Andrew Cohen - N°9 - LAST RETREAT - January 2025

So I made this distinction a long time ago between personal enlightenment and enlightenment beyond the personal. It's not a new idea. It's an ancient distinction. So one is about enlightenment for you personally. It's about your own salvation, your own liberation. And the second is about the enlightenment of the whole universe. which includes you but it transcends you. It's a very different attitude. It's a very different approach and the enlightenment of the whole universe as an aspiration is much higher than enlightenment for me. Now in these distinctions I'm making which most of you have heard before some of you are very familiar with they're very easy to understand intellectually but their meaning goes much deeper than intellectual and it becomes a When you when you awaken to their actual meaning, you discover a different relationship to to life and to existence that is as I've been saying about a lot of things independently self-existing in reality. Anyway, so what we find is that for many of us when we wake up that are in our unenlightened unconscious relationship to life including all the suffering and the joy we've experienced. It's just a big ego trip from a big perspective. Some of it is beautiful, some of it's painful. Some of it's interesting, some of it's boring. But from a certain point of view, when you're awaken to this second possibility, you realize that the whole thing was an ego trip the whole time. Now, this isn't anybody's fault. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not trying to shame anybody. But when you're lost in the ignorance of the small self, you don't know it. You're not aware of it. So, you can't be responsible for what you don't know, what you're not conscious of. to the fact that you unknowingly have been lost in eagle trip the whole time. It's not your fault. Nobody's fault. This is just the way reality unfolds and reveals itself is the experience of and they say this in Tibetan Buddhism is the obscurations that which obscures your awareness that which clouds your awareness begins to fall away and then you can suddenly see more clearly. You can see context that you weren't able to see before because your awareness was obscured or covered over by your own ignorance unknowingly. So it's nobody's fault. It's just the way the system was built. So ignorance is nobody's fault. It's not your fault except and until you see beyond your own ignorance for the first time. After that the dynamic changes. So until you know until you know better, it's not your fault. You're a helpless victim of the developmental process. But once you've had begin to have experiences of seeing through your own ignorance when you have then these obscurations fall away from your eyes. You see more deeply know more clearly what's going on. You begin to glimpse a bigger perspective. At that point you either take seriously what you're realizing about the nature of life itself. These are insights about life. They're not about you. When you go from the third tenant to the fourth tenant the insights are no longer personal. It's about life and about the process of life itself. Most of the insights we have when we practice the first three principles are about yourself, your own personal journey, your successes and failures, your fears and aspirations. It's still about you which is all fine and good. But the fourth and fifth principle here which I want to talk about this morning are not about you anymore. It's about life itself. It's about learning about the nature of existence to the nature of life itself. So this distinction between personal enlightenment and what I call evolutionary enlightenment or enlightenment of the whole is huge points to a fundamental motivation in an individual. So what they're very interested in in Buddhist philosophy and what I'm very interested in in this teaching is the evolutionary transformation, the emergence of evolutionary transformation at the deepest level of the soul and the unique individual of their motivation in relationship to being alive. It's a transpersonal emergent recognition about the ultimate nature of reality. So when you notice somebody begins to awaken in this way, they begin to awaken to a deeper context and a deeper purpose for existence itself. Not for their own personal existence alone, but for life itself. And that's what changes people at the deepest level. So what's beautiful about this is their enlightenment that it's not about them anymore. It's not about my transcending my own personal ego, my own personal story. It's about the universe beginning to wake up through this little body, mind, and personality. And that's a beautiful thing. But what's so significant to repeat is that the motivation changes. Your motivation will change in spite of what you think, in spite of what your ego thinks, in spite of what your ego feels. You'll become aware of a higher, deeper sense of purposefulness and purpose and higher motivation beginning to awaken to itself within you. That's beautiful. That's profound. That's meaningful. It has much more significance than what usually happens where the individual has liberating insights and personal awakenings which is good. It's not all about the individual. It's about my experience, my