An idea that isn't risky is hardly worth calling an idea.

I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything.

Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

Bad artists always admire each other's work. They call it being large-minded and free from prejudice. But a truly great artist cannot conceive of life being shown, or beauty fashioned, under any conditions other than those he has selected.

Life is too short to be in a hurry.

Don't give a woman advice; one should never give a woman anything she can't wear in the evening.

Bleep yansh.

No man dies for what he knows to be true. Men die for what they want to be true, for what some terror in their hearts tells them is not true.

Give water.

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.

Fork ennui

PHAT

Fork drugs.Focus on extreme athletics.

Stand and gaze.

Orgasm.

Verve.

How to overcome fear? Be around people who are fearless. If you're afraid of other people -- a lot of people are, they don't want to admit it, they're afraid of violence -- take a martial arts class. Best way to overcome fear is learn to be proficient in martial arts. In other words, you have to get out there. You can say, "Well, I'm not afraid of that guy," or "I'm not afraid of some mugger on the street," but when you've taken martial arts classes, if it's physically appropriate for you health-wise and so on, then gradually, little by little, as you learn the arts of self-defense and you interact with others, you'll overcome your fear. I mean, it's no fun to be afraid, even just on a physical level, of those around you. The best way to deter the feeling is by being competent, in my opinion, in martial arts. That's why they were invented. They're not arts of offensive fighting; they're arts of self-defense. Most martial arts have to do with the mind, ultimately, not simply the ability to knock somebody down -- the ability to be unafraid, to walk away from a fight without fear, without having to fight. That's control. Control is the key in all of this, naturally, to overcoming fear. You will learn that control as you gain control of your time, life and mind through the practice of Zen meditation and through the study of the ten thousand states of mind.

You have to take on your fears one by one. You need to work at them every day. Oh, that top ten list is there, and you might start with public enemy number one, the fear of enlightenment, the fear of perfection -- that's number one on everybody's list. It might be unconscious, but that's the biggest fear. The way you overcome that fear is by meditating, by having mini-enlightenments.

I like this part with the guitar solo. Do you know dancing is one of the best ways to overcome stress? And laughing and loving and getting a little silly? Has it ever occurred to you that you're just taking it all toooo seriously and that it's all going to work out; you just need a little more faith in the processes of life? You just kind of let go and unwind. Slow it down. You're only here for a while. Might as well have a good time. Relax. (Zazen music ends.)

Why does a person experience stress? Well, to begin with, there is really no such thing as stress. In other words, stress is a popular word that indicates a condition of mind, not something that really exists in the world by itself. Oh, I'm familiar with all the popular theories, the fight or flight response, and all that sort of stuff. But that really has very little to do with stress. Stress is a state of mind. It doesn't exist independently of itself. Go out in the woods and try to hunt a stress. Bring your crossbow or your shotgun and get yourself a stress. There is no such thing as stress. Don't objectify it and think of it as something that is outside of yourself. Stress is a state of mind. It's a state of mind that you enter into, like all states of mind, and it is a state of mind that you can leave. You simply need to understand how you have entered into that state of mind, and even more importantly, of course, what it will take to get you out of that state of mind. I personally think it's nice to know what got you into the state of mind so that you don't do the same thing again. You can get out of it, and that's great, but then you can go right back into it. So in my approach to problem solving, I always think it's a good idea to have an understanding, which is not necessarily intellectual -- sometimes it is, sometimes it's intuitive -- of what causes a problem, a difficulty, and what the solution is. Of course, part of the solution has to be to avoid the symptoms or situations or energies that led us into the problem to begin with. Otherwise, we're just back to taking Excedrin or Anacin or Valium. Do you know that Valium is the most popular prescription drug in the United States? Stress. A lot of people are in that state of mind. Now, if you look at stress, the first thing you're going to want to do is figure out the things in life that cause you stress and try to eliminate them. The koan is: The world doesn't change, but you do. Oh, the world changes in the sense that continents rise and fall, nations come an

If you’re not doing some things that are crazy, then you’re doing the wrong things.

Humility.

Fears are aversions, and attractions and aversions lock you into limited states of mind. Who are you anyway? You are an idea. What distinguishes you from that great endless universe out or in there? Just the concept of self. In other words, you think, "I am." You don't just think, "I am." You think, "I am this," and if you think, "I am this," therefore you are not that. You think, "I am not that," therefore you are this. "I like blue better than green. I like girls better than boys. I like Boston better than Cincinnati" -- things like that, those sorts of thoughts. Everything you like, every attraction, sets up an immediate aversion.

To overcome stress, you go out to the countryside, you go out to the desert, you go to Hawaii, wherever it might be, or just sit at home. These things will not necessarily overcome stress because your mind goes with you wherever you are. People drink, they drug themselves, they pour alcohol into their bodies, they get involved with lots of kinky sex, they spend time with people they don't like, they do all kinds of things to just break out of the stress pattern. None of which, of course, work. They all just make you feel a little bit worse the next day.

