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Be Yourself

Welcome. Warm welcome. Happy to see you all.

I imagine you're here because you all have your own reasons for being here—all of them good. I'm assuming you come to a place like this out of goodness, you could say maybe out of love, that you love yourself. Do you ever think of it that way? You love yourself, and you think something is going to happen here in your meditation. Or right being here, maybe I'll say something that will be helpful.

It's just so nice to be here. It's a sacred space, so it's nice to be in a sacred space where we maybe feel held in love. In this sacred space, this holy place, thousands and thousands of people have come here to be healed.

People come here out of love for themselves, out of compassion for themselves. We want to be free. I want to be free, and I'm assuming you want to be free.

So that's compassion, right? Like you see a dog that's maybe in pain, and you feel you want it to be free of that pain. Or you have a loved one who's trapped in an affliction, and you want her to be free.

I don't want to presume too much, but I want you to be free, and I'm assuming that you all are here because in some way you want to be free. You have compassion. You have some essential compassion; there's something in us, this basic inclination.

I had a cookie before I came here tonight. Maybe it made me happy. I want to be happy, you want to be happy. Anybody here not want to be happy? Raise your hand if you don't want to be happy. You might say, "Well, I'm a masochist." Well, that makes you happy to be a masochist! [Laughter]

It's so beyond psychology in a way; it's so essential. From when we get up in the morning... I didn't know what I was going to say tonight, but here I'm saying something. It makes me happy to say what I'm saying. I love to talk about love. It makes me happy to talk about love; it makes me happy to talk about compassion.

So think about how you went through your day today and all the things you did out of care. Even making your bed, brushing your teeth—it's caring for yourself. Going to the bathroom, we always have this love in us. It's all day long. I just crossed my legs; I'm a little more comfortable that way. You just moved, getting more comfortable. It's okay, it's good.

We should recognize we have this, but maybe sometimes we think we're bad. The Buddha said, or somebody like the Buddha said, we have this love that is so strong in us. It's like the way a mother cares for an only child; this love is so strong.^[1]

So Buddhism, and the Buddha, and all the Buddhist masters—and I think all mystical religious masters—say that we are love. That we are compassion. That we are awareness. That we are wisdom.

Think about who you are in essence. Who you are. We have all these thoughts, all these identities that come through our mind—these boxes. And we step into those boxes, and for a while, that becomes me.

As I was sitting here tonight with you, I wasn't trying to think about what I was going to say, but different things, all these beautiful things kept coming to my mind: "That's a good idea, that's a good thought, that's a good thought." But out of love, I let them go. I didn't want to get caught in a box.

It was deeper than grabbing onto that box. It was more essential in me to let go of that box. It was kinder to me, more compassionate to me, to let go of that and to allow the boxes to come and go.

And then there's silence. Can you hear the silence in the room? There is always silence. There is space between the boxes, and sometimes the space lasts longer.

And I think we want to be really silent. We want that to be our meditation, to exist in silence. That's what we want. We strive for that; we meditators really love silence. But that's really grasping at silence, too.

We don't have to grasp at the silence. The silence comes naturally; the silence is between the thoughts, and the silence is always here.

So if we relax into our own essential kindness, which is always here, we can count on this essential kindness. We can count on this essential love. Then we don't have to worry so much about the boxes.

The boxes don't matter. You could say, "Who cares about these boxes? Who cares?" Rather than stepping into a box, letting it—allowing it, allowing every box to free itself. They will free themselves. They do, even if we grab hold of them; they'll free themselves eventually. What box were you in an hour ago? You don't remember. So it does free itself; it always frees itself. We've been creating boxes for... I don't remember, I am 78 years old. I've been creating boxes for 78 years, and they've always freed themselves. Amazing.

So what's not the box? What's not the box in you? What is it in you that isn't this little prison that we create for ourselves? What's in you that is much bigger than that? Is it the silence? Is it the love? Love is always here. Is it the compassion, the kindness that allows sounds, sensations—allows the whole kit and caboodle to arise and cease, and arise and cease, and arise and cease? Allowing, allowing that flow.

We can try to grasp and stop it on a me that is particularly wonderful, particularly praiseworthy, particularly... I don't know. [Laughter] And these are all awareness, kindness, and love. They all exist. They're all qualities of being. Just being, just relaxed, open, aware being.