insights, my joy, my moment of freedom, which is good for beginners. But eventually we want to transcend these small moments that are about us and we realize what the bigger picture is all about. But what I'm teaching here, the essence of this teaching only really emerges. People awaken to this second principle is as long as it's about you. Even if your enlightenment is about you, it's still an ego trip. It might be a positive ego trip. It might be wholesome. Might be a spiritually inspired ego trip, but it's still all about you. It's all about your ego in the end. So this is something I'd like you all to think about and take seriously because it's what I'm saying is actually very real and it's profound. Another way I've been putting this over the years is that the awakening to the evolutionary impulse which I which is the spiritual impulse. When you awaken to the evolutionary impulse which is a spiritual impulse, you awaken to the desire to become more conscious. The experience of the evolutionary impulse feels like I must become more conscious. I have to become more conscious. I need to awaken. I must awaken. It's the experience of an evolutionary compulsion. Something I have to do. It's not something I want to do or I would like to do, but something I have no choice. I have to do it. It becomes over overwhelming that's stronger than how your ego feels about anything. It's a recognition of a higher motive or a higher compulsion. That's a big deal. So that's not about you anymore. It's about the universe. It's not dissimilar than the getting to the feeling of I must bear children. It's a universal impulse just at a much higher level than biological impulse. And then you realize as I've been saying again and again over our days together that there is a method to the madness that the creator had a plan. There's a famous song by a great jazz musician called Pharaoh Sanders called the creator had a master plan which I used to love and still do. So when you realize that the creator had a plan all along it's embedded into the system. It's very as I've been repeating every day it's very compelling and inspiring. But what I want to dwell on today is this point that what feels like the personal desire for liberation is very different than an impersonal awakening to an impersonal compulsion to awaken. The compulsion is awakening to a higher purpose that's not personal. It's a higher purpose that is not personal. There's nothing personal about it. It includes the personal, but it transcends the personal. So, what I I feel is so significant about what I teach and the way that I teach it is because I'm emphasizing this second step which most narcissists are not ready for. We're all narcissists, including me. So, I'm not blaming anybody. But narcissists don't like higher purpose too much. So what makes this teaching powerful when you really get at a deep level you can awaken to this deeper sense of purpose and purposefulness that's inherented that's already alive within you which has the power to utterly transform your life and create a completely different context of meaning purpose direction and value. And when that happens you are really in the awakening process. You're becoming an expression of the solution because you're not living for yourself anymore. the other thing to have yet and become for your ego's pleasure and happiness. I just encourage everybody to take this seriously because transcending ego is no joke. Few people take it seriously and very few people succeed because it's just it's uncommon in our deeply narcissistic shared cultural world space. We live in a world where the cultural world space is all about me and my needs and my desires and my pain and my suffering and my trauma, my ego trip. So when we embrace this completely different perspective, it's not about any of that. It doesn't matter what's happened to you. It's about what the universe wants from you. Now what you can get out of it for itself, which is a completely different shift of motivation. And when you awaken to this shift, it changes you. changes you not because you've had an experience of seeing the ultimate gundle nature of all of reality but because you've seen more deeply into what the universe needs from you wants from all of us wants from all of us wants from all of us so talked about this new culture this new society of know what he called noetic beings which I presume he meant were all the individuals who are awakened from the nightmare of the small self of the ego the tyranny of this narcissistic small self they're coming together in this higher context, it's higher purpose. So awakening to this motivation beyond the small self or the personal self is the first step in that direction. And it's not it's not hard to get if you really let it in. It's waiting for all of us to realize. It's all it's always already there. But it is the main first step. It's the big first step in this teaching. It's what makes the teaching come alive in people. It's not how good I feel about life or how good I feel about consciousness or how good I feel. But it's awakening to kind of a selfless motive. It's not you deciding to be selfish like in a heroic way, but it's experiencing what it's like to want something that's bigger than you for its own sake, which will make you a