Sunday Forum; Huston Smith: The Other End Of The Log

This is true for everybody but I think when I'm with somebody who's calmer than I am I get more nervous about Honestly the natural equilibrium of things that use and among other things used to have his own television show closer just says he's very comfortable with this and I'm sure quality for those whom you've been here for you know the routine that I'll go through it again for those who are here for the first time. My name is Will Fitzhugh and I'm of the resource center stage. I live in Sudbury and the evenings have been going those are the first first thing you do is have people say something like that I mean what they do where they live their families who have an idea of who's in the Senate and then you sing along to some sort of and then for the first 15 minutes Bob I'll try to think of a good question with a series of them and then I find I usually run dry about 14 minutes or so. At that point also it produces people sort of join in and ask what comes tomorrow and then to follow that for

about an hour and then as we get towards the closing we could pause and you if you sing a chance to say there may be questions that you like you can do is wrong. Didn't get a chance to work. We want to say something good summariser sometimes when you're answering questions sometimes things occur in the sort of build up and if you don't get your so you can say you know so we can try. So. Larry said Roy was right. That is breaking news to. Tell you about God.

Did you see.

Susan based. On what. You've been reading. Houston's low. Key the loss of fear that night is that this is where United I gather was so long. More a little later. Yeah sure. Well I guess you know the two questions I don't know exactly which one I guess noticing me you know dedication to the religions of man. I was wondering if you were born in China and we you know how long did you live there. Until I was 17 so I must have been a culture shock of sorts coming here. Actually I wasn't because my parents did have furloughs

every seven years and that meant that I was here for the first grade and the south and those. Acquainted with what was in store. And apparently a very good job of that because I recall when I came over for college. Far from being a shock it seemed like after we go I like I had never been any around so just come some of the way home did was there. We rode up in the American compound rolling in money Americans are. Well it was a compound in the sense that there was a wall around it but ours was the only house in the side of the wall. We were in inland believe it was a village by their standards. But because of their population

there. Actually was a. Population of. Seventy five thousand people. But I've only found two maps of China that were large scale enough to show this little village and it was very large for these hundred and seventy five thousand were packed in to the city wall circular wall one mile in diameter. So you rapidly is pretty small. You probably didn't go up very high. It was just almost was very close to go. There was one pagoda which was eight stories but other than that two stories. What part of China was it in your shack 70 miles inland. Which meant that it was a full day's journey 30. Long. By train. Yes but this was rural and we were for the most part the only Americans

there. So it wasn't as though there was an American on line. All contacts outside the family except for a couple of years to other families. Most of the time. My guess is partly because I've always wanted to go to China such a big place since you the idea that you can walk six thousand miles alone you know go out of the other side. So I take too much of this but I assume that it's a quite a various country since it so large must be a great variety of terrain and that's a roundabout way of saying I don't know where Shanghai is and what kind of country was it was among those or if it's on the sea coast Shanghai and about halfway up. So it would be with a little south of Philadelphia. With. My life. Farming country. Yes of course it was all agricultural.

Very little in this three years anywhere in China. Then there would. Not. Recognize. This. Fact. You know I was so proud of this farm that you were you must have spoken Chinese. What sort of Chinese was that. Well it's known as the dialect of the Shanghai area dial. But you know as much as all every contact outside the home was with Chinese until the age of 12 when I went to high school there boarding school and up until that. Week. Did you study you know as good.

I was going to say it's told in my first word with China. On my nanny was holding me up to watch the wedding procession go. And that was of course. The word horse and thereby establishing fundamentally how do you feel about the you know you if you're going back in well I'm going back to Asia. Many. Fortunate. Couldn't go back. But of course being a U.S. citizen. I was. Going to. Go to Hong. Kong but I couldn't get to the mainland. I did actually. Went one summer I was in Australia and was talking with some psychologists and at that moment there was a

little tiny thaw and they thought that I had maybe one chance and hand it to when they took me to a travel agency. So I did try but I didn't make it my application was. Except of them and my wife is rather glad she was back in this country but she was had some concern because the economy and this don't respect the extraterritoriality and the fact that I was born there by their lights I was a Chinese citizen and she could just see me going back for a visit. On merging 20 years later to write my memoirs I was a member of the people's progressive army because their draft age was somewhat higher than ours and I went to school with an elephant. What were they what they say about it's me you never are you going to curse me you live in interesting to show you

were it was interesting times when you were there right. When was. The turmoil and so when you have to get out of your family to get out at some point we had to refugee one. So. I was then. Seven years old. This was when Chiang Kai shek was take over a lot of conflict in the area with the warlords. Word came one evening that we must leave the next morning. Kerry taking only what we could carry ourselves in. Hand And as a boy of eight seven. Yes. That's what I remember about that was we were told we could each take one home and. That the land. Taken leaving home not knowing whether one would ever. But

as it turned out after nine months we were right. But that was the only time we had refugees. And in the main it was a time of internal conflict. As John Guy shot in the morning established itself over a lot of factionalism. But then the Japanese came in the year after I left high school 36 and. After that there was a war. We should listen and unrest was building up during this period including some rising anti foreign feel which prevented suffocation. But it was serious. Very very watered.

