closed the pages of my notebook, secured it with its rubber band, and then
threw it like a disk far into the chaparral.
I was shocked and began to protest but he put his hand over my mouth.
He pointed to a large bush and told me to fix my attention not on the leaves
but on the shadows of the leaves.
He said that running in the darkness did not have to be spurred by fear
but could be a very natural reaction of a jubilant body that knew how "to
not do." He repeated over and over in a whisper in my right ear that "to not
do what I knew how to do" was the key to power. In the case of looking at a
tree, what I knew how to do was to focus immediately on the foliage. The
shadows of the leaves or the spaces in between the leaves were never my
concern. His last admonitions were to start focusing on the shadows of the
leaves on one single branch and then eventually work my way to the whole
tree, and not to let my eyes go back to the leaves, because the first
deliberate step to storing personal power was to allow the body to "not-do."
Perhaps it was because of my fatigue or my nervous excitation, but I
became so immersed in the shadows of the leaves that by the time don Juan
stood up I could almost group the dark masses of shadows as effectively as I
normally grouped the foliage. The total effect was startling. I told don
Juan that I would like to stay longer. He laughed and patted me on my hat.
"I've told you, " he said. "The body likes things like this." He then
said that I should let my stored power guide me through the bushes to my
notebook. He gently pushed me into the chaparral. I walked aimlessly for a
moment and then I came upon it. I thought that I must have unconsciously
memorized the direction in which don Juan had thrown it. He explained the
event, saying that I went directly to the notebook because my body had been
soaked for hours in "not-doing."
NOT-DOING
Wednesday, April 12, 1962
Upon returning to his house, don Juan recommended that I work on my
notes as if nothing had happened to me, and not to mention or even be
concerned with any of the events I had experienced. After a day's rest he
announced that we had to leave the area for a few days because it was
advisable to put distance between us and those "entities." He said that they
had affected me deeply, although I was not noticing their effect yet because
my body was not sensitive enough. In a short while, however, I would fall
seriously ill if I did not go to my "place of predilection" to be cleansed
and restored.
We left before dawn and drove north, and after an exhausting drive and
a fast hike we arrived at the hilltop in the late afternoon. Don Juan, as he
had done before, covered the spot where I had once slept with small branches
and leaves. Then he gave me a handful of leaves to put against the skin of
my abdomen and told me to lie down and rest. He fixed another place for
himself slightly to my left, about five feet away from my head, and also lay
down.
In a matter of minutes I began to feel an exquisite warmth and a sense
of supreme well-being. It was a sense of physical comfort, a sensation of
being suspended in mid-air. I could fully agree with don Juan's statement
that the "bed of strings" would keep me floating. I commented on the
unbelievable quality of my sensory experience. Don Juan said in a factual
tone that the "bed" was made for that purpose.
"I can't believe that this is possible!" I exclaimed. Don Juan took my
statement literally and scolded me. He said he was tired of my acting as an
ultimately important being that has to be given proof over and over that the
world is unknown and marvelous.
I tried to explain that a rhetorical exclamation had no significance.
He retorted that if that were so I could have chosen another statement. It
seemed that he was seriously annoyed with me. I sat up halfway and began to
apologize, but he laughed and, imitating my manner of speaking, suggested a
series of hilarious rhetorical exclamations I could have used instead. I
ended up laughing at the calculated absurdity of some of his proposed
alternatives. He giggled and in a soft tone reminded me that I should
abandon myself to the sensation of floating.
The soothing feeling of peace and plenitude that I experienced in that
mysterious place aroused some deeply buried emotions in me. I began to talk
about my life. I confessed that I had never respected or liked anybody, not
even myself, and that I had always felt I was inherently evil, and thus my
attitude towards others was always veiled with a certain bravado and daring.
"True, " don Juan said. "You don't like yourself at all." He cackled
and told me that he had been "seeing" while I talked. His recommendation was
that I should not have remorse for anything I had done, because to isolate
one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil was to place an unwarranted
importance on the self.
I moved nervously and the bed of leaves made a rustling sound. Don Juan
said that if I wanted to rest I should not make my leaves feel agitated, and
that I should imitate him and lie without making a single movement. He added
that in his "seeing" he had come across one of my moods. He struggled for a
moment, seemingly to find a proper word, and said that the mood in question
was a frame of mind I continually lapsed into. He described it as a sort of
trap door that opened at unexpected times and swallowed me.