much better person. But you're not you're not just a domeic anymore. So what's beautiful is this is an awakening. I'm describing a kind of awakening. In Buddhism they call this this this is the same direction as becoming a bodhic satta it's exactly the same thing. My innovation has not been so big here. What I've just shifted is the the ultimate goal because if you become a bodhic satta in a Buddhist context in theory they say you postpone your own enlightenment. Do you stick around here on planet Earth to help everyone else get enlightened before you and only after everyone else is enlightened before you will you accept your own liberation? So that's beautiful, but that's a different context because as I was explaining I think yesterday or the day before, the idea about enlightenment there is outdated. It's about getting out of here. It's about getting out of the earth system. It's about transcending the reincarnational cycle. And that's not what this teaching is about at all. We have new ideas that this is about awakening to evolution. the evolutionary purpose inherent in the evolving cosmos getting on board with that. So the bodhicattic motivation is said the same as the traditional one but the goal of the motivation has been upgraded and updated this postmodern postmodern context where we've discovered the evolutionary purpose of existence the evolutionary drive in the universe and we strive to align ourselves with that. So it's a different goal but it's about becoming an evolutionary bodhic sappa more or less. This is not about escaping from the future but creating it as consciously as possible. It's the idea. So as I've been saying the first principle here is I want to be free more than anything else is always foundational. It's always the foundation of the whole teaching. no matter where you think you're at. And this is something I encourage all of you to think about. Even if you think you've thought about it already or you think you already understand it, please reconsider it. And what makes the first principle of the teaching all powerful is because it's absolute. It's absolute nature includes everything and all things you could think of or imagine. I want to be free first and foremost without conditions, without excuses. sometime around now. The beautiful thing about this this first principle is it gives everybody something to hold on to at the very beginning. It's much more concrete than letting having to let go of your mind right away. You can want to be free in a way anybody can think about it. You should let go of their mind say I don't know how to do that. Everybody knows how to want to be free more than anything else at the beginning. If you want to So the second principle is to aspiring to take responsibility for your capacity for agency and choice which is enormous. What makes the second principle so powerful is it's I want to take responsibility for my capacity for agency for all of the past no matter how many births I've had. all of the present and all of the future. I want to I want to aspire to take responsibility for all of it. Even though I know I'll never be able to do it, I want to try to do it anyway. So, it's the aspiration to take unconditional responsibility for the totality of who you are. It may be unattainable, but it's a noble aspiration. And the third principle that facing everything and avoiding nothing is very difficult. If you're facing a lot and avoiding a little, it'll show. It'll be obvious. If you're avoiding a lot and facing very little, it'll also be obvious. How well are you doing in your life? In your personal life, your professional life, your love life, your parental life. How are you doing? Does it look good? Does it feel good? Is it wholesome? Are there big gaps? Look for yourself. Don't take anybody else's word for it. But anyway, so those three are the perennial foundation of personal spiritual practice. No matter what tradition you're working within, these are eternal principles that will help to liberate you at all times, in all places, for all circumstances, no matter what. So think about them, practice them, consider them. Put them into practice yourself and you'll see what I mean. It's true. He'll show you what the way. And people say, "Well, I'm totally lost. I don't know what the way is." I said, "I've given them to you. I'm telling I don't know how to do this. I've told you how to do it. I didn't tell you what to do. I told you how to do whatever you need to do. It's up to you to do it. Nobody can do this for you." So then there's a line between the first three tenants and the fifth and sixth tenant. But this is this the leap between p what I used to call personal enlightenment and now evolutionary enlightenment. And as I've been explaining this morning, the personal enlightenment is about you. Evolutionary enlightenment is about the evolution of the cosmos. And this shift feels very different, feels big. And as I also already said, the teaching comes alive really miraculous and profound, purposeful way. When you have a number of people awaken to the fourth principle at the same time, it's not about me, it's about we. That's the big revelation. It's not about me. It's about us. It's a completely different way to think and it has profound implications on the kind of way and