How to Free Yourself from Suffering – Wayne Dyer’s Greatest Lesson

Hidden within all of the storms of your life is the peace that you desire do Wayne Dyer presents a new interpretation of an ancient wisdom text the D Ching many people call this a manual for achieving a way of life that literally guarantees Integrity joy peace and balance in our life change your thoughts based upon the wisdom of the doubt and your life will change join Dr Dyer as he reveals how to live the Wisdom of The Da and Achieve higher Consciousness when change your thoughts change your life airs next [Music] [Applause] thank you thank

you thank you thank you so [Music] much very thank you thank you so much thank you thank you thank you please thank you so much it's so so wonderful to be back back on public Television it's now 10 years we've been uh creating public television uh programs um it's been a wonderful wonderful journey I obviously support public television it's uh it's a way to bring higher Consciousness to our entire country and I'm proud and pleased to be here this is a program about changing your life not in the traditional way that we think of when

we think about changing our lives Usually that means changing your behaviors retraining yourself getting new habits going out and trying them out and changing your life this is about changing your thoughts and then your life will change change your thoughts change your life it's the name of this program it's the name of the book it is something that I very very strongly endorse that we have within us the ability and the capacity through the way that we use our minds And the way that we process things and events to make our lives totally shift and

change around and I can tell you that it doesn't make any difference what age you are whether you're a teenager watching this or whether you're someone uh in your 60s 7s 80s or anywhere along the way you can make that change and I'll tell you it happened for me uh two years ago on the 10th of May uh I turned 65 and the next Day uh on the 11th of May I had a lifechanging thing take place for me I changed the way that I was thinking about who I am about what kind of a

man I am about what kind of a person I intend to be for the rest of my life and where I'm going and something began to resonate with me that I had to make a shift and make a change at the age of 65 I had a uh a wonderful uh office uh which was really a townhouse it was filled with over 20,000 books it was Filled with clothing it was filled with uh records of all kinds it had uh pictures on the wall I had awards that I had received over the years and everything

that I had accumulated literally in this Physical World um had accumulated in that office I turned the key and handed it to my manager Maya who's been with me for almost 30 years and I said I would like you to sell everything or distribute Everything that's in there sell the townhouse get rid of it take all the records all the books I got rid of my shoes and I um left it all behind and turned it over to her to get to get rid of everything I detached myself from a lifetime of accumulations and I

moved uh full-time to a place uh over in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on one of our great islands called Maui and in the next um months I began to get a lot of things coming to me About what my life was to uh what was to unfold things that I wasn't even expecting and I think about this idea about uh what age you are and um whether or not changes and shifts can be made and how difficult so many people uh attribute this to they say it's just that's an impossibility I couldn't possibly

do that I'm so attached to all of these things or I'm too old uh I've been I've been living in the same place too long whatever it might be U right Here in this audience is one of the uh one of the women that I Revere I think more than uh more than any other woman I can think of in the professional World um at the age of 60 she changed her thoughts and her life changed atically she started a publishing company called Hay House which is one of the world's largest Publishers of spiritual and

higher Consciousness materials she wrote a book called you can heal your life she's here today her Name is Louise hey Louise would you stand up be a thank you for that Louise uh with a great number of people from all over the world just celebrated her 80th birthday so I should look so good even at 60 right and um I'm just so deeply honored that you're here dear thank you um what happened for me in the next few months was um was absolutely life-changing I had a friend tell me who was uh severely Addicted to

uh all kinds of drugs and alcohol who was basically very close to uh to death he refused all kinds of treatment he wouldn't go through the programs and so on but he read a book and the book was called the Dao to Ching the Dao to Ching t a o te CH h i n g Dao to Ching Dao in ancient Chinese means the way the great way te is the term that means the application of or the virtue of and Ching in ancient Chinese means book so it's the book for applying The virtue of

living the way that's what this book means and he told me that and I thought I've heard of The Da to Chang I've heard of Daoism I've been I'm familiar with that I had read about it uh when I was in college I had even lectured a little bit about it when I was teaching at a university in in New York City at St John's University um it was uh something that I had sort of a a cursory uh awareness of but it wasn't uh something that I was really profoundly Interested in I was watching

a TV show one night and someone talked about the da on there I walk into a uh bookstore and there's a copy of the da this is all happening in the six months or so that uh between uh when I had left and knowing that it was time for me to detach myself from all of the things that had been so much a part of my life and move on into a new area of my life so I I couldn't resist it any longer and I said I really want to I really want to Read

the da and I'm going to take the next year a full year and in that year what I would like to do is I would like to read each verse there are 81 verses in the daed chain you can read it in an afternoon but you can study it for a lifetime and in the studying of this I said I would like to just take those 365 days for the next year and uh in every 4 days I am going to read one verse some of them are only four lines long some of them are

12 16 Lines long I'm going to create for myself a uh a way of seeing if I can live this da and what I did was I would read it then I would meditate on it I would walk on it I would get go swim on it when I would do yoga I would practice it and then I would sit down down after the fourth day and I had a picture of the man who was considered to be the author of this although there's no historical actual record of his name is Lau this is the

VIS that I looked at This is the image of an artist drawing of Lau in ancient Chinese means old man old man he was the old man who was living in the in China in the time of the Waring States and he decided he didn't want any more to do with war and violence and hatred and killing and all of the things that were so much a part of his world and he got on his oxen and he left and before he left to go off and be by himself he dictated some 5,000 Chinese characters

these 81 verses that Became the daa Ching there are some people who call the da of Ching the wisest book ever written if you Google this thing called the da Ching you'll come up with over 1,300,000 hits on the da CH not only that there are 14,000 translations of The Da Chang that I have come across so what I did is I took 10 of those uh translations the ones that seem to be the most relevant the ones that seem to Have the most meaning to those people who lived in this part of the western

world and I combined them into what I consider to be U the most useful uh translation of the daed ching and each morning I would get up and I would look at this picture and I would ask what is it that you would say to the people who are living now at this time given the conditions that we have in our life right here what is it that you would do many people call this a manual for Achieving a way of life that literally guarantees Integrity joy peace and balance in our life now there was

a man who was a temporary of Lau his name was confucious he was many years younger than Lau but he kept hearing about this old man who had all of this great wisdom and one day he decided that he was going to go legend says and visit lau and he spent uh a full day listening to this man because confucious was someone in China who was trying to lay down all the Rules of etiquette and how to conduct yourself and trying to dictate to the people what they should be Lau had nothing to do with

any of that and when he went toh see U Lau he came back and he talked to all of his people and this is what he said he said of birds I know they have wings to fly with of fish that they have fins to swim with of wild beasts that they have feet to run with for feet there are traps for Fins there are nets for Wings arrows but who knows how dragons surmount wind and Cloud into heaven this day I have seen lau and he is a dragon and there he is a dragon

and a dragon in ancient Chinese was a u a picture of someone or something that was so mysterious and so uh difficult to comprehend because it could always be something else there was a great teacher who came many years after that his name was roomie who was a jel luden roomi who was a great poet a Persian poet in the 14th century and he had uh he had a line he said the day that you were born a ladder was set up to help you to escape from this world I believe that the da of

ching and this thing that I have done this uh change your thoughts change your life effort that I spent one full year on every single day doing exactly what I just said is a ladder that will help you to return in the da there's a very famous Line the 40th verse of the da says returning is the motion of the da returning is the motion of the da so that all of us came from a Divine spiritual Essence invisible everything in the world of form emanated from something that is formless there was was a split