Growing up like the noise here was what their cultural expectations that you must draw and from being in another culture were but one way of asking about it would be to say that. So I think of sort of course you're a professor and I think of sort of a clerical tradition in China of people learning texts and so maybe that's all gone by. But I wonder how did you form an idea when you were young of what your career would be. Was it influenced by the church Chinese models at all not at all. It was it was simplistic. I had my presumption was American men were missionaries. You know I had one. One for you one to me. That's all I knew from my own theory. And so I just assume that never question.

Almost like a traditional society where one is what one down I know that was very much the case in the china around us called going once for my father to have some SU rooms made my father asked a man how long have you been a silvers and he said 400 years you know with no sense that that was in any way US strange and good stuff. Did you know I come from a true linear that is distinct from girls. Well I do. So there's just no question in my mind but that's one. Do you think just your time rather for years that you can assume that perhaps you were a bit embarrassed about the run away that became the silversmith four years ago a group of women reporters before the are you going to put that idea

change when you came and saw other models in this country. Well I did and I went to three or four stages but they all seemed so clear cut. It was well that the immediate change which was during my first year in college when I realized that not all. Americans were missionaries but still. That the next step over was to be a minister and the dynamism of this country and the interest just caught me off. So within a year I had given I thought of going back as a missionary. But then I sure did. Minister and then. That held in place through college. But then when I went to graduate school then the life of the mind really did begin to open up actually that begun. But ideas came to

rival the physical world in terms of their reality form and at that point I began to suspect that the demands of a parish ministry were. Diverted from the life of the mind which really had come to take possession. So then the shift from Minister to being a teacher. And at first I thought well I'll keep reading and then but then philosophy came in that's the last day. But those two kept pretty much in hand. So in my teaching though my appointment as always. The last special at first but then the. Last religion how much my background affected this but lost religion all the way around the

world. Most people just arrived at the West. But. World Religion is interesting because one of the things we're actually in your is just teaching your teachers are you kidding when you say the life of the mind sort of. Was there anybody that contributed. Oh yes. Clearly in college I had one. This must be very stand. There. But there was one that you would know better what psychological forces right now. But I just really I don't want to go there. They are all for him or is it somebody that we would have heard over.

And Minister was the president. It was a lot. But at this point why do i still. Garden. Fashion is very the most I'm a person for about three or four years now with some perspective one sees to just coming in the realism of the year but that doesn't set normal. It's a funny I was thinking you know where you sort of give it over remains of what I really should what you do really. What was it about the person at the top really.

Well he he was he was very and a legend. He was an excellent one took some interest. His students and their wisdom was. That. One day when I read an excerpt from without I got a name right here one word. For your one word. He said something about it with you. Significant his words are. Just. The warrant for him never was so beautiful or something so this was somebody who taught you.

We were first. Yes he was there he had joined the faculty at home to be his first year in my life and then you continued to study with me whether other people around. Well I studied but all through college my college experience he was head and shoulders above all others so the interest I had as courses in his well he really was. Quite sure this is OK. The very best that. Always possible. He was a teacher of Lost yes lost lives. And then when he went to graduate school did he sort of direct you to the Rose school. He certainly did. It seemed sort of dictatorial at one point I was going to. Go to Yale.

He said I think you'll go to should I went to Chicago. Do you know what period with this have been when you were saying going to Chicago when you're the fourth quarter by. So I took one year out to go to Berkeley to actually write this. Chicago's was functions there the auction certainly was. That was that pretty same thing. Well he was president of the universe you mean. Sure. When you think oh my god. You know. Anybody in particular was was a nobody struck you the way of the worker. Well actually it was the lineage I'm beginning to feel like I got in with the

silversmith 400 years. But yes my this teacher Edwin Walker his teacher was he had gotten his due and his major professors met him with one of the school thought. So Walker swore by Wyman so course I ended up swearing by wiring and I actually heard myself. I think suspicion by marrying his daughter. I married the boss's daughter someone there still. Earned my degree I don't really like no you certainly will. Well that's part of the reason I went Berkeley to get out.

Of. That. And technically it was sway switched devices so that writing my dissertation. No wonder those amenities are so similar to what I really should stop when I was your dissertation and you know what this is. Cation kind of sound. It was the metaphysical foundations of textual listing the loss of your religion core one very into the relation between metaphysics and religious. But it was really working out the religious implications of pregnant. John do you. When you're working on this you draw again from a number of religions. No.