the way you practice enlightenment because what may be good for you in a personal enlightenment context ironically might be might not be a good idea in a we context. So it gets complicated and and uh complex. So what's the most important thing I could do if I'm doing this for myself? But it's what's the most important thing that I can do. Command is for all of us. Not necessarily the same answer. It's different way to think about choice. It's impossible to push somebody into this fourth principle. If you practice the first three principles, you'll get there eventually in your own time. Can't be forced. It has to be organic and natural. A natural kind of arising of a bigger context. But if you practice the first three principles with sincerity and earnestness, you you will get there in time. So as you develop spiritually, as you evolve, as you become more conscious, you will begin to see for yourself that there's very little about the human experience that's deeply personal. It feels personal to the ego, but your true self is nothing personal about it. Your authentic self has nothing personal about it either. Remember which is more real. How your ego feels or how your true self experiences reality expresses it. How your authentic self feels it expresses it. So it's very good as you practice meditation every day and contemplation and introspection and practice these considerations to be questioning the reality of the personal experience of being you. Is it as real as it appears to be? Is it is it as real as it seems? Is it as real as it seems? Or is it just another obscuration, another layer of ignorance? Big question. So I would say that the personal is real. It's relatively real. It's not unreal. It's relatively real. Make the distinction between relative reality and absolute reality. So but the personal is relatively real. Whereas the true self and the authentic self is absolutely real. So that's the big distinction. So you want to learn to see through the illusion of the the personal feeling of being the most important part of your experience. This feels very personal. It's very important to me. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were so touched. So the personal is a it's a layer. It's a layer, but it's not as real or as important as it seems to the small self. That's what you have to start seeing for yourself, feeling for yourself. It's relatively real, but it's not absolutely real. It's relatively important, but it's not absolutely important. But if you're a narcissist, if you're an egoomaniac, like most of us are, that'll be the most important part of you, most precious and most important, most intimate part of who you think you are. And that's as long as you feel that way knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, you're going to be off track. The personal feels like mine, right? Feels like me and mine. Is it really who you are? Remember, as I've been repeating, we're all having the same experience, right? More or less. So, we all feel that our personal feeling, experience of being me is so precious. We all feel the same way. We're all having the same experience defending the same illusion. You should try try to um pay attention to your own experience with an attitude of interest to see what's what's the difference between what's real and what's absolutely real. And you should consider what I mean by the fact that this personal sphere, this personal identification with parts of your experience. It's dangerous because it's very misleading. Very misleading. And the ego has very strong feelings around that which is personal, right? very strong feelings and you got to be careful when you start having very strong feelings of what's what's actually going on because the intensity of the feelings can make something seem very important that this is another ego trip. It doesn't mean a damn thing. So a lot of times if we experience something at the emotional level with great intensity we feel it's very important because we feel it with great intensity but that's not necessarily true. So you need to see these things for yourself. Pay attention to your own experience and see what's going on. Remember to your true self nothing ever happened. So it's for your true self the past is not never a problem. For your true self the past is never a problem. For your true self, for our true self, the past is never a problem. You shouldn't let that in. It's very profound. And if your authentic self doesn't care about the past either, authentic self doesn't care about the past. It only cares about what's possible now. That's a very different picture than how your personal ego feels about the past. Right? I would say it's completely completely the opposite perspective. Right? So if authentic self's position and the true self's position is absolutely real and the ego's position is only relatively real, we have a problem. Right? So struggle with the paradox. These are all paradox. Struggle with the paradox. It's impossible to do this perfectly but you'll you'll be in the right direction if you struggle with these paradoxes authentic being yourself you'll be on the right track. So when you make this shift from personal to bodhisattic motivation or evolutionary motivation in relationship to liberation what will happen is will