Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 44-minute talk recorded in December 1976, Joseph Goldstein uses the Chuang Tzu parable of the gnarled, useless tree to explore the practice of non-striving and settling back into the unfolding of the Dharma. He contrasts the notion of usefulness with the protective power of uselessness, showing how ambitious self-improvement efforts and carefully maintained self-images—both worldly and spiritual—create obstacles to direct experience. Through stories and teachings from his three main Indian teachers (Goenka, Mooji, and Deepa Ma), Goldstein illustrates how the Dharma is not expressed in any one way, and that true practice involves releasing attachments to self-concept, letting go of spiritual technique as an end in itself, and allowing life to unfold with simplicity and ease. The core teaching: when you realise there is nothing to do, nothing to be, and nothing to have, you become genuinely free to act, be, and have anything—naturally, without grasping.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 12 CCG.mp3
UUID: 5bec53f9-1e15-4ac0-80f3-3bb08d630aaa
Teacher: Joseph Goldstein
Collection: Camp Cedar Glen (Joseph Goldstein)
Date: 1977 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~5,101
This recording of Joseph Goldstein was made on the eighth of December nineteen seventy six in Barrie, Massachusetts. One day Chuang Tzu, who was a famous Chinese Taoist sage, was walking along the road with a friend and they passed a very old and big and twisted tree. The tree was so twisted and so gnarled and so knotted, there was not a single straight branch to be found in that whole tree.
And the friend commented to Chuang Tzu that tree is just like your teachings: big and useless. Chuang Tzu replied, “Useless, you say? You should worry. No axe is preparing to cut it down. See the straight tall tree on the mountaintop—it is its own enemy. The cinnamon tree is edible so it is cut down. A lacquer tree is profitable so they maim it. Everyone knows how useful it is to be useful, but no one seems to know how useful it is to be useless.” That’s what we’re doing here, learning how to be useless. The very uselessness of the tree is what protected it. It lived to a ripe old age expressing its own twisted and gnarled nature.
What does it mean for us to be useless? It means to be empty of striving in an ambitious way, striving with a gaining idea, striving from a self-centered importance. It means settling back. This idea of settling back and being useless is talked about in other Taoist writings as the quality of being invisible in the world. Going through the world relating to people, to events, invisibly.
Again there’s a story of a prince in China who was going off on a monkey hunt. The prince and all his followers went to the forest, and as they approached the forest, all the monkeys fled except one. Now one monkey stood right on the edge of a branch rather defiantly, and the prince took an arrow and shot the arrow at the monkey. Very deftly the monkey caught the arrow just before it hit him. He held the arrow rather proud of himself. At that, the prince ordered all his followers to shoot at once, which they did and they killed the monkey. Because that monkey was demonstrating its trick, its skill, that sense of “look at me,” its self-importance, “I’m so clever”—it set up the energy, the forces of its destruction.
Just in the same way, when we go through the world with that kind of attitude, taking a stand in situations or with people based on a “look at me” attitude—”look at what I can do, look at what I am”—it’s not being invisible and it sets up a disharmonious energy. We find ourselves involved in a lot of conflict that way. One monk in Thailand, quite a well-known monk that’s living now, summed up the teachings of the practice and of the Dharma in one simple phrase. He said, “There’s nothing to do and nothing to be and nothing to have.” There’s nothing special to do and nothing special to be and nothing special to have.
In that sense we can settle back and allow the very natural unfolding of our lives to take place without a sense of wanting to become somebody important or wanting to become somebody special or to have certain things happen. That kind of gaining idea or ambition based on the idea of self—either self-protection or self-aggrandizement—is not in harmony with the basic unfolding of the Tao. Settling back, allowing our nature to express itself in an easy and harmonious way in every moment. Suzuki Roshi gave a nice example which I think we’ve read from his book to you. He talked about controlling the cow, and how the best way to control a cow is to give it a big pasture.
If you try to control a cow by confining it in a very narrow pen, it gets nervous and uptight and tense. So the best way to control it is to give it a very big pasture. Free and easy wandering, that quality. We can give that same large pasture to our minds. We don’t have to confine it in a narrow pen. We don’t have to wear blinders in our life, trying to get locked into the fulfillment of certain goals or ambitions based on the self-idea. If we give ourselves and we give our minds a big pasture in which to roam, in which to wander, then things get very easy. We’re much more in harmony in the present moment rather than reaching all the time or striving, trying to hold onto.