It was very interesting but from my childhood those childhood years when I say I got caught up in this country with America completely though that was happy but very distant memory and or through college and graduate school I had no no interest really and certainly none in Asia thought well my teachers I had one was a very different time now for a stage and all of them seemed more heavy She's all around us. But in that time they weren't and I I did have to take one course in the world religions undergraduate and then my graduate. But they were the dullest courses of the entire curriculum. And Jews have been looking back on it.

I I just marvel at how those men could have suppressed the material that they were doing. They must've been geniuses in a way that you do have if. From what was there one of the. Devices I see in retrospect was that in neither of course not even in the graduate course did we ever. Oh but one of the primary sources for that out of the game was always westerner is talking about it in some kind of patronizing way like this was archaeological theory. As I say just sealed up and it wasn't until I had my branch or had my degree and it fell my lot to keep courses.

What train have no interest in world religions. But I was that close as being a philosopher. So the dean said you do it and then I. Still remember that you first Will. Punish us. One of the two most powerful reading experience ever had just horns through and I just stayed up practically all night and never knew that. But at some level I had seen instinctively to have believed all along was true but that some I could put it into words but that was always the other the other case. The other occasions when I was in third place and I was working at that time. When that moment on the affection of Jesus then you are. Coming from the problem of pain so I went to

the Wheeler library in Berkeley and just looked over the card catalogue pane and. Leafing through titles and I came upon this one. Pain sex and tongue by somebody I never heard of her. So I went to my room in the house with about 5 or 6 books. After supper went to my room. Sat down with those books and this will sound like I have the most interesting title and I. That was the. Hope. By the end of the second page I knew it had nothing to do with my thesis but I just knew that was the time I didn't read the whole night through. And when I put that book. Down. Dawn was breaking and I had made to us.

The first was that I would not read another line by that man until I had my degree because I was afraid if I did I'd never get back to my degree. And the other one was that when I did have my degree would read everything. H e a r d s. I really just want to just as well or just I feel really selfish for that. I know that I rather legions of men I know that you do the show in St. Louis and I'm wondering if you if you would say something about that and if it came out of partly your own valley experience with people suppressing the qualities of other religions and you wanted to correct it in some way. No that didn't come through my instigation at all it was just that educational television was coming onto the scene and saying

the US had a stage and they had a very good young man who was now directing the program but he was sorry that. It was his idea that one down. Actually of course for. Adult education I think Roe did give one unit of credit even. Most of the exams so he just went prowling around the campus to find out what might feasible forced to try this venture. Came upon me also a male so I looked up and that was it was very well received and people all of them that was the first part. For me it was you and now you can do more of this.

But to people thinking that they could be a way to go back to college in general way even the one unit one of the better at least it was was making a venture and they took ratings and. Station hundreds. Now there was a man came up that was associated with the running of those like yours right. If it hadn't been put down to. Put him in. But that indicated that it was a real interest. Kerry. Somewhat okay with. This.

Well that's a very good question. I've what I've asked myself this many times and all the people who have asked me and I am sure that it's a complex picture there are lots of nos. But let me give you the ones that I'm aware of. Well I think we the West is drawn towards Asia and our time and also in a way pushed toward age. Let me begin with the push for several things. First of all most of the interest is among the young. Not entirely. But. Welcome. And maybe there's some generational.

Conflict it's a way of telling your parents often you don't doubt their faith but reach out for a different kind. Second religion gets mixed up get institutionalized and in doing so takes on lots of the evils that attend all institutions and so when people look at their own religions why they see so much oh why. Anti-Semitism. Mantei clerical laws. And all these evils that attend religion but largely because of its institutional aspect. Now the Asian religions have just as much as we do. But you don't see that from a distance. It would be like somebody from the other side of the globe

reading the Sermon on the Mount and this beautiful woman but what the distance between that and the Grand Inquisitor of Dostoevsky or trousers. Fat fryers you know who are self-indulgent. OK so you don't see them again pushing us as perhaps you do in Southeast Asia. Things like. What is yours. Yeah well those are the things that might give a little push to look elsewhere. But now for the things there are also things that hall and I think one of the plans there is. Well let me put it this way in the West for the last 200 years religion has presented itself and largely of Morella plus a little do this don't do that.

Morals and them backed up by certain theological reason. Now I think where have the time and I don't know where the psychedelics have contributed to this but where that kind of packaging of religion no longer if I use commercial terms no longer sell to people today they don't want more allied to religion and primarily in terms of more telling them what to do. Why these people are not even in a new morality. You really do want to own. The experience. It's a direct. Realization of the divine or you might see a change in the focal length of consciousness to actually experience. Divinity.