be that your desire for liberation your desire for consciousness will begin to eclipse spontaneously and naturally without forcing it will become more present in your everyday experience naturally will be the attraction of what called the omega point utopia that exists in the future. So this absolute cosmic potential will suddenly begin to eclipse your awareness that will be just shining vibrating inside your something that's calling you and your worldly attachments or a lot of our personal emotions are better will begin to dissipate. It's very interesting how that works. It's not because you let go of anything. It's because your vision is now a higher possibility, a higher purpose. So a lot of egos, frustrations, anxieties, needs and desires are all being seen through because there's something bigger and higher and more meaningful. It's come into your awareness. So it's very interesting if you hear me speaking over the last days here. On one hand I keep saying we have to make a lot of effort to do this because it's very hard which is true and then at the same time I'm saying it's very easy and very natural and spontaneous and it'll happen by itself if you let it. which is also true. So struggle with these paradoxes that I'm speaking about because they're both they're there are a lot of people that feel that unless enlightenment is easy not interested in it. It has to be easy, effortless, natural and spontaneous otherwise they're not not interested as if they deserve that. I deserve spontaneous liberation. And why is that? What have we done to deserve that kind of grace? Then you have some of these hardcore Zen practitioners, you know, these tough militant heavy duty practitioners. They say, "Unless it's really hard and really difficult, unless you have to struggle and suffer and it's not the real thing. I think they're both right. We should put we should embrace both of these truths and we'll be in good shape." The way I think about it is whatever it takes is whatever it's going to take. So if it's going to be easy for a while, let it be easy. Don't struggle with your gift of grace. And if it seems like it's going to be very, very difficult, be ready to struggle. Then you'll be in good shape. You'll be ready for whatever happens. Whatever you need to do, you're not going to be complaining. So that's why with the first ten we need to have the attitude that whatever it takes is that's what I'm here for because then it's about the thing itself. It's not about how you feel about it or how your ego feels about it. Now one thing in all this is that uh we're not talked about enlightenment in a vacuum. We're not talking about this potential for evolutionary transformation in a vacuum. talking about this in a very complex interconnected cultural matrix of different kinds of beliefs, opinions, perspectives and truths. This is not a private conversation happening in a cave up in the Himalayas. So what my point is that in this retreat context, I'm speaking very simply. A lot of these teachings feel like they're self-evident at a certain point. If your mind becomes starts to slow down and become quiet, the the simplicity of the truth inherent in them becomes very tangible and very obvious. But we're in a very supportive environment here context. But the minute you step out of this very sheltered context, this focused context. You enter into the world and you enter into everyone else's mind at the same time. Whether you talk to people about it or not, it doesn't make any difference. You enter into a world that there's so many minds, so many opinions, so many viewpoints, so many perspectives, so many thoughts, so many beliefs. And unless you are really strong and truly independent in your thinking, very tough in a good way, it's going to be very hard to stay focused. We're speaking what's traditionally called these esoteric perspectives. Is very rational. This is a this is rational spirituality. It's rational enlightenment. But nonetheless, compared to what mo the way most people think is these are these are very esoteric ideas. They're not mainstream at all at all. And the inherent higher values inherent in the teaching are very countercultural explicitly or imp or implicitly. Realize that it makes practicing the dharma here very potentially explosive. It's not right or wrong. It's just the way it is. I'm not making a moral judgment. I want all of you to be aware of how subtle all this is. And if you want to stay focused on your journey, you have to be aware of the enormous complexity involved in what we're talking about here and how hard it is to stay sane in a world where most people don't know what the hell they're talking about. They think they do. Most people think they're seeing reality clearly. You know that. So the more you appreciate how esoteric these a lot of these ideas, I'm not saying they're original ideas, but they're inherently esoteric. So esoteric makes them inherently countercultural and just take responsibility for that. That's all you have to do. A lot of people think that if you manage to wake up and become a little bit enlightened, people are going to love you more. Probably not. Because inherent in the overwhelming confidence that comes from awakening to light awareness is this tendency towards absolutism that makes