second when you went from nonbeing to being and what Lau was trying to teach was to be able to return to that place from which you came and live your life From the spiritual perspective and become a god realized being another great poet TS Elliot once said we shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and to know the place for the first time for the first time what what I'm asking you to do and what Lau seemed to be saying was learn

to die while you're alive because you will ultimately return all of us have a return trip a a round trip Ticket when we came in didn't we but if you could learn to die while you're alive and there's a great story I I have to tell you this story I want to read this story to you it's um a way to look at this idea of dying while you're alive it's um it goes like this to die while we are alive gives us the only opportunity we we will ever have to get outside of this

package that houses us temporarily there's an ancient par Parable that repeated generation after Generation by the spiritual masters of India which illustrates this point listen to this wonderful story a traveler from India went to Africa to acquire some local products and animals and while in the jungle he saw thousands of beautiful multicolored talking parrots he decided to capture a talking parrot and take it back as his pet at home he kept his parrot in a cage and he fed him and he gave him wonderful seeds and honey and played music for his pet And generally

he treated him very well when it was time for the man to return to Africa 2 years later he asked his parrot if there was any message that he could deliver to the parrot's friends who were back in the jungle well the parrot told his master to say that he was very happy in his cage and that he was enjoying each day and to convey his love well when the traveler arrived back in Africa he delivered the message to The the parrots back in the jungle just as he finished his story a parrot with tears

welling up in his eyes fell over dead the man was alarmed and he decided that the parrot must have been very close to the parrot in the cage and that this was probably the reason for the sadness and for his demise when the traveler returned to India he told his pet what had happened as he finished his story The Pet parrot's eyes welled up with tears and He kneeled over dead in his cage the man was astounded but he figured that his pet died from the despair of hearing of the death of his close friend

back in the jungle the Traer opened up the cage and tossed the dead bird outside onto the trash Heap immediately the pet parrot flew up to a branch on the tree outside the Traer said to him so you're not dead after all why did you do that you tricked me and the parrot responded because that bird Back in Africa sent me a very important message what was the message the traiter wanted to know he told me that if you want to escape from your cage you must die while you're alive we must indeed die while

we are alive in order to be able to look back at our waking consciousness and see ourselves trapped in our cage which in our case is our body and then we will see how unnecessary it is to remain caged is not a great story I love that Story yeah you can applaud what I encourage you to do is to create for yourself a Sacred Space and in this Sacred Space I would like you to place everything that has energy value to you photographs I have this Photograph that I looked at every day for one year

and began to talk to after a while it's a little weird but you begin to get this idea and those of you who Wonder why I am wearing no shoes I'd like you to know that uh where I live you never walk into a Sacred Space with your shoes on it would be considered dishonorable to do so and to me this stage this setting this beautiful place and this beautiful symbol is a sacred sacred space I live without shoes I heard it said once that if you wear shoes Everywhere You Go the whole earth will

feel like leather and it's nice to feel what the Earth feels like and to feel that naturalness so in that Sacred Space you will feel the energy of the photographs of of any momentos that you have of pictures of your children of drawings of statues of uh anything at all that you can think of I have a beautiful Sacred Space and it calls me and as it calls me when I go into that place that is so profoundly sacred to me the most beautiful things begin to happen for me Particularly in the middle of the

night when no one else is up and I feel closest to God and I feel closest to this this beautiful old man who sent so many important messages to me through his daing and in my meditations to help me to create this program change your thoughts change your life living the wisdom of The Da what I would like to do now is to look at the some of the key thoughts that I would like you to think about and Consider changing as you as you become a person who becomes more God realized that is someone

who has died but stayed alive and returned and went back on that return trip the first of these thoughts to change is to change the idea that I can't trust in my own nature two I trust in my own nature did it ever occur to you that you have a nature that that nature is so profound and is always calling you you know it no One else can know it no one else can impose it on you no one else can tell you what it is that you feel in here that you know is why

you're here and what you're doing here there's no one else can explain that or explore that with you you can't you can't share it everything in the universe has a nature your dog has a nature a crocodile has a nature a duck has a nature a crow has a nature everything has its nature everything has has a Dharma including You but what we've learned and we've grown up to believe is that I can't trust in that nature my nature to trust in your nature to know that you came from a Divine place of well-being and

to trust in it listen to this verse 38 of The Da a few lines the Great Master follows his own nature and not the trappings of Life a truly good man is not aware of his goodness and is therefore good think about yourself the first the First moment of Life the very first moment that Speck when you went from nowhere n o w h e r e to now here n o w h e r e from nowhere to now here same thing just a little question of spacing just a little different spacing all right

so you went from nowhere now you're in now here and where do you think you're going going nowhere right back to Nowhere who out there watching who in this audience Isn't going back to Nowhere that's where we're all headed back to nowhere so in that Split Second then you lived inside your mother's womb for nine months and in that 9mon period of time you trusted your nature you didn't have a sonogram and say my God I don't have a nose this is very scary what if it doesn't show up on time or you didn't do

any of that you trusted completely in your own nature right and so did your Mother there's very little that you can do because what you were to become everything that this physical body needed was all handled in there and also beyond what was needed for your physical world and what Lau called the 10 the world of the 10,000 Things the 10,000 Things there's 10 zillion things obviously in the physical world but that's what he how he named it the world of the 10,000 things and in that world of the 10,000 Things everything returns back to

its source but while you're in that place and why wouldn't you believe even maybe for a second that Not only was my physiology all handled for me but everything else that I needed if I could just stop interfering with it and stop other people from doing it that everything I needed and that's a big part of understanding change your thoughts change your life it's a big big part of that the idea that I have a Nature that I can trust not something that I have to be afraid of and I can stop letting other people

interfere with it as well so what happens we go through those nine months totally uninterrupted we have no questions everything works out and then what we say the very first thing we pop out after nine months we'll take over from here that was good work nice work God thank you very much and so so what we'll do is just sort of edge you out of here you know so we Edge God Out we take on an ego e g o and we Edge out and we say we'll take over and we have an ego and

this ego what this ego does is it takes on a set of beliefs and these beliefs are that I am what I have that I am what I do that I am what other people think of me so we're raised to believe that the more stuff I accumulate the more more things that I get this is who I am the more that people like me this is what I'll get and on and on it goes I want to tell you a Story it's a story of one of my children her name is Tracy we lived

in Detroit uh when she was born she came in as a little rebellious she came in in the middle of the Detroit Riots when they said nobody is allowed to go out anybody that goes out is going to be arrested and she said this would be a good time for me to show up which is exactly what she did so when she showed up after about the second or third Year Tracy went to Preschool and she came home from preschool she was about three and in that uh time she came home and she said uh

um she handed me a a paper and it had a gold star at the top of the paper and I looked at it and I said uh and she said Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy I got a gold star I got a gold star I said uh I'm not really interested in gold stars I said but um what what what are you doing what is this what what she saidwell we did something in school Called adding and I got them all right and I know how to I said adding I can't believe you're three you can't

learn to add when you're three and I went through this whole long thing about adding and how terrific it was and she kept saying Daddy the gold star excuse me but I was the only one in the class that got a gold star I got them all right I said uh you know Tracy I said honey that I said some people just need to have gold stars and and teachers sort of like to give Out and and make make that the reason why you're doing something I said and set you apart from everybody else I

said but your dad doesn't really care much about that and how you stack up with others and they're going to be uh I'm more interested in what you're learning and she said okay she was used to that she had a weird Daddy and she knew that so about another month or so she came home with a uh with a paper that had uh looked like it had had a gold star on it But it obviously been taken off her little thumb prints were all over but there was a place there had been a gold star