Plus a method for getting there. So we might put it in terms of a formula that wears Western religion for them in terms of morality plus belief. The Asian religions come with. A new experience and a method for it came from Maharishi is just an example. Of the people. But he says you don't have to believe anything. You just sit down and give you a month from minutes or 20 minutes in the morning and see what change is resolved. Well the Asians have been more explicit about religious experience and methods through him and I think that's great. There are probably other reasons too with those. Do you have anything that you just. Read.

It is a good little bit about what you're going to get if you talk about. Yours. But you know. The lack of values of. College teaching you just write well. Oh I think that article of the one I'm thinking

about those high school. Values Colin academic and it was the only. Discussion of the academic sort of late. Well that's the general thesis. Believe but. I don't know. I was just wondering if we could talk about. Making anything anything produced in philosophy to say what the common. Something. That. Religions do with their bases.

But I'm wondering whether there is a body of knowledge people working. I mean it seems so obvious that without it there is a necessary step. I. LOVE YOU VERY MUCH further Robert Coles once said that the great healer speaking of the research on the human personality onto genetic development in this article on memory here in the progressive magazine a number of years back and I often wanted to go back and look this morning mist

suspecting years that may be. This sounds terribly radical but someone has the ring of possibility that we know more. Perhaps all there is of importance to know in this area. It's just a matter of applying what we do know in a certain sense that seems right in the sense that children are children but all of us need to have a sense of self worth. Things like that go by such varied names as generosity of love or larcenous of ours. In your personal dealings the opposite of. Self centered

self. There as a work kind of first class you might say. But the reason that they are planted huge is because they're true. So some of them I think the really fundamental things we probably. Know but never learned you might say never learned in the sense of keep forgetting about war. And I guess the main thing is not even that you forget where they are. But how does one maintain the vitality to show the way in which one knows when to shoot. It's not just a man. I remember a letter that came from sister my

sister. Or Erica and she was writing to us basically to my wife and she said. The child psychologist say that I ought to love my children more. And she said I couldn't agree more with what they say. They just don't tell me how to do it. You know all day long with them wonder what the demands on us from a million rose demands. I suspect more than knowing that we need more information. I would go as far as. Call Maybe if his was a useful overstatement I'm sure there are some of them. But I do feel that the emphasis that the great lack is not that there's some little bit of information regarding human development that we

don't know yet. You know it's an institution that you were you know in the story we just saw. Boston. Well again you just have to be able to drop in here. They read the Bible to us. This isn't Boston High School. That's where people can just say you can just read the Sun. We get very Christmas holidays that Xander classes for all of us to look at his desk it's just Christmas we have really

different religions at home and I think we go very separate. I realize that this is the incumbent president and we have a strong interest Marine now shelves were completely different from what I remember him very careful not to use the word go because I was a different guy. None of that is in the ratings. But there is just formal and that's not. Quite. True. I don't think the teachers are at all sure of anything they say. Joe you know this is right. This is Ron gets going with their own ideas that the little

kids the dancer gives 5 year old 6 year old you know. I want to say when I'm sitting down in the rain to take that crap away from my. You know with this and this is a six year old. They're not asking you for anything. Here's where we're wondering yes Isn't there a tremendous life you know school on the body of knowledge that would kill everybody. Is there any way into your body what we know are you thinking this is clearly more of what you can more out. You can bet your sister. All right.

Probably it would be probably there should be no one could say of value system in the sense that we would be x y and z as the values and the students would learn X Y Z in the values. But then there is the question of the example. So one could distinguish them but I think would want to say that. They all. Want us. There. If they simply acknowledge conceptually that. As being there. With. Them. So let me go on. There should be well no difference between a value system. So let me just share a little thing it was of the as you say Close Association annual meeting

last week and so forth and there are so there is a group of US university that is working in the schools teaching called words Oh you development just I'm trying to teach. Well the whole hierarchy of values anyway somebody was in the audience was saying you know well it should be taught in school the school is for information and thinking like that. Or socialization or something but not you know no religion no sex no use no all that's to be done outside and I don't want that what we want to bring that around sort of back to you is. I guess partly related to the article that you wrote about human values not having a full partnership perhaps in the in the college curriculum. Have you felt through exactly what the right word is whether it's especially MIT and wondering if you felt like a fringe benefit I guess or something that you do somehow the kind of thing you were interested in was in the mainstream concern or at least no point of view

for MIT people. Oh I don't think I'm phoneline French. Because there's been no problem in terms of student response. And those are the ones you're working with. Now it's truth at MIT all my work is on the graduate. And that's another. School Syracuse next year. For that reason I wasn't aware that I was hungry for I wasn't restless but when the offer came which would involve heavy investment in the graduate program I realized well I hadn't had that experience or something that