human relationship very difficult. So we have to be careful of that in ourselves very cautious and in other people the exuberance of non-duality the exuberance of seeing something absolutely clearly gives a lot of confidence but this I know I'm right and I know you're wrong. I know I see the truth has been a predicament for thousands of years and it's a predicament still here today. So in this new way of thinking this new more post postmodern way of thinking we realize that all perspectives are relative including the perspectives of the great realizers in some sense partially but relative we have to take responsibility for that too. Ramen a man might have been a beautiful man and a expression of egoist love which is very rare but that doesn't mean everything he said was true even if he thought it was true because he's an imperfect human being just like me just like you. So we have to learn to embrace all of these paradoxes all this complexity and struggle to say center because it can be very frightening because a lot of us in our emotional vulnerability want to know the truth. So we want to know what's absolutely true so we can find something to hold on to which uh is a difficult thing to do in the way that I want to encourage people. We want to find a way to be very confident and very open at the same time very confident but very vulnerable and very skeptical very flexible in your thinking. So most people find it very difficult to be flexible because they're holding on to being right. Their emotional well-being, their spiritual self-confidence is dependent upon their particular way, their particular path is seeing reality as it truly is. So for example, here interior would be the advant mythic absolutism which is a partial truth. It's it's part of the whole truth. It's not the whole truth. But if you think that the advant position, absolute position, mythic absolut is the whole truth and the only truth, then anything other than that is delusional and wrong, which makes you right. You're one of the lucky few that sees everything correctly and everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong. So, aren't you lucky and aren't you clever? Everyone else, we can feel sorry for them. But this has been the human predicament for a long time. This is not a new problem for us. It's an ancient problem. So we need to really realize that this part of being on a spiritual path is dealing with all this damn complexity. And the world's more complex now. The truth is more complex than it's ever been. Like for example, I've thought a lot about this this the difference between self-actualization and self-trcendence. Self-actualization is when you become a whole person. When you come into your own as a unique individual. We would hope in an ideal world which we don't live in this self-actualization would occur when someone is 18 19 20 21 in their 20s or 30s that means you come into your own as a unique individual you gain a measure of self-acceptance and belief in your own inherent value as a human being self-actualization. And then I make a distinction between self-actualization with self- transcendence which is going beyond the need to be somebody at an egoic level which is very rare very precious very esoteric but this need for self-actualization as a unique individual is a very recent phenomenon in human history. It emerged in full force at a cultural level with my generation and baby boomer generation. We're the first generation in history that needed to self-actualize as unique individuals in order to become whole people. Our parents' parents didn't need to do that because as I was explaining, they were more they saw life as fitting into predestined roles, mother, the father, the whatever it is. So this is a very recently emergent cultural phenomena, the need for self-actualization to become a fully functioning adult. But I was thinking about this. This is a very recently emergent evolutionary necessity for us. But two and a half thousand years ago when the Buddha was alive, very few people needed to self-actualize as unique individuals. The whole idea of being unique individual probably didn't even exist yet. But for individuals at that stage of cultural development, being a true believer was enough to become enlightened. Which would mean if you heard the Buddha give a talk, realized who he was, that he was the enlightened one, experienced his luminosity, experienced the truth of his dharma, that was enough. Then you when you had no doubt that he was the one and his dharma was peerless. That was enough. You didn't need to become a self-actualized unique individual in order to carry that knowledge. You had no doubt. You can embrace this recognition in a mythic absolute context. And that was enough at that time. But in the time we're living in, it's not enough anymore. Being a true believer is not enough. It won't work in the long run. We need to embrace our need to self-actualize and our need for self-trcendence and negotiate the territory with great skill and uh sensitivity because you need both. It's a tall order. It's very complicated stuff. Easy to talk about, hard to do. But the thing about being a true believer is why what's so good about being a true believer is you don't have to think anymore. If you become a true believer, you're