was taken off and I said what's this oh she said uh we're now doing subtraction and I said subtraction that's amazing and I took over by her dresser I said you know that money youve got in your pigy I put it in my pocket I said that's called subtraction isn't that great she give me that money back we talked and talked about subtraction Finally I couldn't I I couldn't take it anymore I said honey what happened what was this what was here at the paper and she said oh she said that she said the teacher

gave me one of those gold stars I said really I said well what happened to it oh she said I took it off off I said well what'd you do with it she said I gave it back to her I said well what did you tell her she said oh I told her to uh give it to someone who needs that sort of Thing true story yeah and there she is she's standing right here she's going to be 40 this year my daughter Tracy so what we have to do is learn how to take this

ego of ours this part of us that believes that who we are is what we have and what we do and what other people think of us but remember if you grow up believing that you are what you do then when you don't you aren't and if You believe that you are what you have when it's gone you aren't and if you believe that you are what other people think of you your reputation which we raise people to believe it's my I have to be concerned with what other people think of me take this ego

and reach Trin it and one of the ways that you do to retrain it is first you take this idea that the ego has of fear what do you afraid of anybody out there what are you afraid of shift from Fear to curiosity become curious about what you're afraid of that's what Lau taught me become curious about what you're afraid of you're afraid of flying get curious about that get interested in that you're you're afraid of snakes you're afraid of disapproval you're Afra afraid just shift from fear and say I'm going to become more curious

about what I'm afraid of and then take all of the things that you're attached to like all of your photographs like all of your Furniture like all of your clothing like all of the stuff that you find so much attachment to and start letting it go start letting it go you know the day that I turned that key on uh May the 11th and 2006 I didn't even know where I was going I just knew there was a shift taking place I felt Freer than I'd ever felt I think in my life at in in

my mid 60s out there on a whole new adventure and here we are talking about on on National Television on PBS take that idea that you have to be attached to things and know that you came in with nothing with no thing and you're going to leave with nothing with no thing and understand that your life is a parenthe IES in eternity live there without attachment and then take your need to be in control of yourself of others of the situation and shift from control to trust begin to have a TR LSU is profound about

this in Each one of the 81 verses it comes up about 60 times as you look at letting go and letting God allowing yourself to trust in your nature allow allowing yourself to no longer believe that everything has to be controlled by me and that other people no longer have to be in control of me as well begin to trust in trust just like you did for the first nine months you trusted your nose showed up your height showed up your eyes showed up whatever it all showed up It's all perfect it's all div to

why not wander through your life and have this wonderful peaceful knowing that it's all fine and and finally shift from your sense of entitlement what nobody nobody can treat me that way I'm entitled to have this well I paid for that I Let Go I mean that in one year I let go of all of my entitlements I have I don't feel I'm entitled to anything I'm just here shift from entitlements to radical humility Lau speaks about it so often stay humble stay low the greatest leaders are the ones who do the least the ones

who stay back and and just model and allow and at the end of the day in one of the verses of The Da it says the people will say we did it ourselves we did it ourselves in verse 49 of The Da of Ching here's an exact quote the sage is kind to the kind and kind to the unkind because the nature of his being is kindness And also be wise and help all beings impartially abandoning none you know what I do just before I did this program I have to admit I was nervous I

was humbled by it like like who are you Wayne Dyer who are you to read the da and believe that you can interpret it on television and interpret it in a book and spend a year and say like I got real humble with that and you know what I say da which is just another word for God or Source or Krishna or Allah or whatever you want to call it Guide Me Guide Me now I have that awareness before I come out if you if you knew it says in the course of Miracles if you

knew who walked beside you at all times on this path that you have chosen you could never experience fear or doubt again I remember Mother Teresa saying to a dear friend of mine who was asking what could he do what could he do to uh To do something for her he was uh his name was Pat McMahon he was on KTR radio in Phoenix and finally Mother Teresa said to him you can do something for me she said tomorrow morning get up at 4:00 a.m. and go out onto the streets of Phoenix and find someone

who's living there who believes that he's alone and convince him that he's not that's what you can do that's how Saints talk that's how L Lau spoke okay Let's go on to the next thought to change so you're changing from not trusting in your nature to trusting in your nature you're change your thought from I need more to What I Call Living contentment what is this thing about more it's the it's the Mantra of the ego isn't it I have to have more I have to collect more stuff I have to have more friends I

have to have more money it's more more more more more when where you came from came From nowhere you don't need anything it's a continuous bombardment that we are all exposed to in this whole world of believing that we have to have more it's one of the reasons why I love public television so much you don't see ads on PBS you don't have to be constantly exposed to the idea that you have to have more and you have to get more and if you don't have this then you're not complete and so on so we

get bombarded with this idea of attracting More and lau says live contentment live in a state of being contented here's verse 81 the last verse of the daed chain my favorite translation of it and I put it right into the book sages do not accumulate any anything but give everything to others having more the more they give it's a great lesson my son Sans who's uh you know we're very very close we just spent a couple of months Together over in Maui just just being together just being it was a Divine time and he came

home with um was last summer he came home with four t-shirts that he loved and I said well honey I said which which one do you like the best he said well that one over there that blue one it's got the r and it's got the drawing and it's got the surfer and it's I said that's great I said uh I'd like to have that one he said no no dad that's my favorite That's the one I that's the one I like the best I said I know I said that's the one uh would you

mind if I had that one he said I would mind a lot if you had that one he said maybe you can have one I'm not so crazy about this one over here I said so you're going to give me something you don't like you know I said I want I that's the one I love that cuz we have the same taste could I have that one he said dad you're crazy he said you can't have my Favorite t-shirt I said well I want you to think about that I want you to think about detaching

and and letting go and not needing to have more and he's heard me talk about this stuff his entire life so finally he just you know I went in and I tried it on and I said ah this thing looks so great looking in the mirror you think he said dad that that really is mine I said yeah I said but you're going to give it to me he said no no I said yeah well just think about it You know cuz I I'm your dad and I I'd really like to have this and so

he reluctantly parted with it and uh so the next I the next uh that evening I was still wearing the shirt and he looked at me and he said that's my shirt I said you know Sans I said you gave me the shirt I said um I'm going to wear this shirt until you are happy that I have your favorite shirt I'm going to just I'm never going to take it off until you are Happy he said well you'll be wearing that shirt a long time I said well that's okay so I wore it the

next day I got up I slept in it that night I got up the I did I got up the next morning I put it on and that sanss would come in and you'd look at me I said oh you're still not happy that you gave me something that you really love because that this is what it really means to be a sage this is what it means to be a Divine being to be someone who's willing To depart with not the things they don't like but what they do like I wore it the next

day I wore it the next day I wore it for two weeks take it off only to wash it put it right back on two solid weeks each one of my children will tell you finally one day he said Dad I'm so happy I am so thrilled that you have that t-shirt I said oh that's great I can finally take this thing off I'm you I'm going to just give it away but it's Like what a great lesson in that the idea that you you you take you know there's a rule it's called the 8020