I asked him to be more specific. He replied that it was impossible to
be specific about "seeing." Before I could say anything else he told me I
should relax, but not fall asleep, and be in a state of awareness for as
long as I could. He said that the "bed of strings" was made exclusively to
allow a warrior to arrive at a certain state of peace and well-being. In a
dramatic tone don Juan stated that well-being was a condition one had to
groom, a condition one had to become acquainted with in order to seek it.
"You don't know what well-being is, because you have never experienced
it, " he said. I disagreed with him. But he continued arguing that well
being was an achievement one had to deliberately seek. He said that the only
thing I knew how to seek was a sense of disorientation, ill-being, and
confusion.
He laughed mockingly and assured me that in order to accomplish the
feat of making myself miserable I had to work in a most intense fashion, and
that it was absurd I had never realized I could work just the same in making
myself complete and strong. "The trick is in what one emphasizes," he said.
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount
of work is the same."
I closed my eyes and relaxed again and began to feel I was floating;
for a short while it was as if I were actually moving through space, like a
leaf. Although it was utterly pleasurable, the feeling somehow reminded me
of times when I had become sick and dizzy and would experience a sensation
of spinning. I thought perhaps I had eaten something bad. I heard don Juan
talking to me but I did not really make an effort to listen. I was trying to
make a mental inventory of all the things I had eaten that day, but I could
not become interested in it. It did not seem to matter.
"Watch the way the sunlight changes," he said.
His voice was clear. I thought it was like water, fluid and warm.
The sky was totally free of clouds towards the west and the sunlight
was spectacular. Perhaps the fact that don Juan was cueing me made the
yellowish glow of the afternoon sun truly magnificent.
"Let that glow kindle you, " don Juan said. "Before the sun goes down
today you must be perfectly calm and restored, because tomorrow or the day
after, you are going to learn not-doing."
"Learn not doing what?" I asked.
"Never mind now, " he said. "Wait until we are in those lava
mountains."
He pointed to some distant jagged, dark, menacing-looking peaks towards
the north.
Thursday, April 13, 1962
We reached the high desert around the lava mountains in the late
afternoon. In the distance the dark brown lava mountains looked almost
sinister. The sun was very low on the horizon and shone on the western face
of the solidified lava, tinting its dark brownness with a dazzling array of
yellow reflections. I could not keep my eyes away. Those peaks were truly
mesmerizing.
By the end of the day the bottom slopes of the mountains were in sight.
There was very little vegetation on the high desert; all I could see were
cacti and a kind of tall grass that grew in tufts.
Don Juan stopped to rest. He sat down, carefully propped his food
gourds against a rock, and said that we were going to camp on that spot for
the night. He had picked a relatively high place. From where I stood I could
see quite a distance away, all around us.
It was a cloudy day and the twilight quickly enveloped the area. I
became involved in watching the speed with which the crimson clouds on the
west faded into a uniform thick dark gray. Don Juan got up and went to the
bushes. By the time he came back the silhouette of the lava mountains was a
dark mass. He sat down next to me and called my attention to what seemed to
be a natural formation on the mountains towards the northeast. It was a spot
which had a color much lighter than its surroundings. While the whole range
of lava mountains looked uniformly dark brown in the twilight, the spot he
was pointing at was actually yellowish or dark beige. I could not figure out
what it could be. I stared at it for a long time. It seemed to be moving; I
fancied it to be pulsating.
When I squinted my eyes it actually rippled as if the wind were moving
it.
"Look at it fixedly!" don Juan commanded me.
At one moment, after I had maintained my stare for quite a while, I
felt that the whole range of mountains was moving towards me. That feeling
was accompanied by an unusual agitation in the pit of my stomach. The
discomfort became so acute that I stood up.
"Sit down!" don Juan yelled, but I was already on my feet. From my new
point of view the yellowish formation was lower on the side of the
mountains, I sat down again, without taking my eyes away, and the formation
shifted to a higher place. I stared at it for an instant and suddenly I
arranged everything into the correct perspective. I realized that what I had
been looking at was not in the mountains at all but was really a piece of
yellowish green cloth hanging from a tall cactus in front of me.
I laughed out loud and explained to don Juan that the twilight had
helped to create an optical illusion. He got up and walked to the place
where the piece of cloth was hanging, took it down, folded it, and put it
inside his pouch. "What are you doing that for?" I asked.
"Because this piece of cloth has power, " he said casually. "For a
moment you were doing fine with it and there is no way of knowing what may
have happened if you had remained seated."
Friday, April 14, 1962
At the crack of dawn we headed for the mountains. They were
surprisingly far away. By midday we walked into one of the canyons. There
was some water in shallow pools. We sat to rest in the shade of a hanging
cliff. The mountains were clumps of a monumental lava flow. The solidified
lava had weathered over the millennia into a porous dark brown rock. Only a
few sturdy weeds grew between the rocks and in the cracks.