convinced. I found the way. I found the one. I found the truth. You believe it. It'll set you free. You won't have any doubt. So you your inner experience will be enormous freedom, dramatic freedom and self-confidence. But that won't work for us anymore. I want you to appreciate what I'm trying to say here. It's much harder to become a self-trcending, self-actualized, mature, unique individual than it is to be a true believer. Much, much, much harder. And to attain this goal, we all need to be doing a lot of spiritual work to go through these stages and not fall apart because it's difficult not to lose your way through all this complexity. But it's got to be done. And the problem with being a mythic absolutist is it makes you into an People who become doubtless for all the wrong reasons will impose their overconfidence on you. You realize with this I can't even have a conversation. Either I submit to their arrogance and superiority or I punch them in the face or I just walk away. So part of the tragedy of the time we're living in is that the spiritual people don't seem to be more enlightened than anyone else because they don't seem to really get along any better than anyone else anyway. Right? It's very strange. But we don't give up. So on this path we all have to embrace all the these distinctions. All of us do and work on them. This is why in my dharma I stress this. I have no idea. There's the first sentence. I don't know but I'd like to know. This is part of the reason why I put so much emphasis on that. It's a wall of protection against your own weaknesses. Now at the same time if you do awaken to enlightened awareness in a very powerful and profound way you will tend to become very exuberant about what you're feeling very convinced that this is the truth. So we want to be very open and want we want to be very available to experiencing absolute exuberance and spiritual conviction absolute spiritual conviction without being deluded by it because part of the the pleasure of enlightenment is the absolute conviction about the ultimate nature of reality. So when you're when you have that exper when you've been blessed with that kind of experience when you've been graced with that kind of experience it will give you a feeling of absolute confidence. You shouldn't deny yourself that the pleasure of that absolute confidence. So we have to not deny ourselves the pleasure of that absolute confidence while being very cautious about being overconfident and about being blind. Becoming blind in our overconfidence. There are a lot of very sophisticated people these days. They very nervous when anybody would express too much spiritual self-confidence. For a lot of very sophisticated people, that would be an indication of delusion inherently, and it's not. It often is, but it's not inherently the case. Don't be too sure yourself. And they have a point, but they're not absolutely right. So, I love this quote that I read in a book once. I've been read a lot of books, but this is one of them. So is when the Buddha after his enlightenment met these three men or these three sadus that I think had been his friends and his brothers when he was a seeker and he said to them nowhere in the world is there an enlightenment such as mine. Nowhere in the world is there a dharma such as mine. Nowhere in the world is there sa such as mine. Now I said that to to a lot of postmodern Buddhists and they all laughed that would go completely against their own sensibility of what enlightenment would be like would be very humble and you don't really know and you don't really have any idea but you're very you're ego soft. So he was expressing a boldness an absolute certainty and absolute self-confidence that was fearless and absolutistic in the context in which I read about it as true as it might be. I don't know how true it is but it's must be have some truth in it. But I love that the enlightened one was fearlessly self-confident. And why wouldn't he be if he was truly the enlightened one? Why wouldn't he be fearlessly self-confident? Right? But it so challenges our postmodern sensibilities of how these things should be. And the postmodern sensibility doesn't doesn't embrace the possibility of higher consciousness in the way that we're speaking about it anyway. So what would they know? So we want to shoot for is this absolute self-confidence without delusion without arrogance. Good luck. A lot of people would rather be very cautious and avoid the extremes out of caution and safety, which is good up until a point. But at a certain point, we begin to deny the very thing that we're so excited about. We deny its power, its truth, it's inherent the power to liberate. And uh that's the tragedy. I'm so happy I shared these things with you this morning. Feels very liberating. lot of complexity, right? Lot of work to be done. So, as we evolve culturally, of course, what it means to be enlightened is going to become more complex. So, the truth we embrace is going to become more complex. It means more work for us all to do together, right? I thought it was simple. Either you are or you're not. Well, that's true, too. So, you see how much selfd disccipline we all need to stay on track, not to swerve too much one way, not to swear too much the other way. Enormous, unbearable.