curiosity led me to say yes but I wasn't feeling rest do in my TV because of my interests. As you say not in the main stream. I wonder if there's one way of asking this would be as a word of the Oracle come from but I'd like to say that. Well you were you were at MIT during the Apollo period. Actually I was very shrewd I took that here and left a ship going to 69 69 70 very big during the whole period of women when MIT was producing people to work on that program and I see that you know that was so I don't know how many 10 years any time I want it really it's sort of touching on general questions about our culture and what's included. But I do do people preparing for technical

careers is it maybe you've already said no to this but I ask again is it is taking a course in the philosophy of religion or philosophy at all. Is it like. You know people in Paris and then they give those seriousness come due. Or how do they reconcile this in terms of their or their preparation for taking leadership in our technical society. Well if you ask how they do it they do it in a variety of ways and probably all the logical possibilities are spelled out. But for everyone who for whom the humanities philosophy is simply for after hours you might say after 10 p.m. for every one of that you will find one one of that

kind you will find one whose life is just grabbed by it and he says he gives up sign it so it can work the other way around too by the way I don't regard that as a success curse. My reason for being there is not to force a very British to leverage your surname to the UK and I don't think there's any any game one way or the other vocation. There's a place for different kinds of vocation one finds oneself with but I don't think there's any one of us. Sure.

So. I guess you know no other feeling you know you're on the front lines of the you should be telling me. But but from my preserver just. There's a saying that. More on. Religion. After coffee and behind this little flips statement is of course that they see that it's really it seems to me through example. Right. I'm. Afraid you're right but that doesn't alter the bus.

And of course one of the one of the useful thing would be to this we didn't call for an investigation. What is the the hidden curriculum as over against the surface through the surface curriculum is what every college catalog from elementary school says what we're asked. And then what we are really yeah what what the the truly operative values may be very competitive. For example and to those who truly have found very quickly that those of the real of those that. Offer it. But. In the paragraphs and purposes. Of the school. What. They do here. So they're kind of. You know and it's been done. Then I teach them some snipers book called.

The hidden curriculum. And just then. The most. Honest and accurate term draws to come to the surface are visible right here in The Hidden Reality. That's where the wheels really turn. This question. Was. Teaching children. That. This. Was. So.

The General's Daughter. When she recently. Why. Would you. Want to think it was worth it. But I think you take your standards much more than you do. You. And your child. Were there already is I don't know the feeling. Pretty much what you do. And I wonder whether in your child there was

going to be history with you or with. Me. 31 it's particularly interesting because I you know I had dinner with my wife. Before coming. She was sort of like you know kind of in the evening. And. I said Well. There's. Something. Wrong. With you. And she said. And she has come to the. Right point one of the most important thing was the fact that until during the grades and before every crisis being in this little

village. But my parents wanted me to have it. America. Chinese education because you know coming from my mother to the two brothers and she that was your salvation because I was very small as a kid. Talk about slow bloomer or slow learner. And this came out when one of our daughters turned slow slower than the other two and we were concerned and my mother could come in with respect. Don't worry too much you know Houston was very slow. It's clearly the slowest of the three. No my wife was saying that if you had been in the pressured school. She doesn't think I'm going to skate developing pretty low also

because I couldn't I couldn't do it as fast as the other people and given a little time when I'd get there. But it took the time and that may be what you're saying. I needed the time. Certainly I'm not quite sure whether the sucess but I have booked what you say sounds exactly right and the crew that I mention may give those who come later. But certainly if those contradict what you say so goes on. We'll. Just wait. I guess what I meant was I just I think the guy is a missionary here. I wonder whether that was

most of what you. Say. Well there's a lot and was there much less selfishness. Means that we don't get on easily. I mean it's certainly not the sort of being on the line on duty also. There's a reason for the repair the software. Will take care of number one little bit. I didn't know no one looks by. Doctors when remember. But. Do one of the others. He was always present. I don't recall ever being in love or. Duty driven in the.

Direction of the UK's. There was not. Recollection of a related question and you said that they wanted you to prepare for an education in those days so some of them and also there weren't a lot of other American film rumors sort of when your father was an example in America and so on. Did you have Were you the missionary son or did you have time to play with your peers locally. Was there any no no problem a lot of time you know to wear starch color and not play that kind of the image of the representative of the firm. You know obviously if we were to go through you some of the missionary story tell your book. I guess that's so hard to get a picture of what it must be like.

I get I have trouble believing really that you could have made the transition so easily you know who I am working this thing about cause I'm going to. You must for instance you most of my friends be so well except of course everybody graduating class was coming to this country. So you look people behind when you went to high school you want to be American. Oh when I went to high school I said Oh well that was a different man then I'm sure I knew no one in high school who had a. Brother. But that's that age we use is like a different generation. Well it was very. Remember them. In one. Room but I was eager to go. The world was opening up and then when I got there just hopelessly homes for about three months.

