Well, I didn’t talk about movies, but I did talk about waking up to the conditioning of Culture. And movie are wake up stories, but I forgot to talk about that. What I did talk about was awaking curiosity as to why we are divided and dissatisfied, and why we are not in synchronicity with the external world. When synchronicity happens, we think it is a miracle. No, that is the way life is supposed to be; you are supposed to be in harmony with nature and the world, other people and your own experience. Division does not exist in nature. It exists only in Culture as an overlay that we mistake for reality. We believe the menu is the meal, the map is the terrain.

So this talk was intended to arouse your curiosity. Am I dreaming the dream of Culture, mesmerized by TV and internet, entranced by the dancing forms of culture on media that defines the reality I’m to believe in and then live in, my belief actually creating the reality I perceive. We should be curious about that.

But to say something about movies which my intention before my tongue took me in a different direction. Movies are Art, and Art has the purpose of waking us up to a wider experience of ourselves in the world. Art is Metaphor. Art has two. fingers; one points to the form of the art, the other finger points to your heart, hoping to get past your defense mechanism built by current culture. Culture doesn’t want you to wake up and leave it. Culture is like a doctor who won’t cure. you because he wants you to be his patient, or a spiritual teachers who promises to take you to the other shore, but never lets you off the boat.

The Game of Culture is to keep you as one of its cells. If the cells revolt against the body the body dies. But the great illusion of culture is that your revolt against culture is still within culture. Nothing changes. Culture doesn’t care if you obey or revolt, if you vote for security or change; either way you are still in culture. We need a bigger boat.

Culture is about shaking the Snow Globe to make the mind clear. Spiritual practice, Buddhism, is about discovering that you don’t need to shake the mind/culture in order to restore clarity.

Waking up begins at home. Waking up doesn’t begin in the big issues, deciding who is wrong and who is right, taking sides, creating a position, joining a movement. All this is fine, but it has nothing to do with waking up. Waking up is like the snow globe become clear when you stop shaking it to wake up.