One writer who I’ll be reading from a little bit tonight used a few very pithy phrases to explain the whole process of this settling back into the Tao, into the Dharma, rather than the reaching out to hold onto something or to get something. And he said that what we are looking for is what is looking. We spend our whole lives looking for something either to have or to get or to be, out there in front of us, and all the time not realizing that what we’re looking for is what is looking. Because that’s the practice in the moment, that’s who we are right now, and the answer is not out in front of us that we’re going to get. It’s right here now, becoming what we are in a free and easy way.
Again he said there’s one question—and people have formulated it in different ways: Who am I? What am I? What is God? What is the truth? There is one question, and the asking is the answer. But mostly we come to our lives and practice asking the question. When we come to that place of wanting to know, wanting to discover, asking the question with the idea that the answer is out in front of us and either somebody is going to tell us what the answer is or we’ll find it out there. It’s not that—the very asking of the question is the answer because the asking is what’s happening right now in the moment.
In every moment the Tao or the Dharma is expressing itself. So what we have to do is not be reaching out or looking out but settling back. If you understand the process in this way, you get a better feeling for some of the Zen practice, especially the Zen tradition which uses the koan method, giving the mind a problem that can’t be solved. What is the sound of one hand clapping? What is your original nature before your parents were born?
Questions that have no logical, rational answer to them. And you go to the Zen master sitting on your cushion thinking about what’s the sound of one hand clapping, and you go and you say, “The sound of the trees,” and he hits you over the head. And you go and say, “My heartbeat,” and he hits you over the head. And every answer you come up with is going to get you hit over the head until you learn that there is no answer. There is no right answer to the koan. Rather, the answer to the koan is the ability, in the intensity of that situation and that confrontation with a very powerful person, the ability to be totally in the moment—not to come with a prepared answer that you’re going to present, but to be able to respond in the moment in a very total and full way. Again, the very asking of the koan is the answer.
It’s remarkable what Western culture has done to this understanding. There recently was a book published, “Five Hundred Koans and Their Answers.” Sort of like the Coloring Book, though. It’s not so easy to settle back into the moment. Our minds have been very conditioned to be reaching out, to be grasping, to be looking for an answer outside. There are some obstacles which come up particularly strongly when we begin the effort to simply settle into the moment and allow the Tao, allow the Dharma to unfold in a very organic way. One of the biggest obstacles that comes up and which influences our lives to a very great degree: the different kinds of self-images which we maintain and project.
We create self-images in a worldly sense and also in a spiritual sense. In a worldly way we create an image of ourselves which we like to present, to project to other people. And the number of self-images, the variety, is very great. People have self-images of being very clever and present themselves to the world, “I’m a clever person.” Or very dull. Sometimes you meet people who present themselves to the world as being very stupid and don’t know anything. Or as being a great lover, or a great hero.
Lots of creations in our minds, lots of concepts of how we’d like the world to view us. And that’s a tremendous burden, because an enormous amount of energy goes into sustaining that image. One of the very beginning kind of insights that came to me in my own practice in India was just how often and how frequently I would be motivated, very unconsciously until I began to see it in my practice, motivated to different kinds of action because that’s how I wanted to present myself to people. Dressing in a certain way, talking in a certain way. And I began to see that there was this image being created. It was possible to begin to let go and to simply settle back in a very natural way.
There’s a story, a Zen story of a Zen master in Kyoto. A person who had just become the governor went to pay his respects to the Zen master. He went and he gave his card to the attendant, and the card read “Kitagaki, Governor of Kyoto.” The attendant brought it to the master, and the master said, “Throw him out. I have no business with such a fellow.” The attendant brings the card back. Very sorry. The governor takes the card. He’s a wise man. He thought for a moment—he understood. He crossed out “Governor of Kyoto.” He said, “Here, bring the card back to the Zen master.” The attendant brings the card back. The master says, “Oh, Kitagaki! I wanted to see that fellow.”
When he presents himself as the governor of Kyoto, there was no communication possible. He was presenting a concept, an idea, an image, a veil. As soon as he presented himself simply as he was, it was possible to come into relationship. When we can let go of our self-images in that way, of any kind, then it’s possible to relate very directly to everybody you meet. You can really be there totally because you’re not creating a barrier that you’ve created and are trying to sustain. It’s very freeing, it’s very enlightening.
Spiritual self-images. People get into practice and carry over that same tendency in terms of what they think it means to be a spiritual person, a meditator, a yogi. “Oh, spiritual persons wear a certain kind of clothes” or “are very humble, always look down” or “have to sit in full lotus.” A whole range of ideas that people create. Again, it has nothing to do with any of that. One of the great teachings that can be had is that which you learn when you study with several different teachers. Then you begin to see that the Dharma is not expressed necessarily in any one particular way. There is no one way to be.