Looking up at the almost perpendicular walls of the canyon, I had a
weird sensation in the pit of my stomach. The walls were hundreds of feet
high and gave me the feeling that they were closing in on me. The sun was
almost overhead, slightly towards the southwest. "Stand up here, " don Juan
said and maneuvered my body until I was looking towards the sun. He told me
to look fixedly at the mountain walls above me. The sight was stupendous.
The magnificent height of the lava flow staggered my imagination. I began to
wonder what a volcanic upheaval it must have been. I looked up and down the
sides of the canyon various times. I became immersed in the richness of
color in the rock wall. There were specks of every conceivable hue. There
were patches of light gray moss or lichen in every rock. I looked right
above my head and noticed that the sunlight was producing the most exquisite
reflections when it hit the brilliant specks of the solidified lava.
I stared at an area in the mountains where the sunlight was being
reflected. As the sun moved, the intensity diminished, then it faded
completely. I looked across the canyon and saw another area of the same
exquisite light refractions. I told don Juan what was happening, and then I
spotted another area of light, and then another in a different place, and
another, until the whole canyon was blotched with big patches of light.
I felt dizzy; even if I closed my eyes I could still see the brilliant
lights. I held my head in my hands and tried to crawl under the hanging
cliff, but don Juan grabbed my arm firmly and imperatively told me to look
at the walls of the mountains and try to figure out spots of heavy darkness
in the midst of the fields of light.
I did not want to look, because the glare bothered my eyes. I said that
what was happening to me was similar to staring into a sunny street through
a window and then seeing the window frame as a dark silhouette everywhere
else. Don Juan shook his head from side to side and began to chuckle. He let
go of my arm and we sat down again under the hanging cliff.
I was jotting down my impressions of the surroundings when don Juan,
after a long silence, suddenly spoke in a dramatic tone. "I have brought you
here to teach you one thing, " he said and paused. "You are going to learn
not-doing. We might as well talk about it because there is no other way for
you to proceed. I thought you might catch on to not-doing without my having
to say anything. I was wrong."
"I don't know what you're talking about, don Juan."
"It doesn't matter, " he said. "I am going to tell you about something
that is very simple but very difficult to perform; I am going to talk to you
about not-doing, in spite of the fact that there is no way to talk about it,
because it is the body that does it."
He stared at me in glances and then said that I had to pay the utmost
attention to what he was going to say. I closed my notebook, but to my
amazement he insisted that I should keep on writing.
"Not-doing is so difficult and so powerful that you should not mention
it, " he went on. "Not until you have stopped the world; only then can you
talk about it freely, if that's what you'd want to do."
Don Juan looked around and then pointed to a large rock. "That rock
over there is a rock because of doing" he said.
We looked at each other and he smiled. I waited for an explanation but
he remained silent. Finally I had to say that I had not understood what he
meant.
"That's doing!" he exclaimed.
"Pardon me?"
"That's also doing."
"What are you talking about, don Juan?"
"Doing is what makes that rock a rock and that bush a bush. Doing is
what makes you yourself and me myself."
I told him that his explanation did not explain anything. He laughed
and scratched his temples.
"That's the problem with talking, " he said. "It always makes one
confuse the issues. If one starts talking about doing, one always ends up
talking about something else. It is better to just act.
"Take that rock for instance. To look at it is doing, but to see it is
not-doing"
I had to confess that his words were not making sense to me. "Oh yes
they do!" he exclaimed. "But you are convinced that they don't because that
is your doing. That is the way you act towards me and the world."
He again pointed to the rock. "That rock is a rock because of all the
things you know how to do to it, " he said. "I call that doing. A man of
knowledge, for instance, knows that the rock is a rock only because of
doing, so if he doesn't want the rock to be a rock all he has to do is
not-doing. See what I mean?"
I did not understand him at all. He laughed and made another attempt at
explaining.
"The world is the world because you know the doing involved in making
it so, " he said. "If you didn't know its doing, the world would be
different."
He examined me with curiosity. I stopped writing. I just wanted to
listen to him. He went on explaining that without that certain "doing" there
would be nothing familiar in the surroundings. He leaned over and picked up
a small rock between the thumb and index of his left hand and held it in
front of my eyes.
"This is a pebble because you know the doing involved in making it into
a pebble, " he said.
"What are you saying?" I asked with a feeling of bona fide confusion.
Don Juan smiled. He seemed to be trying to hide a mischievous delight.