Saturday afternoon just go out in the fields and wind down to cry. And that lasted about three months and then after that just absolutely loving it and. Summer vacations were too long because you couldn't wait to get back to your friends. So it was that most of an exciting new idea of a whole group going back to Savoy preparing for an exciting new life. Yes most of the time. Oh yes but there'd be 30 miles away and that was a whole day's trip. So we had our counterparts and it was always a great occasion when one would make that theirs. But it would be very frequent

except in the summer. Oh yeah that's right. That's right. We were spread out but there were others of our time. As I say in the summer why we go to Mt.. Hill Station and there. Will be lots of ones own nation now. Yes for the first time there. Didn't his parents have furloughs. I never knew another American that stood 16.

What was his experience. Yes. I wonder if I know what's his. Right. Hand son. I have sons for many. Take a little time. Will I talk about tuitions.

Well it's a word with numbers. I guess when you think I think of it as a mold of direct knowledge rather than you know. Can you help me a little bit as to the kind I. Think of. Myself. Right. Question. Wrong. Where. Structure

one seems to. Realize. The final. Question What is. One of the. Three. You. Said as you used to you know yourself the problem

is usually. More essential. Sees. The space. Which is the. Whole. Story. Also. While I believe all that you have said that I think it seems like yours accurately that there that it's one thing to have brains. Which would be to have faith in some propositional knowledge but it's another thing to direct plain and immediately know. And if we use the intuition for the latter part then intuition involves a special kind of knowledge when one when the

knowing human I know Laura will then know and we become that which we know now that's the highest you know type of knowledge in that at that level. Belief is no longer necessary. If you're looking at the sun you don't believe there is a Sun is better but really honestly. So I agree completely with the direction but I don't know we can leave it there. Well plan just a question. Desire. For. You child. Or. West to east west.

Is in the situation. Oh. Well it's immensely important. I don't think I have and I know nothing occurs to me that and who's. Here. Yeah I feel like I'm not on the front lines in my mind work with some of her just closing what I sense to be. Thing in comparable worth in these various conditions and then.

When students some will see it some don't. And when those that do will either appreciate it from a fall or someone to move towards it and but that seem it's not. Basically I'm sure there's very much in common between the first graders and third graders but on the surface it looks like from the look. And. Feel. Really. That. They're. Right.

Yes. Yes yes. Yes yes and a very interesting legal through what we are going through. I have less confidence less certainty that they will put a positive affirmative lay they may people to escape some of what we've had to

go through because after all what the. Protein men in the corner of the world write in the subway. You show no capacity to go on their own accord in a way in which India India or Japan. Not because we're. Part. The. Other countries are in rows with friends from south south and they'll stay out of the way and they're necessary in order to the center of the world the Middle Kingdom here. Well so that they may not go what the three of them do.

But the rigidity to the prudishness. I'm sure that these terms have different meanings in different contexts. You can put it another way they're not hung up on sex the way we go but the way you want to put it. Sex is not the issue an issue. This is a. Very. Well we certainly are more permissive. But again that doesn't mean they're up tight right. Good vs.. You're right. I don't know. You know Gary Snyder with

your son. He's lived over there. But he spoke about that. He said. He just one thing you can understand that Japanese young people that hear me in the early 20s their life what do they do with their sex. It clearly wasn't the fraction of an issue with that it was was with us. I have a little theory. I think you can. Part of it is on that issue is when you have group that are very high. Aspects of one's being RMF in a group

situation where these ties are so strong that they. Want to sort of fuse through the group in the community. And it's when we get as it were a more isolated and alone that this. War's become such a glaring fact that he has a need to find us other people or something. Anyway sex is such a complicated thing. In short it's a mystery. Nobody understands my. Work but to come back to the Chinese thing. They're definitely work oriented. Rigid Now that's an interesting point. See there's a whole different attitude towards social reality.

We in the West I'm sure we think of the individual as the basic unit of social reality and groups well groups are relationships into which individuals. Now the Chinese just turned that whole thing upside down I don't mean that they follow through and so one of the concepts of their basic assumption is that the group is the basic unit of social and individuals. What. You think about in the car of the mouth from the group for purposes of analysis if you want to but don't think they have any independent viability apart from the group any more than the eye is viable or plucked out of the horn and it's not a way a group oriented mode of life. And it's a very interesting question which one should we

ask is right which one sees is better. Why. Yes. My.