When I was in India I studied mostly with three different teachers, and they were very unalike in personality, in lifestyle, even in style of teaching. One of them, Goenkaji, was a businessman, married, very wealthy man, five or six kids, very much into the household life. Very dignified, very powerful. Jack mentioned him last night briefly. When he sat in front of the room, his power was so great—of love and kindness—you could feel it. You could feel it radiating from him.
Another teacher, Munindra-ji, who is unmarried—what’s called an anagarika. That’s somebody who is not a monk but has given up the household life, lives as a celibate, very poor, has no money at all, just dependent on what people give him. Just as Goenka-ji was very dignified and stately, Munindra was very light and airy. He was a very great scholar as well as a yogi. He had studied for many years, practiced for many years, had a very broad range of Dharma understanding. He was not locked into a particular technique at all.
What was very beautiful about his teachings was the openness and receptivity to all kinds of differing teachings. Whenever people would come to him and ask him if they could go study with somebody else, even if he knew that it was a totally off-the-wall trip, he said, “Go see. Go experiment.” He said, “The Dharma does not suffer in comparison to anything at all.” And with that kind of trust and understanding, it made for tremendous openness which was very inspiring to me.
But also his personality expressed itself in ways that caused a few second looks. He’d be running around the bazaar because he had so little money he was very careful about what he bought and how much it cost. He was always bargaining with the people in the bazaar. And to go shopping with him was really a trick. He would go from peanut vendor to peanut vendor and sort of shaking the peanuts and figuring out which vendor had the freshest peanuts that day, bargaining over like two cents worth of peanuts. He wasn’t going to be cheated.
Finally one student came up to him and said, “You know, Munindra-ji, here we’ve been learning, we’ve been hearing teachings about choiceless awareness and not to be discriminating and the great yogi has no preferences. What are you doing?” And he said, “When you really understand the Dharma, you become simple, not a simpleton. You can act in the world and you can do everything you have to do, and it does not mean becoming a simpleton.”
I have another Munindra story which somewhat illustrates that. It has to do with—it’s a Sharon story. We were studying in Bodhgaya together for a while and then she went to Calcutta. She was doing some business in Calcutta. She was going back to the train station with a friend and they were late for the train, in a rickshaw. In Calcutta this was one of these rickshaws that somebody was pulling. And they went through some of the back streets of Calcutta to try and get to the train station on time.
All of a sudden, in one of the really dark back streets, there were a lot of people there. This one big Indian man jumps on top of Sharon in the rickshaw and tries to drag her off. She was very, very frightened. She looked about and there was nobody in that crowd of people who was going to help. Finally, the friend she was with managed to push the guy off the rickshaw and they got the person who was pulling it to hurry and leave the street. Anyway, she made it to the station, came back to Bodhgaya. She was telling Munindra this story. “What should she have done?” And Munindra just said to her, “You know Sharon, with all the loving-kindness in your heart, you should have taken your umbrella and hit that man on the head.”
Sometimes you have to act in the world. There are situations where it’s appropriate to take very strong, decisive action. And this settling back into the Dharma and into the Tao does not mean not acting. It means acting from a place of loving-kindness, from a place of balance, from a place of seeing clearly.
Goenka was one way, Munindra was another way. The third teacher I had was a woman. Her name was Dipa Ma. Certainly one of the most extraordinary beings living on the earth now. She had an incredible development of mind. She had done the path of meditation, of concentration, of all the different states of samadhi to the very highest levels possible, developed all the different kinds of psychic powers that are possible, and also did the path of Vipassana to very high stages of enlightenment. Incredible, incredible strength of mind.
We sit and perhaps after an hour the mind gets quiet for a moment or two. How hard it is to get the mind concentrated. This woman Dipa Ma had the training, had trained her mind to such an extent that just upon resolve, in a moment’s time, in any posture, whether she was sitting or standing, she could go into the deepest states of concentration just by resolve in the mind. It was very inspiring to see that that’s possible and to see somebody who actually had done it, had done the training in the same way that we’re doing it, but who had such great parami and such great forces of purity within her that she was able to attain to these very incredible states.