"I don't know why you are so confused, " he said. "Words are your
predilection. You should be in heaven."
He gave me a mysterious look and raised his brows two or three times.
Then he pointed again to the small rock he was holding in front of my eyes.
"I say that you are making this into a pebble because you know the
doing involved in it, " he said. "Now, in order to stop the world you must
stop doing." He seemed to know that I still had not understood and smiled,
shaking his head. He then took a twig and pointed to the uneven edge of the
pebble.
"In the case of this little rock, " he went on, "the first thing which
doing does to it is to shrink it to this size. So the proper thing to do,
which a warrior does if he wants to stop the world, is to enlarge a little
rock, or any other thing, by not-doing."
He stood up and placed the pebble on a boulder and then asked me to
come closer and examine it. He told me to look at the holes and depressions
in the pebble and try to pick out the minute detail in them. He said that if
I could pick out the detail, the holes and depressions would disappear and I
would understand what "not-doing" meant.
"This damn pebble is going to drive you crazy today, " he said.
I must have had a look of bewilderment on my face. He looked at me and
laughed uproariously. Then he pretended to get angry with the pebble and hit
it two or three times with his hat.
I urged him to clarify his point. I argued that it was possible for him
to explain anything he wanted to if he made an effort.
He gave me a sly glance and shook his head as if the situation were
hopeless.
"Sure I can explain anything, " he said, laughing. "But could you
understand it?" I was taken aback by his insinuation. "Doing makes you
separate the pebble from the larger boulder, " he continued. "If you want to
learn not-doing, let's say that you have to join them."
He pointed to the small shadow that the pebble cast on the boulder and
said that it was not a shadow but a glue which bound them together. He then
turned around and walked away, saying that he was coming back to check on me
later. I stared at the pebble for a long time. I could not focus my
attention on the minute detail in the holes and depressions, but the tiny
shadow that the pebble cast on the boulder became a most interesting point.
Don Juan was right; it was like a glue. It moved and shifted. I had the
impression it was being squeezed from underneath the pebble.
When don Juan returned I related to him what I had observed about the
shadow.
"That's a good beginning, " he said. "A warrior can tell all kinds of
things from the shadows." He then suggested that I should take the pebble
and bury it somewhere.
"Why?" I asked.
"You've been watching it for a long time," he said. "It has something
of you now. A warrior always tries to affect the force of doing by changing
it into not-doing. Doing would be to leave the pebble lying around because
it is merely a small rock. Not-doing would be to proceed with that pebble as
if it were something far beyond a mere rock. In this case, that pebble has
soaked in you for a long time and now it is you, and as such, you cannot
leave it lying around but must bury it. If you would have personal power,
however, not-doing would be to change that pebble into a power object."
"Can I do that now?"
"Your life is not tight enough to do that. If you would see, you would
know that your heavy concern has changed that pebble into something quite
unappealing, therefore the best thing you can do is to dig a hole and bury
it and let the earth absorb its heaviness."
"Is all this true, don Juan?"
"To say yes or no to your question is doing. But since you are learning
not-doing I have to tell you that it really doesn't matter whether or not
all this is true. It is here that a warrior has a point of advantage over
the average man. An average man cares that things are either true or false,
but a warrior doesn't. An average man proceeds in a specific way with things
that he knows are true, and in a different way with things that he knows are
not true. If things are said to be true, he acts and believes in what he
does. But if things are said to be untrue, he doesn't care to act, or he
doesn't believe in what he does. A warrior, on the other hand, acts in both
instances. If things are said to be true, he would act in order to do doing.
If things are said to be untrue, he still would act in order to do
not-doing. See what I mean?"
"No, I don't see what you mean at all, " I said. Don Juan's statements
put me in a belligerent mood. I could not make sense of what he was saying.
I told him it was gibberish, and he mocked me and said that I did not even
have an impeccable spirit in what I liked to do the most, talking.
He actually made fun of my verbal command and found it faulty and
inadequate.
"If you are going to be all mouth, be a mouth warrior, " he said and
roared with laughter. I felt dejected. My ears were buzzing. I experienced
an uncomfortable heat in my head. I was actually embarrassed and presumably
red in the face. I stood up and went into the chaparral and buried the
pebble.
"I was teasing you a little bit, " don Juan said when I returned and
sat down again. "And yet I know that if you don't talk you don't understand.
Talking is doing for you, but talking is not appropriate and if you want to
know what I mean by not-doing you have to do a simple exercise. Since we are
concerned with not-doing it doesn't matter whether you do the exercise now
or ten years from now."