Rule and in the 8020 rule it says um everything that you have all of of your stuff 20% of it is what you use all of your clothes in your closet 20% you just keep using the same 20% over and over 80% of the clothing that you have in your in your closet for so many people is something that you never use you don't wear you look at it you store it You think well there might come a day I can't part with that even though you've been carting it around every time you move you

move it and you put it take the 80% that you don't use says lau and give it away Give It Away LSU said that when your cup is full stop pouring when your cup is full stop pouring we have an obesity crisis in the in the United States in the Western World the Obesity crisis can be handled If you just read the Dow if you realize in verse 33 it says if you realize you have enough you are truly Rich if you could just learn something called portion control where you just take a bite and

you say is my cup full stop pouring stop pouring in other words instead of filling yourself with with that which is already a surplus in the da it teaches us to take surpluses and to reduce them and to take deficiencies and increase them so that we create Balance in our lives to be in Balance you can take the jewelry that you don't use you can take the clothing that and then once you've given away the the the 80% that you don't use take one of the things that you really like and practice giving that away

it's such a wonderful way listen to this poem it was written by a a great Persian poet named Hafiz he says even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth you owe Me just look what happens with a love like that it lights up the whole Sky it lights up the whole Sky there's no owing there's no owing you don't have to be you can practice living a state of contentment this was so powerful for me you you just can't imagine how good it felt for one entire year to walk through every

day and say I'm content I'm content I start out every morning of my life the first words Hai says if there's Only one prayer that you say every day make it thank you just say thank you that's how I start wake up thank you God thank you thank you Source thank you da whatever you want to call the opening line of The Da says the da that can be named is not the da as soon as you put a name on it it dissolves there's no name for it it's just endlessly invisibly constantly in a

state of creating out of a state of love the next thought that the da Teaches us to change change your thoughts change your life you really do see so much of the previous PBS specials that I've done on inspiration and intention these were teaching people generically how to think differently what Su taught me was what to specifically think in place of thinking that instead of thinking that I don't trust my nature he said trust your nature instead of saying I need more he said you need less more is less that Comes right out of the

D next thought move from thinking in a rigid way to thinking and being flexible soft and allowing from r rigidity to softness what a wonderful transformation that is I was standing looking at with my son Sans and we were on Maui and we were looking at water as water was going against some rocks and some Cliffs and so on and in these pictures in this in this moment I Said to my son I said um which do you think is stronger the water or the cliff the water or the Rocks which one do you think

is more powerful and stronger and he said well he said the Rocks obviously they're stronger and they're bigger and all I said but I said water is very very patient isn't it how much chance do those rocks have if they if they if they want to survive I mean what chance do they have that would and and LSU is Speaking to us about understanding ing our Nature by examining how nature works and then making it apply to our thoughts so that a soft thought a thought that isn't a rigid thought a thought that doesn't say

you have to be this way or you have to be that way a thought that is not stiff a thought that water he you there are so many references to water and what we can learn from water you're 75% water the planet is 75% water we are water the rest of us is just muscled Water it's just it's all water and water is soft water can enter anywhere you get into a conflict with somebody else and you picture yourself as water you can enter with water in any place that there's an opening if you can

visualize yourself as a being who moves into the space of water if you can see yourself that way you can just enter into those places and the people that you love in your children and your spouse and anyone at all and and enter there Softly here's Verse eight the Supreme good is water which nourishes all things without trying to and verse 78 right smack out of the da nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water but for attacking the hard the unyielding nothing can surpass it there is nothing like it here it is

I asked when I they designed this set this beautiful set and thank you designers for this I asked if I could have water On the on the stage they did it they figured it out there's a a now I'm going to try to get some of this water okay so you get down here and you just that's I'm going to just scoop this up and I okay the tighter you hold it the less chance you have of doing anything with it isn't it how can I experience water the way to experience water is to just

gets soft just get unbending and there it is that's what water is the minute I grasp it the Minute I try and lau is saying the same thing is true in everything in your life the more you grasp the more you try to hold on to it the more you try to be rigid with it the less control you have of it the softer you are the less rigid you are the more flexible you are as a person the more you can accomplish and this is a great way to practice in parenting as well and

this idea that a rigid thought how many times have you heard this idea that if I tell you Something I'm going to stay consistent with it we have a set of rules these are the rules and we'll do it this way in the Dow it says the more rules you make the more rule Breakers you create that's true the more rules you have in your house about how everything has to go we had in our house my wife would have a big jar of M&M's peanuts you know different all these different multicolored ones and so

and the kids in our house CU we didn't Feed them sugar and we didn't give them sodas and stuff like that so they you know they were just more like a decoration every once in a while someone would take them they'd hardly ever be replaced now when we had kids come over to our house who weren't ever allowed to have such horrible things you should have seen their behavior you know they would scoop them up they'd be putting them in their pockets and get their purses and they'd open it up and you Know the whole

thing would be empty I said what are you doing said well well you you mean you could just have these whenever you want them I said well we don't really have any rules about that it's just uh uh it's not something that we encourage or discouraged it's just there it's like Emerson had a wonderful line he said a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little Minds a foolish consistency a rigid consistency so that there are many People who will say if I say it on Monday you can be absolutely certain that on Wednesday I'm going

to believe the same thing regardless of what might happen on Tuesday now Tuesday might have something real that you might want to be changing your mind you might want to say you know I thought that this time but now I've seen this and now we can shift and you can see how this can become when and so much about the Dow is on leadership Leadership in the family leadership in the community leadership geopolitically less rigidity more openness more willingness to listen and say I changed my mind because a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little

minds and what I believed on Wednesday has changed because of what happened on Tuesday now another important thing to say to your children to your friends to your lover to your spouses to whomever to the People you work with words that we're so terrified to say but which give us a sense of living with the da I don't know I don't know I'll look it up say it I don't know doesn't hurt say it again I don't know isn't it fearful I mean so many and it's like very freeing cuz my kids call ask me

something and I said I don't know they say dad you know everything you know everything I said well I don't know that and uh I'll look it up or We'll try to find an answer to that but I don't quite know I know that um even you know I spent 20 years running and I ran every day for 20 years for 22 years without missing a day eight miles never missed a day that's rigid all right call that obsessive but you brush your teeth every day I used to say and you don't call that obsessive

and you go to the bathroom every day and you don't say well he's obsessively doing that again Today you don't do that you but anyway what I learned is that in even in the world of exercise there are certain things that are built in to make us rigid to make us stiff to make us hard and we lift and we run and we kick and uh we this is what we call working out there's another kind of working out that is ancient it goes back to the time of LSU and before which is called yoga

and yoga means Union it means Union with your source and when You do yoga you can stay in the same place you can do the equivalent of8 miles when I used to run eight miles I had to run four miles that way turn around four miles back and I'd be sweating now I can do yoga and I can just stand in one place and in 90 minutes by being Supple by making myself stretched by not being hard and rigid I can you know I can get that out there I can get that leg up I

can do these kinds of things and and 90 minutes later you Know it's like I'm totally sweating and so and I feel so different I used to when I would go out at night to eat or something after running so many miles running marathons and doing those things I'd go to get up and it would be okay it's going to take a little while cuz everything was so that doesn't happen anymore because I've given up hard I've given up being rigid and substituted it for being Supple for being flexible for living a life in which

I don't have to Always be so Fierce listen to this verse of the doubt of Jam one of my all-time favorites verse number 76 a man is born gentle and weak at his death he becomes hard and stiff all things including the grass and the trees are soft and pliable in life dry and brittle in death stiffness is thus a companion in depth flexibility is a companion in life and it's not just for how you exercise it's how you think how you think in front of My place on Maui there is a beautiful set of

11 or 12 palm trees and these are like 30 40 50 ft tall they've been there for I don't know how long decades and when the winds come and when the storms come the storms will blow them over there they are watch and they're just these amazing Elastic things I learned so much from these things I go out there when I would when I did this when I wrote the uh essay in the book on the verse 73 I just went out There with the palm trees and I would just commune with these palm trees

and they go all the way and then they come all the way back that's a symbol for how we need to think in our own lives in verse 73 it says it is Heaven's way to conquer without striving it does not ask yet it is supplied with all that it needs it does not hurry yet it completes everything on time one of my favorite lines from the da one Of my favorite beliefs from the da is this that you're doing nothing all of you you're doing nothing you're just being done just like you were the

first nine months of your life you think you're out there and you're making this happen and you're making that happen and you've got all these rigid things and you have to apply your life this way you're not doing anything any more than you were having your fingernails show up when They were supposed to and look at you look at all of you look around you know it's like you know what held it in yesterday you know I don't know I'm not doing anything they fall out and and they don't fall out no matter how hard