What was so interesting about meeting with her and talking with her is that she was totally invisible. Here’s this woman who has such an extraordinary mind. She lives in one of the poorest sections of Calcutta. Going up to her room on the third floor—you have to walk, it’s like going through a dungeon, dark and dank steps. It’s really poor and very unpleasant. You come into her room at the top and it’s like light is radiating in the room just from the power and purity and love of her mind. But no show at all. She just goes about her daily life. She’s very invisible because she understands the very important distinction between power and wisdom.
You know, people often have very powerful minds but then take a stand on that power. “Look at me,” a “look at me” attitude. She understands so perfectly that power too is empty. There’s nobody behind it. And so she lives her life with tremendous humility, with tremendous invisibility. No show at all. It’s said that true humility is the absence of anyone to be proud. It’s not a stance that one takes of being humble—”I’m so humble”—then creating an image of humility which we’re projecting. Humility is the absence of anyone there to be proud or to be humble. And in that state of mind you go through your life doing whatever you have to do in a very fluid, flowing, free and easy way.
One of the phrases that Munindra-ji used most often to describe how to live the Dharma, how to carry it into your life—it’s a phrase which helped me so many times both in my practice and in coming back to America—he said, “Be simple and easy. Be simple and easy about things.” The mind which complicates, the mind which creates all sorts of problems for us unnecessarily. There is whatever is happening in the moment and you can relate to it and deal with it in a very simple and easy way. And you find that when you live simply and easily and deal with situations in that way, your life becomes very simple and easy. It can be done. It means just settling back into the moment, not creating a lot of self-images either about practice or about yourself in the world. Not thinking that you have to become a certain way. There is no way at all that any of us have to become.
No, it’s not that I’m going to become like any one of my teachers. We’re all going to express the Dharma through our own personalities, our own background, our own ways of behaving. And that’s a great relief when you realize you don’t have to become like anybody else. Everybody’s fine just as they are. It’s settling back into that trust, into that understanding, and allowing things to come out of us very naturally, just like that old tree lived to a ripe old age expressing its own nature. So too we can live our lives very easily expressing our own nature in every moment without a lot of grasping or striving or ambition to be somebody special or to have something special.
What’s so amazing about the practice and that understanding—when you realize that there’s nothing to do and nothing to be and nothing to have—you can do and be and have anything, because you’re not bound, you’re not imprisoned by that anymore. You can act in any way. You really become free in your relationships in the world because it’s coming in a very natural unfolding rather than a striving, self-ambitious way.
Concepts of self—the first big obstacle to settling back. The second big obstacle, and in some ways a more profound one, is not the concept of all the self-images that we create but the very attachment to the concept of self at all. Now it works in two ways. As long as we’re attached to the concept of self, we do all these things. We create a lot of images, try to protect it, defend it. We lead our lives based on this idea in the mind, and it’s an idea that does not have any substance in reality. It’s simply a very deeply conditioned mental concept, and yet it so powerfully affects how we live. This feeling of “I.”
It also works in spiritual practice in just the reverse. People bring to the practice the concept of self and then do all kinds of things to get rid of it. The ego is no good and they want to stamp it out. I’d like to read something. It’s a little parable about the ego. It’s a parable called “The Goose.” “Destroy the ego, hound it, beat it, snub it, tell it where it gets off. Great fun no doubt, but where is it? Best to find it first. Isn’t there a word about catching your goose before you cook it?” The great difficulty here is that there isn’t one.
We put all that energy into getting rid of the ego, stamping it out, telling it where to get off, and it’s not there. The same writer says that’s like putting a lot of effort into climbing out of a hole that we’ve never been in. That’s what we do. Again, the understanding of selflessness does not come about when you stamp out the ego or the self, but rather simply when you allow yourselves with a sense of trust and lightness to settle back into the experience of each moment. It’s so simple and easy.
Sometimes in the walking, people often come in interviews: “I haven’t got it. What’s the walking about? I just can’t get it.” There’s nothing to get. You walk and you simply know that you’re walking. That’s all. It’s just the being there with what’s happening. The same in the sitting. There’s nothing to get and nothing to become and nothing special to happen. Simply sitting there and being with whatever your experience is, and it’s all fine.
Often people create the same kind of attachment or obstacle to that settling back with regard to spiritual practice and to meditation. And they get attached particularly to the different forms or the different practices. “Disciples, devotees—what are most of them doing? Worshipping the teapot instead of drinking the tea.” They do that. Worshiping the teapot will not quench your thirst. It may be very nice and you light a stick of incense before it, but unless you pour the tea out into a cup and drink it, it’s not going to work. In the same way, becoming attached to a particular practice or a particular technique is not going to do it. What does it—and it can be done through many different practices and many different techniques—is letting go, learning how to let go in each moment.