Question was can one. Well I think we can be sure that individual ism has grown out of a group orientation because all traditional societies group born individual is a. Rarity. That's the exception. So at some point I'm still very. Young. Well I think I covered myself a little bit with a little bit more cautious in saying this. I'm not sure that they need to go through this already. They have. You

know their moment of life intact in the face of. Let's just say industrialization. Granted they're still predominantly in the gray area in the agricultural society but there's no doubt that they've got factories and machines there. They're moving very steadily towards an industrial society. But while keeping their values and their social life. Amazing. So I am the way it looks now they're not going to. Do. They're not going to let you roll. Oh. Yes you. Heard Right.

Actually social structure or it was a question that. Changed. In the. Nation. That seems to be the natural trend here. Maybe China. Just crest and howl at the degree to which they seem to be honing in on those who do the same about China as a sea that sucks all rivers that flow into it. Seeing the situation so different states of the jurors or the small group those who are bought from. Europe in this enormous experience of very

own and it was fairly in the room. Each stream coming in was larger than in sort of the ocean the part that was already there. Restrainer doesn't have a continent to Experian has a hundred million plus people. It's on the situation is so different really. It's not as though. Another empire is other countries going to open up to China and that show is just sort of a visit from the visiting group from some other place. I don't either but it did lead us to from some work pretty questionable. Just come back to your situation as a child. If the basic unit was the family and there were a large family assume generations together it was the numbers of children that's Or was your family seen as sort of a sort of a you know an incomplete clinical little group of five or whatever people say that you were you sort of impoverished in the sense of not having 60 or certainly relatives.

I'm not sure how we were seen but I but I do suspect that they found it very peculiar that five people would guess you two would pick up you know just loose their moorings and. Go. Halfway around the world. And the. Rest of their family. But I'm sure that scene very bizarre is all very good. Maharaj ji you. Know you're you're referring to somebody who has become a disciple. You know you start when you do this. What does one say. These things are happening like the Beatles

piece was set a number of years ago but I don't know maybe there's a further question one high and I'm not going to listen. It's just a lot of places you know sure. True. Well I you just to say it doesn't surprise me. I don't know how many people. Well all of these happened almost every day like the last one was Ralston Purina damn fourth family. And since I was in St. Louis I got to know them very well but know their grandchildren. One of their grandchildren wants to go to India. First it was for the summer but not a stay a four year to apprentice himself as a disciple relate to this one because neither of the gurus that we've

mentioned here put one over there. And so they write to me what do you know about this what do you think about this happening. They obviously were taken by surprise but it's just so you know. Oh oh I see. Yeah well that's another thing. We as Thomas Moore once pointed out and all this Huxley was fond of reiterating. Man is like a multiple amphibian we live in various mediums like see and then land so we have our public life where our lives overlap and nation state and this is the world the sphere of the Today show in the morning.

John Cho there was a comic crime reporter in the evening. Taxes and wars and who gets how much when. Today it's Watergate. You know that's our public sphere and then. But that's not all that we have of the inner personal sphere. Home. Loves and romances face to face and then you can say behind that we. Are the private sphere Rumanian which we look down on the world. Some way along with others yourself to questions like this to fuel how do we learn to live with ourselves the only acceptable when in many ways you know we are. What I'm saying is that there are these periods of our existence and some people are more oriented towards one and the current jargon for

that is where it's at and some people think it's in the public sphere. Others in the interpersonal and others in the private But he but we all of us live to some extent and all three of these. And it's not unusual if one puts might see a little too many eggs in one basket and then black some of the others that there will be a pendulum a pendulum swing back and without knowing this fellow your person is visual. He probably figured. Oh I see. They're learning to connect us to some who say you know you were saying about I think teaching values you serve and volleyer forgotten but it was in effect by example firing the

gun executives because they're not there because you know I guess the transient trying to Lenny's question perhaps there at least in some people's minds there's a shift from the idea of confronting and teaching and demanding and trying to make people different to making oneself different in the sense of right is that the kind of thing you hear as you do here that's happening there. Yes I think I think that yes I think that certainly on the college campus we're passing from activists play to. Much. More. Private. As I said before I practiced personal notation and only one of the reasons I do that is because at least they talk about it that one can be. It isn't that one is alone more private and more rested or something during practice but that by

improving oneself so that way one can be more effective. So the really question would be are people of bandaging. I think it's interesting people on the outside aren't sure whether people who are becoming more private are giving up or are they trying to be effective in another way. Right well I guess as I read the social scene in The Sun Times and I think we're in a period where the Liverpool goal of improving life through the lack of social action and public programs and the like is undergoing severe. Self-searching from the inside.

And you might see it on the other side. Somebody said it may rue the day that all of the programs failed or none of the programmes of John's. Some have work now that may be an overstatement and I'm. Sure it's an overstatement but at least that's what we were feeling we had more holes. Somehow it hasn't worked out as well as we thought. I think the danger is that there may be room for deep defeat too much of a defeatist. But at the moment I think that the roses you're going it's going to be good.