He made me lie down and took my right arm and bent it at my elbow. Then
he turned my hand until the palm was facing the front; he curved my fingers
so my hand looked as if I were holding a doorknob, and then he began to move
my arm back and forth with a circular motion that resembled the act of
pushing and pulling a lever attached to a wheel.
Don Juan said that a warrior executed that movement every time he
wanted to push something out of his body, something like a disease or an
unwelcome feeling. The idea was to push and pull an imaginary opposing force
until one felt a heavy object, a solid body, stopping the free movements of
the hand. In the case of the exercise, "not-doing" consisted in repeating it
until one felt the heavy body with the hand, in spite of the fact that one
could never believe it was possible to feel it. I began moving my arm and in
a short while my hand became ice cold. I had begun to feel a sort of
mushiness around my hand. It was as if I were paddling through some heavy
viscous liquid matter.
Don Juan made a sudden movement and grabbed my arm to stop the motion.
My whole body shivered as though stirred by some unseen force. He
scrutinized me as I sat up, and then walked around me before he sat back
down on the place where he had been.
"You've done enough, " he said. "You may do this exercise some other
time, when you have more personal power."
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No. Not-doing is only for very strong warriors and you don't have the
power to deal with it yet. Now you will only trap horrendous things with
your hand. So do it little by little, until your hand doesn't get cold any
more. Whenever your hand remains warm you can actually feel the lines of.
the world with it."
He paused as if to give me time to ask about the lines. But before I
had a chance to, he started explaining that there were infinite numbers of
lines that joined us to things. He said that the exercise of "not-doing"
that he had just described would help anyone to feel a line that came out
from the moving hand, a line that one could place or cast wherever one
wanted to. Don Juan said that this was only an exercise, because the lines
formed by the hand were not durable enough to be of real value in a
practical situation.
"A man of knowledge uses other parts of his body to produce durable
lines, " he said.
"What parts of the body, don Juan?"
"The most durable lines that a man of knowledge produces come from the
middle of the body," he said. "But he can also make them with his eyes."
"Are they real lines?"
"Surely."
"Can you see them and touch them?"
"Let's say that you can feel them. The most difficult part about the
warrior's way is to realize that the world is a feeling. When one is
not-doing, one is feeling the world, and one feels the world through its
lines."
He paused and examined me with curiosity. He raised his brows and
opened his eyes and then blinked. The effect was like the eyes of a bird
blinking. Almost immediately I felt a sensation of discomfort and
queasiness. It was actually as if something was applying pressure to my
stomach.
"See what I mean?" don Juan asked and moved his eyes away.
I mentioned that I felt nauseated and he replied in a matter-of-fact
tone that he knew it, and that he was trying to make me feel the lines of
the world with his eyes. I could not accept the claim that he himself was
making me feel that way. I voiced my doubts. I could hardly conceive the
idea that he was causing my feeling of nausea, since he had not, in any
physical way, impinged on me. "Not-doing is very simple but very difficult,
" he said. "It is not a matter of understanding it but of mastering it.
Seeing, of course, is the final accomplishment of a man of knowledge, .and
seeing is attained only when one has stopped the world through the technique
of not-doing."
I smiled involuntarily. I had not understood what he meant. "When one
does something with people, " he said, "the concern should be only with
presenting the case to their bodies. That's what I've been doing with you so
far, letting your body know. Who cares whether or not you understand?"
"But that's unfair, don Juan. I want to understand everything,
otherwise coming here would be a waste of my time."
"A waste of your time!" he exclaimed parodying my tone of voice. "You
certainly are conceited." He stood up and told me that we were going to hike
to the top of the lava peak to our right. The ascent to the top was an
excruciating affair. It was actual mountain climbing, except that there were
no ropes to aid and protect us. Don Juan repeatedly told me not to look
down; and he had to actually pull me up bodily a couple of times, after I
had begun to slide down the rock. I felt terribly embarrassed that don Juan,
being so old, had to help me. I told him that I was in poor physical
condition because I was too lazy to do any exercise. He replied that once
one had arrived at a certain level of personal power, exercise or any
training of that sort was unnecessary, since all one needed, to be in an
impeccable form, was to engage oneself in "not-doing."
When we arrived at the top I lay down. I was about to be sick. He
rolled me back and forth with his foot as he had done once before. Little by
little the motion restored my balance. But I felt nervous. It was as if I
were somehow waiting for the sudden appearance of something. I involuntarily
looked two or three times to each side. Don Juan did not say a word but he
also looked in the direction I was looking.
"Shadows are peculiar affairs, " he said all of a sudden. "You must
have noticed that there is one following us."
