36:40
So this, you see, is the problem of all self-conscious beings. They feel responsibility, then they feel responsible for being responsible, and responsible for being responsible for being responsible. And there’s no end to it. So then, in this obscure way, everybody wants to get back to the golden age. But they say, “If I just acted as I felt and was completely spontaneous, goodness only knows what would happen!” Jesus, you see, said to do that. He did! And everybody reads it in the King James Bible, where it means nothing:
37:20
Take no thought for the morrow
What ye shall eat, what ye shall drink,
And wherewithal ye shall be clothed.
Consider the lilies of the field; how they grow.
They toil not, neither do they spin.
But I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory
Was not arrayed like one of these.
Now, if God so clothed the grass of the field,
Which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven,
Shall he not much more clothe you, oh ye of little faith?
37:47
Oh, I mean, it sounds lovely read in church. But what it says—everybody says, “Uh, uh, uh, uh! No! That’s the Sermon on the Mount, and that’s not practical. Nobody can do that. That may be for a few saints, but after all, in our practical life as practicing Christians in the modern world, we can’t do that kind of thing.”
38:07
Well, isn’t that funny! Why can’t you do it? I mean, that’s the real reason for saying it in the first place. Jesus said many very strange things. For example, in the parable of the Pharisee in the Publican: how the Pharisee goes up into the front row and says how good he is, and that he has fulfilled all his obligations and paid the tithes. And then there’s this publican who goes into the back and sits there and beats his breast and says, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” And Jesus says, “Now, that man was the right man. He was justified.” But the moment he’s told that story, everybody creeps into the back row and says, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” And they’re all in the front row again. Nobody can do it, you see? That’s why the story is told.
39:00
In the same way, he says: “Take no thought for the morrow”—stop being anxious! Like going to a psychiatrist and he says to you, “Oh, don’t worry. Stop being nervous.” Can you? See, nobody can. And also, they find out, you see, that really, in the end, nobody can be God, nobody can make life any better by being responsible about it. Because whatever you gain in that direction, you lose at the same time. By being responsible we’ve created civilization, medicine, care of the poor—everything. But what a headache the thing has become. As we solve all our problems, we make more problems. Every problem you solve gives you ten new problems. I’m not saying don’t do that, but don’t think you’re going to get anywhere by doing that. That’s one way of arranging it—that’s one kind of dance you can have—is to improve everything and have technology. But it doesn’t really solve anything. And it’s only in the moment, you see, when you fully understand that your situation as a human being is completely insoluble—that there is no answer, and that you give up looking for the answer—that’s whew! That’s nirvāṇa. And that’s how Buddhism works.
Source: https://www.organism.earth/library/document/thusness
Photo: Pikes Peak, Colorado