I tried to keep them in there finally my kid said give it up give it up so I was over in England and they told me that I couldn't take my shampoo bottles on the plane and there's nothing you can do about it I Said yes there is I'll just shave my head I know longer need shampoo okay so we want to move from stiffness to flexibility the next thought that I'd like to see us change that the da taught me so much was living by interfering to shift that to living by not interfering do

you know that every one of your children have the anchor of the universe located within them and that Khalil Jabron this is a Paraphrase he said your children are not your children they are the products of life's longing for itself they come through you but not for you they're not there for you so what are you doing interfering in their lives now I'm not talking about letting them play out in the traffic or play at the edge of a swimming pool if they don't know how to swim not talking about that I'm talking about I

called this when I was uh when I Was working on this and living this and practicing this for that full year of 2006 the bite your tongue zip your lip verses of The Da verse 29 of the da do you think you can take over the universe and improve it I do not believe it can be done everything under Heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled trying to control leads to ruin trying to grasp we lose allow your life to Unfold naturally allow other people's lives to unfold naturally as well we have parents

I see them a lot they're called helicopter parents because they're always hovering they're hovering over their kids and they're telling them what to do and what not to do and my son came over from England my son Shane and uh he was going to get ready to go to college going to college In America and my wife said to me uh so you're going to take him uh and show him about registration right I said oh yeah I'll be doing that she said well make sure that you help him because he doesn't know have any

idea how to register at the school this great big school with thousands of people I said yeah and I do right I I'm I would know how to register kids at school you know and so Shane got in the car and and I said it's all going to be Fine you'll all be fine and we drive over to the campus and I drop them off and I have my tennis racket in the back and he said where you going I said well I'm a prophet I said I get paid by the thought and uh I

have a tennis match and then I have to walk on the beach so that I get paid by the he said but what about the registration I said well the registration I said you'll do a lot like I did when I learned to register he said Well what do you mean I said you'll just go up to the people and say where is registration and they'll say it's over there where all of those people are all lined up cuz I remember those days on a college of 40,000 students or so finding out how to register

Tracy did I take you to register honey no so he said you mean you're just going I said yeah you just go over there I said you want Daddy to walk with you over and take you through gradu you're 18 years old and you want Daddy to register you he said oh no I wouldn't want that so we got home at the end of the uh the end of the evening uh when I but when I got back home and uh my wife had said to me she said did you help Shane at registration oh

I said I gave him so much help probably the most help he ever had in his life I taught him how to do things for himself and so that I wouldn't have to Be interfering and hovering over and figuring it all out for them my children know that when their science project comes up that I'm there for consultation but I passed science I got through that myself and you'll be doing your own science project if I can help you I'd be happy to help you but I'm not going to be getting the glue and figuring

out how to make a Time clock and all that I said you know just just look at a clock that's how you tell Time for me whatever it might be and and it's it's not an uncaring and it's not a callous attitude at all it's an awareness that your children have the anchor of the universe located within them that's what La suit said now my dear friend who I love so much she's right here in the audience Carrie right there Carrie Evans from Mai um she has two beautiful little daughters and she asked me if

I would watch them one afternoon when my Grandson Carter was visiting I said uh I'd be happy to watch them she said but you don't understand I mean they're going to they're going to do this and they're going to do that I said you just go off and she was studying for an exam I said you go study do whatever you have to do I can handle three little kids out at the swimming pool for three or four hours I can handle that so she went off very nervous gave me lists told me what to

do what They might say what they might not say and then if she says now if Kylie says this you tell Kylie and if cile says it was Kylie cile and Carter right so they go out there and right here is there's a little pool over here little swimming pool and um I watch them over in the swimming pool and Kylie uh takes the water and splashes my grandson Carter and splashes Kile and kamile comes over to me and runs over within 2 minutes says uh Kylie Splash Me well of course I'm working on the

dog non interference I said uh splashing honey is in the way of things when you're near water splashing will take place she says yeah but but she splashed me I said you'll probably work this out this will all be fine she stood there for the longest time with her little lip and so on and finally she realized she wasn't getting anywhere with me she went Back before you know it one of them had taken now Kylie and Kile are teaming up against Carter and they pushed him under or whatever now one of them is five

and one of them is four and one of them is uh seven or eight and uh Carter comes running over as fast as he can runs over he calls me bumpa I'm Grandpa bumpa bumpa bumpa Miley Miley pushed me under the water I said Carter I'm a Dos Master B bumpa bump she pushed me she put me under the you'll just have to work this one out Carter I'm a DS Master this went on all for the for the first hour or so but I noticed as I was less interfering and less interfering that they

were working it out they tried again after a few times they'd come over and they wanted this and they want them push and wanted that but each time when I let them know that I was watching and making sure they Were safe but I wasn't going to interfere I wasn't going to resolve it I wasn't going to settle their disputes for them I wasn't going to be a helicopter parent even for an afternoon and the way that it resolved itself was they have the anchor of the universe within them they have a nature they know

what to do one of my favorite things always to say to my children when there's a conflict is you know what the right thing to do is what do you think You know you have it in your heart you are a Divine being they all know that I've said those words to them over and over again you'll figure it out you'll work it out now that not I'm going to interfere I'm going to tell them what to do you can practice this so many places so many ways in your life particularly as parents even in

business it's very important in businesses to allow the people to say at the end of the day right out of the da oh we did that Ourselves we did it ourselves in the da it says there's a time for everything and everything in its time there's a time for everything listen to this uh there's a time for being ahead and a time for being at peace there's a time for being in motion and a time for being at rest there's a time for being vigorous and a time for being exal exhausted and in the Bible

to everything there is a season a time for every purpose Under the Sun I practiced this Was so helpful to me particularly as I do my yoga practice and in my yoga practice it's uh there are some very exhausting postures I do this beum hot yoga all right so it's 105 or between 105 and 110 for 90 minutes and and there's one that uh I used to hate it's called triangle you know and so you put your foot out here and then you do this and then you get yourself up and you go all the

way down and you get yourself in Balance like here so you Balance balance bance and you take your arms out here and then you take these like this and it's 105 degrees and then you take one and you're looking up here at your arm and you look and you look and you look and then you bring it back and it lasts a full minute and I used to just wait for that minute to be over oh my god when are they going to bring me out of this posit it was so exhaust I started practicing

what the D teaches and I remember there's a time for being Exhausted there's a time for that and as I practiced that I said and there's a time for being at rest and it's coming hopefully soon but in your life in your life there's an awareness that there is a time for all the things that are go on that you think shouldn't be happening in the da it says that uh hidden in all Misfortune is Good Fortune hidden in The Misfortune that you have is Good Fortune because no Storm can last forever even nature cannot

create a storm that lasts forever ultimately hidden within every storm is calmness hidden within every flood is drought and dryness hidden within all of the storms of your life is the peace that you desire and it leans on you if you stop telling yourself and just let yourself go with it to be at Harmony with it rather than trying you can see why this is called the wisest book ever written and We're just touching on it here just touching on this LSU was green before Al Gore he was this is verse 39 of The Da

of Ching when man interferes with the da the sky becomes filthy the Earth becomes depleted the equal equilibrium crumbles creatures become extinct therefore nobility is rooted in humility finally I'd like to say to you in understanding this idea of the da is to take time Yourself for being in nature take an hour a day every day of your life take an hour a day no matter how busy you are no matter what scheduling that you have to get out in nature walk Barefoot on the grass walk bare it's one of the great uh ways to

