who picks and chooses You
ever watch it you ever watch this process in
yourself Observing and you know that without
thoughts we don't know ourselves Thoughts are
objective to our being something in here being
subjective and it is when this objective is in
here these thoughts That we begin to know and
I'm in here If there's no objective, there's
no subjective we never know I'm in here like
my kitty will never know she's in there that
she's a kitty cat We need something to bounce
on And this is of course one of the stories out
of India, you know. What's his name? 10 ,000
names and I can't think of one. Anyway, they're
the Indian god who created the world, you know.
He's in heaven. He has everything. And he's lonesome.
So he creates this lila and he bumps up against
that. And now that becomes the world. Yeah. He
ought to know quite a bit about himself by now.
So also we call this an energy world. And the
energy world is a world that science investigates.
And it is this energy that impinges upon us,
on the body, on the eyes, and the ears, and the
mouth, and the tongue, and the nose, and so on.
The energy impinges on our sense receptors. And
because of the sense data, these impingements
and the pictures that come about in the psyche,
because of these energy impingements, we have
an interpretation of the world which is called
an appearance. That's what we have got through
our senses, an interpretation. And it's our interpretation.
Everybody can say this is my interpretation,
because that's the only interpretation that it
can be, is yours, mine. All that we are rises
with our thoughts. All that we are rises with
our thoughts. Before the thought, what is? It's
like saying, you know, before the world began,
you know, who are you? It's a very basic fundamental
thing. And so you sit with this. Do you expect
a verbal answer? Before the thought, there cannot
be a verbal answer. You'll be thinking right
away again. Before the thought, you cannot say,
I am a Catholic, I'm a Protestant, I am a Jew,
I'm a Hindu, I'm a Sufi, and whatever else you
want to put in that category. None of the above
can you say. You're not any of these. You are
not any of these. It takes thought to recognize
the fact that I'm a Sufi. Before the thought.
Before the thought the Bible disappears, the
Gita disappears, the Quran disappears, the Dhammapada
disappears. All the Zen writings disappear, you
know, because there aren't any words. And then
what is your name? You cannot say. Because this
is before thought. What country? What race? Nothing.
Before the thought, you know, what are you? Before
the thought. We are what we think. All that we
are rises from our thoughts. With our thoughts
we make the world. So then we decide, well, you
know, I don't much like the world that I see
and so I'm going to do some of this meditation
business. The practice thereof. Meditation practice.
And it takes a great deal of practice, I may
say. to allow the mind to stop churning this
activity. It's frenzied almost at times. And
of course when you sit for a while it's going
to get worse because now all of a sudden you're
paying attention to it. It makes it seem worse.
But meditation is about dropping the thinking,
ignoring the thinking, and learning to hold a
one -pointed concentration. That is being mindful.
Finding the space before the thought. Moving
into another aspect of consciousness. It's called
sometimes no mind. That's as good as nothing.
And in this no mind state we discover many, many,
many wonderful things. No mind is like no classification.
No mind is the same as no judgment. No mind is
the same as non -discrimination. No mind is no
identification. No mind is no ego. No ego, no
self. Who are you? Now the moving from the thinking
mind to this non -ego mind or no mind is a step
and this is the pada. It is this shift, you know.
the shift of what you usually think you are to
not what you think you are. What you are in spiritual
fact as opposed to empirical fact. It's pure
mind. Impure mind is a mind that is conditioned.
It doesn't mean it's dirty. It's conditioned.
What you believe, your thoughts. A pure mind
is an unconditioned mind. Look how he abused
me and beat me, how he threw me down and robbed
me. Abandon such thoughts and live in love. He
robbed me. He took away my good name. He lied
about me. He threw me down, down into the cellar.
way down in the cellar. You going to stay there?
So just have your moment of anger. Something
has gone awry, but let it be a clean anger. Sharp
and short. It's not going to do you any harm.
You can let it go. And it goes with some people,
like it rises and goes with other people. You
see, that's where the problem comes in. Harboring
it and holding it and hating it and desiring
revenge. Now you're making your world what it
is. And it will take you over, as this book said,
like evil spirits. These are the evil spirits.
Be angry and abandon it. And then you can live
in love. If you find Lola's talks valuable, more
will be posted in weeks to come.