"I haven't noticed anything of the sort, " I protested in a loud voice.
Don Juan said that my body had noticed our pursuer, in spite of my
stubborn opposition, and assured me in a confident tone that there was
nothing unusual about being followed by a shadow.
"It is just a power, " he said. "These mountains are filled with them.
It is just like one of those entities that scared you the other night."
I wanted to know if I could actually perceive it myself. He asserted
that in the daytime I could only feel its presence. I wanted an explanation
of why he called it a shadow when obviously it was not like the shadow of a
boulder. He replied that both had the same lines, therefore both were
shadows.
He pointed to a long boulder standing directly in front of us.
"Look at the shadow of that boulder, "He said. "The shadow is the
boulder, and yet it isn't. To observe the boulder in order to know what the
boulder is, is doing, but to observe its shadow is not-doing.
"Shadows are like doors, the doors of not-doing. A man of knowledge,
for example, can tell the innermost feelings of men by watching their
shadows."
"Is there movement in them?" I asked.
"You may say that there is movement in them, or you may say that the
lines of the world are shown in them, or you may say that feelings come from
them."
"But how could feelings come out of shadows, don Juan?"
"To believe that shadows are just shadows is doing" he explained. "That
belief is somehow stupid. Think about it this way: There is so much more to
everything in the world that obviously there must be more to shadows too.
After all, what makes them shadows is merely our doing."
There was a long silence. I did not know what else to say.
"The end of the day is approaching, " don Juan said, looking at the
sky. "You have to use this brilliant sunlight to perform one last exercise."
He led me to a place where there were two peaks the size of a man
standing parallel to each other, about four or five feet apart. Don Juan
stopped ten yards away from them, facing the west. He marked a spot for me
to stand on and told me to look at the shadows of the peaks. He said that I
should watch them and cross my eyes in the same manner I ordinarily crossed
them when scanning the ground for a place to rest.
He clarified his directions by saying that when searching for a resting
place one had to look without focusing but in observing shadows one had to
cross the eyes and yet keep a sharp image in focus. The idea was to let one
shadow be superimposed on the other by crossing the eyes. He explained that
through that process one could ascertain a certain feeling which emanated
from shadows. I commented on his vagueness, but he maintained that there was
really no way of describing what he meant.
My attempt to carry out the exercise was futile. I struggled until I
got a headache. Don Juan was not at all concerned with my failure. He
climbed to a dome like peak and yelled from the top, telling me to look for
two small long and narrow pieces of rock. He showed with his hands the size
rock he wanted. I found two pieces and handed them to him. Don Juan placed
each rock about a foot apart in two crevices, made me stand above them
facing the west, and told me to do the same exercise with their shadows.
This time it was an altogether different affair. Almost immediately I
was capable of crossing my eyes and perceiving their individual shadows as
if they had merged into one. I noticed that the act of looking without
converging the images gave the single shadow I had formed an unbelievable
depth and a sort of transparency. I stared at it, bewildered. Every hole in
the rock, on the area where my eyes were focused, was neatly discernible;
and the composite shadow, which was superimposed on them, was like a film of
indescribable transparency.
I did not want to blink, for fear of losing the image I was so
precariously holding. Finally my sore eyes forced me to blink, but I did not
lose the view of the detail at all. In fact, by remoistening my cornea the
image became even clearer. I noticed at that point that it was as if I were
looking from an immeasurable height at a world I had never seen before. I
also noticed that I could scan the surroundings of the shadow without losing
the focus of my visual perception. Then, for an instant, I lost the notion
that I was looking at a rock. I felt that I was landing in a world, vast
beyond anything I had ever conceived. This extraordinary perception lasted
for a second and then everything was turned off. I automatically looked up
and saw don Juan standing directly above the rocks, facing me. He had
blocked the sunlight with his body. I described the unusual sensation I had
had, and he explained that he had been forced to interrupt it because he
"saw" that I was about to get lost in it. He added that it was a natural
tendency for all of us to indulge ourselves when feelings of that nature
occur, and that by indulging myself in it I had almost turned "not-doing"
into my old familiar "doing." He said that what I should have done was to
maintain the view without succumbing to it, because in a way "doing" was a
manner of succumbing.
I complained that he should have told me beforehand what to expect and
what to do, but he pointed out that he had no way of knowing whether or not
I would succeed in merging the shadows.
I had to confess I was more mystified than ever about "not-doing." Don
Juan's comments were that I should be satisfied with what I had done,
because for once I had proceeded correctly, that by reducing the world I had
enlarged it, and that, although I had been far from feeling the lines of the
world, I had correctly used the shadow of the rocks as a door into
"not-doing."