overcome an inability to sleep at night just go out when you can't sleep and just walk on the grass walk on the earth and reconnect yourself down go out and be with the tree and look at what you can learn from nature Look at these trees look at these animal you can study you look at that look at I mean you can study a flower like that that is so magnificent as it's unfolding that's an actual photograph of this thing growing and unfolding there you know be with that you have much to learn from nature

from water from the sky from the winds from the trees from the birds from the more you do it the more you see yourself in all of them the more you'll Feel yourself as a connected being living the da another thought to change to change from thinking big to thinking small it's so much of the DA has in it statements that seem so paradoxical and so confusing to us more is less less is more um think small and get great things done accomplish great things listen to verse 64 of the doubted Ching a tree that

fills a man's Embrace grows from a Seedling a tower nine stories high starts with one brick and here's the most famous line out of the Dow a journey of a Thousand Miles begins with what the first step one first step okay so today I can stand up here on this stage in this beautiful sacred place in this beautiful yin yang symbol on this incredibly beautiful set that feels so much like nature and I can say to you that in a very short time this year I will have completed 20 Years without taking a drink of

alcohol 20 years okay thank you now that's big that's big because I drank every day not to get drunk but I drank every day two three beers every evening after running and it was like and I couldn't remember a day when I hadn't had I thought back 10 years 12 I couldn't think of a day not one day in the previous decade or two that I had uh not had a beer or several Beers so that's big and if I would have tried if IID have said to myself 20 years ago Wayne you're going to

quit drinking for the next 20 years I would have gone immediately and had a drink because it's just too big isn't it it's just too big you don't do big things you do small things and thus accomplish great things it's a very important distinction to make whatever it is that you would Like to create or contribute or become in your life take one step how did I let drinking go for 20 years and I don't even know about tomorrow I never think about tomorrow and whether I'm going to have a drink all I know for

sure is that this won't be the day I do it one day at a time that's how you overcome anything called an addiction in your life you take it you reconnect yourself to the source from which you came which is a source of What wellbeing isn't it and you get back and return get on the return trip and saying I am connected to wellbeing and I'll do this one day one hour one minute one second if I have to at a time and when you do it I mean it's behind in in all of the

programs for overcoming addictions in all of the work of Bill W all of the work of Alcoholics Anonymous all of the work of any kind of addictions it isn't just alcohol it can be food it can be addiction to your Emails it can be addiction to work it can be addiction to so many things that so many people find that they can't get past and to move themsel into a place where I think small I've R I ran seven marathons in my running years and about the 22nd or 23rd mile you begin to ask yourself

about your sanity and what am I doing here and my body is breaking down but the way you finish the marathon is not by saying I'm going to run 26 miles you don't do that Especially when you still got five or six to go you just say to yourself can I put my foot in front of the next one can I take one step at a time can I do it one step at a time and before you know it you've accomplished great things I watched my wife give birth to uh four children in right

there in her uh in in the delivery room with her and she does not you know when when you have a baby it takes nine months doesn't it you don't say to yourself oh my God I gotta I got to have a baby I got to get pregnant I got to delivered I got to go through Labor I got because that'll just drive you and there are people who do that and it's it's a it's a torture for them but I watched her do it one moment at a time in labor not what's going to

happen an hour from now what's going to happen this afternoon am I going to have to have the none of that and she did it all naturally because it was always and her mind was so strong as she was doing It that I couldn't even penetrate I couldn't even communicate with her she was so focused on just being here she would say these are not labor pains these are just signals just signal and I can take this signal I can do this for one minute I can do this I can it's the way everything gets

done I watch the great tennis players on the planet Roger Federer Pete sis these people that are really Masters at this game that I played for so many years not even close To those kinds of levels and there they'll be in a tournament they'll have a seating and they'll say here's the first round here's the second round here's the third round there's no such thing as playing the fourth round before you've played the the first round and then when you get to the first round you don't go out there and say well um I've got

to beat this person in three sets you say I'm going to think one serve at a Time I'm going to think one point at a time and every great athlete I don't care who they are they will always say I can't think out there in big ways I can only think small thinking small is what gets great things done verse 63 achieve greatness in little things take on difficulties while they are still easy do great things while they are still small the sage the sage one of my daughters names the sage does not attempt anything

very Big and thus achieves greatness greatness comes from being in the moment here present in the now the sage confronts difficulties but never experiences them this is the idea of thinking small and finally I'd like to see you change from this thought change from seeing yourself as separate to seeing yourself as connected to everyone and everything in the universe our ego tells us that we are Separate that who we are is this body that we have and everybody out there is separate from me nothing has been more profound and more powerful and important for me

than this verse of the da Ching this idea that we are all one that all of us emanated from the same source and by doing so by emanating from the same Source we need to see ourselves as connected to every single being every single person every single Flower every single tree every single animal if you can see yourself in everyone we're all connected it makes makes about as much sense to me to have a smoking section in a restaurant as it does to have a peeing section in a swimming pool [Laughter] right oh no no

no kids no no no no no no no don't pee over here we pee over here does that make any sense the Native American one of my Favorite quotes I've used it many many times the Native Americans would say no tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves no tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves we are all branches on a tree called Humanity when you read the do when you read this idea about changing these thoughts and changing your life you're going to see Endless verses that speak to the

absurdity of the idea of you having an enemy the idea that you and anyone else on this planet is an enemy in the da it says I and enemy cannot exist in the same sentence and he said even those who go to war the ones who will Triumph in war are those who go to war without an enemy and they will treat every victory in war not as something to celebrate but as a funeral as an indication that we haven't Reached the highest place within ourselves to see that even those people that we judge to

be our enemy are really connected to us and it says in the Dow that a bad man a bad man is a good man's job and a good man is a bad man's teacher a good man is a bad man's teacher so finding that and seeing that listen to verse 10 carrying body and soul and embracing the one can you avoid separation one who heeds this power brings the da to this very Earth this is The Primal virtue this was so helpful to me as I thought about it remember I spent four and a half

days on each one of these verses and in those each one of those four and a half days I wasn't writing I wrote the last four or five hours of those four and a half days for four and a half days I took that verse and I went out into the world and I looked at everyone that I encountered everyone that I saw And I tried to see myself in them the person that was you know dressed differently than I would dress the person who was uh not as attractive the person who was very old

the person who was very young the person who used language particularly that was POS possibly offensive when i s would look out there and I would practice not judging because the only difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment isn't it it's just a Judgment it's just a judgment and if we want to end violence in our lives and in our societ we have to learn to change our thoughts remember that the uh Dand lines when I was growing up out in Michigan they we had these these Dand lines the dandel lines would

have um uh at a certain time of the year they would get all these little fuzz balls at the top of them the yellow Little Flower part I always like the dandes I thought they were really beautiful uh and then The they have these little fuzz balls now imagine if you want to end VI the the the problem of dandelions on your lawn and you see them all out there with all their little fuzz balls so you go out there and you take a shovel and you turn it upside down and you start smacking all

of the dandelion like this and what do you do when you use violence to attempt to end the presence of these dandelions which are problem for you on your lawn if is they all scatter and Then in the spring guess what you got more you got more you got new generations new generations of dandelions there's such a lesson in that isn't there there's a great lesson that when we use violence as a means to resolve our disputes whether it's individually with each other or whether it's in countries or whether it's in communities whatever it is