People. Yeah. That's interesting about time away from people who have a son and daughter in the Eureka program and one of the things that they do in their years is a week of sauna where. Every where food is actually down in Chile why they were to go out in the desert. There I think it was like 40 days in the world. But everything's very good. No room in the apartment building or something but you're just gripped the wall so you have blank sense deprevation you're thrown

back on yourself. And food is put in twice a day but for a week and I realized when they were going through that that I have never been a fan I. Know I've Been In Zen monasteries. Some very nice training centers but it's sort of very much in weird but there were there was always that other mo one pony away that is never far from reach down I could touch him now we can say anything so it be a week of silence like that so I have that kind of him in weirdness but i'm not have. I don't know. Two days of. That. Sure. What you get I suppose. Mom tried that packing. Alone and there'd be a lot more stimulation. Me

me me. Well we practice things other than you know we're home. You know I'd like to say that it was from unpeaceful but it was just it was a sort of an oil deal. But that was because of so much going. You know. Baby killing. Oh lotus position. And we were in sleep deprivation through three hours and the first night was just higher than that the second day you're just a voice. And then you take it from there. You know it was anything but Suze and I must say that

most of my time was whether I will survive. This year I wouldn't but I know that's kind of breaking with you know only had nine weeks and after very few so you know and I'm sure it's just words. That's just what I mean. Yes yes. Must be a full on deal with that system. You mustn't give your form to a value system probably. You're very. Funny. I have this feeling that you with my practical problem. Children. Just in school never feeling that most of us come with that we don't come from

traditions that were understood by those of us who were aged quite rigid systems are. Very. Very you know in America there is this thing. It comes with its own but the kids that are coming you know many of them are in the current groups and. I'm just wondering if we say as Cole said we know these things in general. And forget forget about it just isn't enough you know this. And if you don't reach a point as you go then

here is the generation period of time has to create the best of. Their lives they don't really get where. We are right now in the here and it's going to be together. There is this spirit of the challenges you're doing here. They don't. Want to. Hear about. Formulations that well and yet I think without them you don't. But I don't know what to. Do.

But I wish I could give you the world but I know you already keep team teaching series was great. I had one experience of that two years ago from a Catholic school so there came a letter. Dear Professor we. Are studying religion. We do not know much about religion. Will you tell us about religion. Has somebody there was a different kind of letters that he occasionally my God. Well you know you're open so I could come on right here. No formal duties and I got kept in that room. It turned out to be. I understand this is not the best period the paper felt like the period from IBM and really I just stepped into that room

with 30 year old who is third or fourth graders and I had no idea what I had planned to say but immediately I knew that's not gonna work. But I got some kind of inspiration. I just wonder what am I going to do. That's all I do with my plan. Do you love it. Most of time I used for my plight in the public eye can you prove me wrong. These are. You know. That's not the kind of corporate America. And I wondered how what does one do in a situation like that. But I didn't and some karma was on my side or some because I got an inspiration came that the first thing one size you can't do something.

Oh man energy. So turn the classroom into a send off. I said OK come on everybody off the pool we Zendo it's open space and we've got to get all these chairs and desks you know that was great if I could jump to their beat and get into this gross motor activity and so on and then I said OK but they don't talk about religion they do it and they do it in Japan. By many things. Remember now the first batch. Yeah they do it in a special way they do it you know with their with their latest cross. And so come on everybody and that was fine because some of them knew how to do it you know they're small they're limber and some could do full lotus and so on. So we got all lined up and then then we decided OK how long are we going to meditate.

And the first three 15 minute I said that's a little you know that's a long time because not only do we not make a sound but we can move. You must not move at all so how long can we do this with not many. It's like 12 minutes. Long. We finally got it down to two men perhaps realistic but it wasn't quite as realistic. One mistake was not having anticipated this. I didn't bring along the case of the day because that mind of America by the ignorant will nameless if they kill for a few minutes. But of course the nervous energy so they tried why they giggle you know. The nervous giggle just broke out. While I don't know quite how I got into that story except to underscore the fact that this is a different world when you're dealing.

It seems to me in a way using video very wonderful. I've often thought of I didn't teach in college I really like nurses but that's mainly a personal thing but but it's the comments or the incommensurate ness of the true teaching situation. I'm sure some level of abstraction from you towards what you're doing would be uncommon but I know what jumps out that is the difference and for me to presume to do that in that you know if you do it for the sake of that yes. Thank you very much. For your way things I think we got some expressions of when it was mine and I'm

just doing this when I came here. And then maybe I will. So the joint was still. Not coming up from the bank. The only. Question. Was. What. Are. You. Still.

Thank you. While.

You. Were. There. Right. There. Thank you very much.