There’s a story about the Buddha’s chief disciple, Sariputta. Before he met the Buddha, he had been studying with another teacher, somewhat dissatisfied. He didn’t quite feel that he was penetrating to a deep understanding. One day he was walking in the town and he saw a monk walk by, and this monk was one of the first five disciples of the Buddha, the first five fully enlightened disciples. And he was very impressed. Sariputta was very impressed by the poise and peace and dignity of this monk. So he went up to him and paid his respects and said, “Please give me the teaching.”
And the monk, even though he was fully enlightened at that time, told Sariputta, “You know, I am just newly come to the order of monks. You should go see the Buddha and he’ll tell you.” Sariputta pressed him and said, “Well just give me the gist of it, the essence.” Another chance. He said, “Okay.” Thought for a moment. Told Sariputta, “Everything that has the nature to arise must pass away.” That’s all.
As the story goes, when Sariputta heard those words—you know it’s such a simple statement and one that is not difficult to accept at all. Intellectually it sort of fits within our conceptual framework of the world. And then stop to consider for a moment the implications of that statement. Everything that has the nature to arise must pass away. Everything. The body, thoughts, feelings, emotions, sights, buildings, the planets, the stars, relationships, possessions. Everything which has the nature to come into being must also pass away.
If we could really hear that statement, see very clearly—there’s nothing to hold onto, there’s nothing to grasp. What are we doing in our lives trying to collect things all the time? We go through our lives trying to do and trying to be and trying to have, and it’s just going to pass away. There is nothing to hold onto at all. You can see that and realize that and experience that in each moment. What happens is the mind lets go, and in a very natural way settles back into this unfolding of the Tao. And it’s not a withdrawal from life. It’s a total being with each experience in its totality as it comes up, but without a clinging, grasping, possessive mind. Settle back and allow emptiness to unfold in a very harmonious way.
Now the Buddha did not teach Buddhism. He taught the Dharma. He taught the truth. He taught the way things are. People who get involved in Buddhism in a religious way—it’s like worshiping the teapot again, the outward form. What he taught was a very direct and penetrating way to understand the truth in each moment, to see and to be able to let go, not to hold on.
I’d like to read something again by Chuang Tzu which is a beautiful expression of a simple and easy mind. It’s what’s possible. “What is meant by a true man or woman? The true men and women of old were not afraid when they stood alone in their views. No great exploits, no plans. If they failed, no sorrow. No self-congratulation in success. The true men and women of old slept without dreams, woke without worries. Their food was plain and they breathed deep. True men and women of old knew no lust for life nor dread of death. Their entrance was without gladness, their exit yonder without resistance. Easy come, easy go. They did not forget where from nor ask where to nor drive grimly forward fighting their way through life. They took life as it came gladly. They took death as it came without care and went away yonder. They had no mind to fight the Tao. They did not try by their own contriving to help the Tao along. These are the ones we call true men and women. Minds free, thoughts gone, brows clear, faces serene. Were they cool? Only cool as autumn. Were they hot? No hotter than spring. And all that came out of them came quiet like the four seasons.”
All that came out of them came quiet like the four seasons. I think it’s best expressed by the teachings in the New Testament of Christ where he said, “It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles one, but what comes out.” People go on a lot of different food trips and it’s valuable to be in tune with all the issues of eating and food in terms of health of the body, how it affects the environment, other beings. But the purification of mind is not going to come from having one diet or another, and you can work with any diet that’s good for you.
There are wonderful stories of Ram Dass’s guru, Maharaj-ji, in India. A lot of people would come to see him on real health food diets. You know, coming from the West it’s possible to do that. And he’d go and he’d put them on the white diet for purity. White sugar, white rice, white flour. I know it’s a trick for a lot of people to let go of that one. Which is not to say that you don’t take care of yourself, and it’s good to be sensitive to what’s involved, but not to make another attachment of it. Again, to be simple and easy.
As one very insightful yogi has commented, “You keep only plop mind.” It actually is an interesting question, and it does seem very clear that there are certain patterns in our lives and how we relate to the world. I think it’s not so helpful to think in terms of there being this Platonic pattern into which we’re settling or falling, but rather we are part of the creative, dynamic energy which is creating the pattern in each moment. And that’s why the practice can become so fascinating in the sense that we fashion our lives. It’s not that we just have to live out mechanically and robot-like a lot of old conditioning, although that’s how many people do live.