that we resort to that kind of not seeing myself in others and out of this kind of a Consciousness will emerge those people who will ultimately begin to get this because if we don't get it if we don't get it like if we don't really get it civilization as we know it will not survive it will not survive we have to learn that the people that we call enemies no matter how horrendous they may behave toward us there is still something of us in all of them and we can figure out a way yes we

have course have to uh defend ourselves and yes we Don't allow people to push us all of those kinds of things but at a deeper and a higher level Lau was asking us to go within and find that place of of peace and try to reach out to that and help someone to make a uturn those people can be reached because they have the anchor of the universe located within them in verse 25 of The Da it says thus to know Humanity understand Earth to know Earth understand Heaven which is where Earth came from to

know the way understand the great within yourself within yourself look within and see it now every single person watching this program will have conflicts with somebody in their life on a fairly regular basis especially if you're in a a marriage or in a partnership of some kind certainly if you have children you're going to have the you're going to have conflicts now think about what you Do when you have a conflict and that conflict comes to a an end the conflict is over you've expressed your opinion they you may have yelled at each other you

may have screamed at each other you may not have understood each other but it's over now how do you end the conflict Lau says the person of Dao the person of Dao will eliminate all of the pain all of the stress all of the anger all of the hatred if they decide to end The conflict with love just be the one who ends The Silence by saying we don't agree but I love love you and it's all over you have moved a person from staying in the world of the 10,000 things into the world of

God into the world of source because the source has no violence in it it creates endless numbers of flowers and beings and Creations without using any Force at all there's no Force there here's one of my Teachers who lived in Bombay which is now Mumbai in India his name was nissar gadata Maharaj he said wisdom is knowing I am nothing love is knowing I am everything and in between the two my life moves in between the two the ability to take a conflict and to end it with love is one of the most powerful things

that you can do it has been a great lesson for me when we have a conflict what we do is I will be the Person that will pick up that phone you can be certain of it I will I will end that conflict with love and guess what that does to the conflict it's over it's over you can't pick a fight with someone who just doesn't want to fight anymore who just sends you love so I want to summarize some of these thoughts and there are so many change your thoughts based upon the wisdom of

The Da And your life will change there's many principles to live by in the da first remind yourself that there is no way to happiness happiness is the way bring happiness to all that you do you accomplish much by trying less it's just it's so inconsistent isn't about what we lived in the western world but the less you try when I go out and swim in the ocean and I do it almost every day I try to do between 30 minutes and an hour every day being out there in That ocean and I just get

out there and if I try less my arms just seem to know what to do and the breathing just all works and it's all and I can swim all day as soon as I try as soon as I struggle as soon as I try the minute that I move myself into trying it's like if I were to take this little cap here and drop it right there and say I'm gonna try to pick this up I'm gonna try to pick this up this is what LSU was speaking about so all of this all of This

all of this all of this all of this this I'm trying I'm really trying I'm really trying all of this is called in reality not picking it up that's what that's called not picking it up but when I just get easy and do less see yourself the da says in every everyone you encounter a great lesson every single being especially the ones that we read about who were told are our enemies see yourself in them know that whoever they are wherever they live they Want what we want they want what I want they want to

be at peace they don't want to be always struggling they don't want to be sick they just want to be loved whoever they are I know the skepticism of that it's like yes but all of the yes buts but if they got it too see Lau wasn't speaking to well some are going to get this and some probably won't he was speaking to all of us trust in others the D says to know what's best for themselves trust in that trust in The pliability the flexibility of your babies God those little babies they're so great

when they're like you know two weeks old you can take their foot put it behind their neck stick it around here like this put it in their mouth they're so flexible I mean you could do anything you pick them up you turn them upside down you watch them when they starting to learn to walk and they run run run crash they go down into the walls and all of this and you think oh my God this Kid will never walk again up they go and they don't trust trust in their flexibility live without attachment and

be generous be strong by bending by bending we need to learn this in our lives we need to learn this in the world it's not so important to be right it's so much more important when you have a choice to to be right or to be kind always pick kind always pick kind practice radical humility live low live Low like the ocean stay low and all the streams will come to it that's why it's so powerful because it doesn't Lord anything over anyone and rather than looking for miracles see everything as miraculous everything in your

life there was a man who had a DA experience what I call a Quantum moment his name was John Newton he lived back in the beginning of the 18th century and he was crossing the ocean he Was a a slave trader he had a ship full of human cargo that he was going to trade into slavery in the most hideous practice that was so common at that time in our in our history and in the middle of a storm on his way over there with all of these people he was 22 years old or 23

years old and he thought he was going to die and he thought the whole it was like a he must have hit a hurricane or something out there that was before Satellites could warn people and while he thought he was in that state of dying he took out a pencil and a paper and he wrote on the back of an envelope he wrote I once was lost and now I'm found and it was Grace it was Grace that taught my heart to feel it was grace that brought me home and when the storm was over

he had a moment he reconnected to his Source anybody out there can Rec reconnect to the source to The DA and become a being of Doubt remember it's a return trip and you can make that return trip while you're alive remember the parrot he knows much more than we did and he returned back to Africa and he released the slaves that it said and for the next 55 years of his life for the next 55 years of his life he shifted and became the most Ardent spokesman as an abolitionist to abolish That Hideous practice of

slavery that What he devoted his life to it a former slave it's like going from Saul to Paul you know from being a person who crucifies and murders Christians to being the author of a big portion of the New Testament as St Paul in a moment in a moment it's possible for any of us and there's a lady who I think has one of the great voices on this planet today her name is Cecilia and she has been traveling with me she's from Norway She has sung at conf at conventions and places that I have

been um she sings we call her the night Andale don't we she's an angel she sings Like An Angel and she's accompanied by the whales these whales these beautiful creatures who are in my front yard every morning on Maui the humpbacks who have these beautiful tales that flash and flash and and they just and some days you can I'll be walking along the beach and I will hear someone say honey his guy was Having on a honeymoon there and he said honey come on in come on in you can hear the whale singing they're all

singing and she's go I don't I don't think I want to get my feet wet and I don't think I get my hair and he said no but you can hear them and I flew into there I with my clothes on and went underneath and I stayed under there for like an hour up and back up and listening to these sounds of the whales these beautiful creatures in nature these Natural beings who I feel so connected to and so a part of and she sings accompanied by the whales now getting those whales into the sound

boots and getting the earphones on very very difficult you got to really appreciate what we did here to bring this to you and here she is her name is Cecilia she sings Amazing Grace accompanied by the whales one of my truly favorite people and greatest singers I've known Cecilia [Applause] thank you Namaste I want to close this beautiful presentation on the Dow Cecilia with a poem that was written by a woman her name is Naomi long maget she's from Detroit went to Wayne State University she was named the poet laurate of Detroit an acclaimed African-American

poet listen listen to these words it sums up All that I've been saying I wouldn't coax the plant if I were you such watchful nurturing may do it harm let the soil rest from so much digging and wait until it's dry before you water it the Leafs inclined to find its own Direction give it a chance to seek the sunlight for itself much growth is stunted by too Careful prodding too eager tenderness the things we love we have to learn to leave alone thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you [Music] thank you

thank you thank you so so much it's been such a wonderful evening it's The sunlight that becomes the rose I mean it's that whole thing that the da teaches us isn't it that out of the invisi out of the no thingness out of the space that uh has no name it's the space that's uh doing nothing but leaving nothing undone the da does nothing and leaves nothing undone and you you are from the da I'd like to just for a few moments Speak about one more thought I'd like to see you work at changing to

change the thought from Notice Me notice me to what Lau LSU calls living in obscurity becoming more obsc obscure we live in a uh celebrity obsessed world don't we look at me notice me the da teaches something completely the opposite listen to the 66th verse of the da water again the sea stays low and Because the sea stays low all of the rivers and all of the streams empty into it because it stays humble because it stays in that place of just allowing everything to come to you he was trying to teach us the important

lesson of uh letting what we know is coming come to us I practice this so much more now in my life than I did at one time I can remember years ago I was uh I had written a book called your ronus owns back in the 7s and Um it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for something like 27 months and each many weeks it would be number one and then it would go down to number three and then it would go to number two and down to 7 and all of that and