The statement that I had enlarged the world by reducing it intrigued me
to no end. The detail of the porous rock, in the small area where my eyes
were focused, was so vivid and so precisely defined that the top of the
round peak became a vast world for me; and yet it was really a reduced
vision of the rock. When don Juan blocked the light and I found myself
looking as I normally would do, the precise detail became dull, the tiny
holes in the porous rock became bigger, the brown color of the dried lava
became opaque, and everything lost the shiny transparency that made the rock
into a real world.
Don Juan then took the two rocks, laid them gently into a deep crevice,
and sat down cross-legged facing the west, on the spot where the rocks had
been. He patted a spot next to him to his left and told me to sit down.
We did not speak for a long time. Then we ate, also in silence. It was
only after the sun had set that he suddenly turned and asked me about my
progress in "dreaming." I told him that it had been easy in the beginning,
but that at the moment I had ceased altogether to find my hands in my
dreams.
"When you first started dreaming you were using my personal power,
that's why it was easier, " he said. "Now you are empty. But you must keep
on trying until you have enough power of your own. You see, dreaming is the
not-doing of dreams, and as you progress in your not -doing you will also
progress in dreaming. The trick is not to stop looking for your hands, even
if you don't believe that what you are doing has any meaning. In fact, as I
have told you before, a warrior doesn't need to believe, because as long as
he keeps on acting without believing he is not-doing." We looked at each
other for a moment.
"There is nothing else I can tell you about dreaming." he continued.
"Everything I may say would only be not-doing. But if you tackle not-doing
directly, you yourself would know what to do in dreaming. To find your hands
is essential, though, at this time, and I am sure you will." "I don't know,
don Juan. I don't trust myself."
"This is not a matter of trusting anybody. This whole affair is a
matter of a warrior's struggle; and you will keep on struggling, if not
under your own power, then perhaps under the impact of a worthy opponent, or
with the help of some allies, .like the one which is already following you."
I made a jerky involuntary movement with my right arm.
Don Juan said that my body knew much more than I suspected, because the
force that had been pursuing us was to my right. He confided in a low tone
of voice that twice that day the ally had come so close to me that he had
had to step in and stop it.
"During the day shadows are the doors of not-doing" he said. "But at
night, since very little doing prevails in the dark, everything is a shadow,
including the allies. I've already told you about this when I taught you the
gait of power." I laughed out loud and my own laughter scared me.
"Everything I have taught you so far has been an aspect of not-doing"
he went on. "A warrior applies not-doing to everything in the world, and yet
I can't tell you more about it than what I have said today. You must let
your own body discover the power and the feeling of not-doing." I had
another fit of nervous cackling.
"It is stupid for you to scorn the mysteries of the world simply
because you know the doing of scorn," he said with a serious face. I assured
him that I was not scorning anything or anyone, but that I was more nervous
and incompetent than he thought. "I've always been that way, " I said. "And
yet I want to change, but I don't know how. I am so inadequate."
"I already know that you think you are rotten, " he said.
"That's your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to
recommend that you learn another doing. From now on, and for a period of
eight days, I want you to lie to yourself. Instead of telling yourself the
truth, that you are ugly and rotten and inadequate, you will tell yourself
that you are the complete opposite, knowing that you are lying and that you
are absolutely beyond hope."
"But what would be the point of lying like that, don Juan?"
"It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize that both
doings are lies, unreal, and that to hinge yourself to either one is a waste
of time, because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is
going to die. To arrive at that being is the not-doing of the self."
THE RING OF POWER
Saturday, April 15, 1962
Don Juan felt the weight of our gourds and concluded that we had
exhausted our food supply and that it was time to return home. I casually
mentioned that it was going to take us at least a couple of days to get to
his house. He said he was not going back to Sonora but to a border town
where he had some business to take care of. I thought we were going to start
our descent through a water canyon but don Juan headed towards the northwest
on the high plateaus of the lava mountains. After about an hour of walking
he led me into a deep ravine, which ended at a point where two peaks almost
joined. There was a slope there, going almost to the top of the range, a
strange slope which looked like a slanted concave bridge between the two
peaks. Don Juan pointed to an area on the face of the slope.
"Look there fixedly, " he said. "The sun is almost right."
He explained that at midday the light of the sun could help me with
"not-doing." He then gave me a series of commands: to loosen all the tight
garments I had on, to sit in a cross-legged position, and to look intently
at the spot he had specified.
There were very few clouds in the sky and none towards the west. It was
a hot day and the sunlight beamed on the solidified lava. I kept a very
close watch over the area in question.