The thoughts and ideas and images, the fears we have, the desires we have, are not really our own. They were given to us by people who are not very happy. Look at the condition of our world. Practically no one is happy. The world is poised on self-destruction. We annihilate our own species in vast quantities all the time. Obviously, we're not dealing with a very intelligent race of beings if all they can think to do is destroy each other and gain power over each other and manipulate each other at every opportunity, which is what happens most of the time here.

You are independent. You can do whatever you like inside your own mind. You have the power to say yes and the power to say no, always. And that's what Zen is all about. Saying "yes" and saying "no" and going within to that deeper part of you, and getting in touch with it and making friends with it and learning what it wants. Because when you are in harmony with the Tao, with the deeper part of yourself, that part of you that always changes, and when you follow its inclinations, then, as Henry Thoreau said, "You'll walk to the beat of a different drummer." And that beat will be the right rhythm for you.

There's a deeper mind and a surface mind. The surface mind is the part that's been programmed by everyone else and is filled with ideas and images. Within you there's something deeper that's very still and very intelligent. That is what mind is, as I refer to mind. The thinking mind is a simple machine. But the mind beneath the surface is ancient and is connected with all things and all intelligence. Meditation is the process of stilling the outer surface mind so that you can become aware of the deeper mind within, which has all the answers. There may be something very interesting 20 feet below the surface of the ocean. But if the ocean is filled with waves, we can't see it. As soon as the surface becomes calm, them we can see into the depths. Meditation is a process of learning to still the mind, both in formal meditation -- which in Zen we refer to as zazen, sitting down and meditating for 20 minutes or half an hour or an hour -- and also during the day, as you're in the midst of activities. Learning to be still, to be where you are now -- without having your mind wandering all over, thinking a lot of useless thoughts, and getting you all stirred up and agitated -- this is mindfulness. It is the other part of Zen practice. Where you will bring your mind, specifically, where you are and not have it wander all over the place, so you can bring the full force and power of your mind to bear on whatever it is you're doing.

Your deeper mind has everything already. It knows everything already. It has all the answers. And if you can gain control of the surface mind, then the deeper mind will control the surface mind. It will send it the right thoughts and inspirations and feelings. Whereas if only the surface mind is operating, it's like a tractor and the operator has fallen asleep and the tractor is just going all over the place -- it may be destroying the very fields that the farmer wanted to plant. But if the operator is awake, he can control the tractor and grow a lot of food and do his job and be a winner.

Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz As I mentioned before, there are two practices. One is formal meditation, which is zazen, the other is mindfulness. Formal meditation is what you do when you're just sitting around once or twice a day, meditating. You're taking the time to sit up straight and focus and gain control of your outer mind and make it still so you can go into the inner mind, and the two can join and become one. That's meditation. This is done through the practice of concentration, which is focusing, and meditation, which is letting go. Control and abandon. Focusing and letting go. Then there's mindfulness, which is what you do the rest of the day and night, when you're not sitting formally and meditating, and this is the practice of learning to be where you are now. When you are in the supermarket, you should be in the supermarket and only look at what's going on in the supermarket, and not have your mind all over the place. You should shop and put your whole mind on shopping. When you're at work, you should just be working and put your whole mind into work. When your mind drifts, you should bring it back to your work. When you're driving on the freeway to work, you shouldn't be thinking about work and what you're going to be doing in the office, you should be experiencing the freeway and the music or tape you're listening to. When you're in bed with someone, you should be in bed with them. Experiencing them. Not thinking about someone else who you'd rather be in bed with, or thinking about your job and so on. When you're out running, you should be involved with running. When you're dancing, you should be involved with dancing. This discipline, which is called mindfulness, comes about through practice, and it's lots of fun. It eliminates a tremendous amount of stress. Stress comes because you're putting yourself in too many places at once. You're thinking about too many things. If you didn't think, there wouldn't be any stress. Now, the answer is not necessarily to avoid all thinking. Sometimes that's done in meditation in order to get into the deeper part of mind, which doesn't think, which has more sophisticated ways of processing knowledge than thoughtword constructs. But during the day, sometimes you need to think. Sometimes that analytical form is useful. So the thing to do is to practice mindfulness. You need to monitor your mind. Whenever you're in a room, you should confine your thoughts to the room, unless for some reason you have to anticipate something coming next. In other words, you shouldn't have your mind drifting all around. So begin practicing after this tape, being where you are. Monitor yourself. Observe when you're in your car, what you're thinking about, and stop thinking and be in your car. When you're in a meeting in your office and someone's speaking, listen to them and don't be thinking five steps ahead. Stay with them and observe. If you need to do some creative planning, which is necessary sometimes, then take your whole mind, sit down, close the door and do your creative planning.

So concentration is the most valuable thing there is, the focusing. For the first ten minutes, sit there and focus. Then for the last five minutes of a 15-minute session, let go. Close your eyes and just let go. When thoughts come in and out of your mind, just ignore them. Instead just be still. Try to feel that deeper mind of yours. Don't try and ask it anything. It already knows what you want to know. It is all intelligence. It is your mind. It is the universe. Just let it come through you in its own way.

A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman. Imagine if on top of everything else I had a woman who interfered with my work!

Nirvana.