I was doing The Tonight Show in those days on a regular basis and uh so many of the other shows the MV Griffin and Phil donu and Dinos Shore I became like a reg on the dino show I was like you know hobnobbing with Bert Lancaster Folks and you know just uh and um what you do is you call and uh find out where you appear on the uh on the bestseller list for the following week on Wednesday so you call up on Wednesday not for the Sunday coming up but for the following week and

I called home and my ego was pretty strong and I was very much into a lot have noticed me I I really believe that true nobility is is not about being better than anyone else now it's it's about being better than You used to be and I think I'm better than I used to be and just about I mean I know that I'm better than I used to be in every quality or every characteristic that I hold to be valuable um but in those days I was into notice me and I called home and I

had trained my wife to uh call the New York Times she had this special number that she could call and with a certain code and she could find out where I was going to appear on the bestseller list the following week so I Called her up and I said uh where am I on the bestseller next next week you know out in California doing something and she said uh you're not on the bestseller list I said what are you talking about I was number one on the bestseller list last week I said my even my

voice changed when I what do you mean I'm not on the best seller this she said you're not on the best seller this time I'm sorry she said Your book is on the [Laughter] besteller big distinction there isn't it between believing that this is me and recognizing that uh you can let go a little bit of of that of that listen to uh verse 66 of The Da why is the Sea King of a 100 streams because it lies below them human ility gives it its power that's a very important principle to understand and I

live on the ocean right next to it it's my front yard and Always I watch it to learn something from this thing called the ocean which is the most powerful source of life that we have on the planet without it there's no life on this planet and because it stays low so what does this have to say to us do you have the capacity to get past that ego need to always be saying notice me look how important I am I mean there's been a proliferation of this lately with this celebrity silly stuff isn't it

I mean CNN is doing you know Full hour shows on uh on silly little things about what happened to this particular celebrity or what happened to that celebrity and the celebrity's never even done anything and it's there's all of this talk about and all of the new magazin I mean and you look you go into through an airport and you look on the news stand and all the same photos just with different magazines I don't even know what what the names of all of them are But there's like this huge market now that we have

for people to get into a state of notice me Notice Me notice me and how much do we train our young people particularly in our schools and so on that the one who is the star is the one who gets the most attention the one who is uh the most important and the most valuable is the one that has uh the most people liking them and so on this constant obsession with needing to be noticed when in fact what I have found For myself is the the happiest moments of my life are when I can

do it low and slow and not have anybody out there even know what I'm doing to be able to I mean never would have uh advertised the fact of some of the things I talk about with her generosity she does it anonymously it's almost always done in those ways no look at me look and notice me how important I am and so on so much to learn from that kind of wisdom from that kind of inner connection to the Dao the Ability and the willingness to say to do it anonymously to say that you can

just get done almost anything that you want to get done if you don't become obsessed with taking credit for it remember the movie The Magnificent Obsession a movie made back I think in the 50s and it was really about what was the Magnificent Obsession it was the ability to be able to give anonymously what is Alcoholics Anonymous it is everybody stays Anonymous nobody has a title there's not Even anybody in charge there's nobody there's no leaders of this there's no president there's no vice president there's no organization there's no it's just here's here's a group

of people who just want to help other people whose lives are out of control so here's a meeting place and you come and some one day somebody will will chair it and then somebody else another day will chair it and one of the things I found when I attend one of these meetings um is that I I feel you'll see so many people who are downtrodden who feel as if their life has passed them by who look like they don't have any teeth they haven't shaved they're they're dirty they're um God in Disguise Mother Teresa

was asked the question about what she does when she was in Kolkata and she said every day every day I see Jesus Christ in all of his distressing disguises all of his distressing Disguises that you can see this Source you can see the da you can see it when particularly in those who are the most most obscure the most uh isolated from everyone else and whenever I go to one of those meetings and I hear people get up and they tell their stories uh they I I always I feel that I feel there's so much

presence of the source of God of spirit of Lau of the of the S of Dao whatever you want to call it in one of those meetings than I've ever Felt in any church I've I I've never felt the presence of it more and I encourage you any of you watching this right now go to one of those meetings you don't have to be an alcoholic you don't have and I'm not an alcoholic I don't call myself an alcoholic I was never out of control I drank but I wasn't out of control and I uh

but I still go to those meetings I have people in my own family that have struggled with addiction and I go with Them and I sit there and I listen to those stories and I just I get Shivers on my back when I think about how beautiful it is to be in the presence of people all they want to do is help each other there's a movie called my name is Bill W James Woods BL and Jim car James Garner is in and uh he his life just got totally out of control with addictions totally

out of control and then he went to a uh uh he he he he went to one of these meetings and he began to realize And he said we can we can actually take these U these people and all we have to do is all we have to do is love them all we have to do is all and he's so excited about the concept of being able to go out there and and offer it and I keep referring to Louise because she's such a hero to me um there was a time back in the

80s when our president wasn't even able to say the word AIDS was he I mean he could come on and here was this lady who before this thing became the Worldwide phenomenon that it is was having meetings in her own house and and going and and bringing these people these downtrodden people who had been labeled outcasts in society and offering them a place to learn how to love each other and to care for each other this was long before there was any celebrity stat status associated with trying to end this horrible crisis that our country

has and our world has has had there was James Wood so excited about The idea of we can create a place where we're Anonymous nobody has to know anything about us we don't have to say our names we don't have to say anything we just have to come there and we can help each other and before that happened everybody who got out of control with addictions particularly with alcohol would uh would die there was no cure there was no cure and where did they find their cure they found it in being anonymous They found it

in being obscure they found it in having no organization they found it in having no elected representative they found it in having no rules there are no rules you just come and we care if you've been one day or one hour sober or even if you're drunk you come we care about you and you are not that alcohol who you are is this Divine soul in the 36th verse of the da da Ching it says the gentle Outlast the strong the Obscure Outlast the obvious Try to become a little more obscure little less interfering a

little less notice me a little less you know one of the specific kinds of things that you can do is just as you're about when somebody else is talking just as you're about to interject what you've been thinking about for the whole time waiting for them to stop talking just as you to just stop to bite your tongue and say tell me more or that's very interesting I have never heard that Point of view before even if they totally completely disagree with everything that you stand for to be to be willing to listen to be

able to stop you practice it I practiced it when I did these verses of The Da I practiced it every single day while I was working on that just staying obscure and for me that's not always so easy because of just being recognized wherever I go and if I saw someone was about to recognize me I would just put my head I would just Walk a little bit past them like something right now I just want to be anonymous right now I want to be obscure the da says storms always end verse 23 Fierce Winds

Don't Blow all morning a downpour of rain doesn't last all day who does this Heaven and Earth you're already connected to everything you want or need it will come to you at the exact perfect time as the rivers and the streams come to the ocean at the perfect time and place you got to trust You got to know it's going to come to you you don't have to chase after it you can become a little less obsessed with your ego and your self-importance and who you are and what you've done and you can get so

much more done and you know what it's the most peaceful and sweet delicious way it's like the song that Cecilia was singing about the Rose thank you so much and God bless [Applause] you for