We all want to come home. We all want to be ourselves. We all want to come home and relax, and just not worry about all this stuff. But we do worry about all this stuff. We worry about the human value system. What I'm talking about is not really human... I mean, it's very human, but the human value system is what people think of us. Stuff we worry about: our reputation, our glory. (I think he's having fun out there, he's happy, he's having a good time.)

So who are we? We hear that, and maybe you feel... we see... we sense. And we're aware of all these things that are going on. We're aware of our feelings, we're aware of our thoughts, we're aware of our hearing, we're aware of our sights. And all those things that I mentioned are conditions that come and go, and come and go, and come and go.

But in this instant of time, there's this awareness, this presence that knows what we hear, that knows. Can you see that in yourself? That knowing. There's this knowing, there's an awake quality. Are you aware? Are you aware right now? Aware of sound? The great Buddhist masters say this is what we are: we are awareness. All those other things, all those conditions of our so-called life, come and go, come and go, instant by instant. But awareness doesn't come and go.

The Greeks called it gnosis, g-n-o-s-i-s.^[2] All these great cultures, religions, they all know this in their own particular way: that fundamentally, we are awareness. Other than that, we're nothing at all, because it all comes and goes. You can't grab anything. You can't grab that sound, my voice. You can't grab what you see. You think, "I'm seeing this," but it's really changing. My focus is changing, whatever is out there is changing. And I'll leave this place, and I won't see that anymore anyhow. Sensations are changing. But my awareness in this instance isn't changing. The awareness is here. The knowing is here.

What if, instead of being devoted to things that are changing—like praise, blame, reputation,^[3] like money, like getting something material, like a success, like some temporary glory—and being so afraid of the opposite, of criticism, of disapproval, of being neglected, of not being recognized, so afraid of failure... We have all these problems of low self-esteem, low self-worth, anger at someone who says something we don't like, fear that somebody's going to say something we won't like, or that we're not going to get what we want to get... all these afflictions. What if we weren't so devoted to those things that come and go, and just were devoted to this that doesn't come and go? This awareness. Like I said, try it out. Don't even make any effort. Just be.

What if we're devoted to that, which includes love? Because we're allowing it all, just allowing it all to freely flow. And that's freedom. When we're not grasping onto one of those really painful boxes.

I heard that these devils create hells for us—hells of anger, hells of fear. But they become angels when we let go and let be. They're ushering in a bigger understanding for us. Your afflictions, those devils, if we allow them, they can be angels.

Questions and Closing Story

Do you have any questions or comments about any of this? I don't think there are any questions, no. Anybody feel like saying anything?

Well, I could close with a story.

There was this rabbi whose name was Zusha,^[4] and everybody loved this rabbi. He was a very wise rabbi, really good person, completely renunciate. People would give him money, give him stuff, and he'd give it away. His family... well, I'm sure it was fine, but they lived in kind of poverty. And he was very wise and good, kind.

So it came time for him to die, and he was crying. He was sobbing. And all these congregants that loved him were around his bed. "Zusha, why are you crying?"

He says, "I'm crying because I'm afraid to face God."

And they say, "Why would you, of all people, be afraid to face God, Zusha? Are you afraid that you weren't wise enough, like Moses?"

And Zusha shook his head: "No, that's not it."

"Are you afraid that you weren't so completely devoted and loving of God, like Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob, any of those great prophets?"

And Zusha said, "No, that's not it. I'm not crying because I wasn't kind enough or I wasn't wise enough. I'm not afraid of God accusing me of that."

"What are you afraid of, Zusha?"

"I'm afraid that God will accuse me of not being Zusha."

So what does it mean to be yourself? To really come home. Just to be yourself. Who cares what they think? It doesn't matter. It doesn't mean to not be caring, but not being so preoccupied with the human value system. Whatever you're worried about, whatever your problem is, recognize your innate goodness. Buddhism believes that we are innately good, innately pure—not innately bad in so many ways. No, you're all perfect, you're all innately good. You have awareness; it's unmistakable. You're awake, you're alive, you're not a rock.

And you want to be happy. You are love. And you want your friends, and really all beings—if we could, we would love all beings to be happy, I think. And we want ourselves to be free of afflictions, right? Compassion. We have this compassion.

And to know this, to know who you are, is wisdom. And we have wisdom. It's all here, it's all available. Okay, thank you.