After a long vigil I asked what, specifically, I was supposed to look
for. He made me be quiet with an impatient gesture of his hand. I was tired.
I wanted to go to sleep. I half closed my eyes; they were itching and I
rubbed them, but my hands were clammy and the sweat made my eyes sting. I
looked at the lava peaks through half-closed eyelids and suddenly the whole
mountain was lit up.
I told don Juan that if I squinted my eyes I could see the whole range
of mountains as an intricate array of light fibers.
He told me to breathe as little as possible in order to maintain the
view of the light fibers, and not to stare intently into it but to look
casually at a point on the horizon right above the slope. I followed his
instructions and was able to hold the view of an interminable extension
covered with a web of light.
Don Juan said in a very soft voice that I should try to isolate areas
of darkness within the field of light fibers, and that right after finding a
dark spot I should open my eyes and check where that spot was on the face of
the slope.
I was incapable of perceiving any dark areas. I squinted my eyes and
then opened them up various times. Don Juan drew closer to me and pointed to
an area to my right, and then to smother one right in front of me. I tried
to change the position of my body; I thought that perhaps if I shifted my
perspective I would be able to perceive the supposed area of darkness he was
pointing to, but don Juan shook my arm and told me in a severe tone to keep
still and be patient.
I again squinted my eyes and once more saw the web of light fibers. I
looked at it for a moment and then I opened my eyes wider. At that instant I
heard a faint rumble - it could have easily been explained as the distant
sound of a jet plane - and then, with my eyes wide open, I saw the whole
range of mountains in front of me as an enormous field of tiny dots of
light. It was as if for a brief moment some metallic specks in the
solidified lava were reflecting the sunlight in unison. Then the sunlight
grew dim and was suddenly turned off and the mountains became a mass of dull
dark brown rock and at the same time it also became windy and cold.
I wanted to turn around to see if the sun had disappeared behind a
cloud but don Juan held my head and did not let me move. He said that if I
turned I might catch a glimpse of an entity of the mountains, the ally that
was following us. He assured me that I did not have the necessary strength
to stand a sight of that nature, and then he added in a calculated tone that
the rumble I had heard was the peculiar way in which an ally heralded its
presence. He then stood up and announced that we were going to start
climbing up the side of the slope.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
He pointed to one of the areas he had isolated as being a spot of
darkness. He explained that "not-doing" had allowed him to single out that
spot as a possible center of power, or perhaps as a place where power
objects might be found.
We reached the spot he had in mind after a painful climb. He stood
motionless for a moment a few feet in front of me. I tried to come closer to
him but he signaled me with his hand to stop. He seemed to be orienting
himself. I could see the back of his head moving as if he were sweeping his
eyes up and down the mountain, then with sure steps he led the way to a
ledge. He sat down and began to wipe some loose dirt off the ledge with his
hand. He dug with his fingers around a small piece of rock that was sticking
out, cleaning the dirt around it. Then he ordered me to dig it out.
Once I had dislodged the piece of rock, he told me to immediately put
it inside my shirt because it was a power object that belonged to me. He
said that he was giving it to me to keep, and that I should polish and care
for it.
Right after that we began our descent into a water canyon, and a couple
of hours later we were in the high desert at the foot of the lava mountains.
Don Juan walked about ten feet ahead of me and kept up a very good pace. We
went south until just before sunset. A heavy bank of clouds in the west
prevented us from seeing the sun but we paused until it had presumably
disappeared over the horizon.
Don Juan changed directions then and headed towards the southeast. We
went over a hill and as we got to the top I spotted four men coming towards
us from the south. I looked at don Juan. We had never encountered people in
our excursions and I did not know what to do in a case like that. But he did
not seem to be concerned. He kept on walking as if nothing had happened. The
threw it like a disk far into the chaparral.
I was shocked and began to protest but he put his hand over my mouth.
He pointed to a large bush and told me to fix my attention not on the leaves
but on the shadows of the leaves.
He said that running in the darkness did not have to be spurred by fear
but could be a very natural reaction of a jubilant body that knew how "to
not do." He repeated over and over in a whisper in my right ear that "to not
do what I knew how to do" was the key to power. In the case of looking at a
tree, what I knew how to do was to focus immediately on the foliage. The
shadows of the leaves or the spaces in between the leaves were never my
concern. His last admonitions were to start focusing on the shadows of the
leaves on one single branch and then eventually work my way to the whole
tree, and not to let my eyes go back to the leaves, because the first
deliberate step to storing personal power was to allow the body to "not-do."
Perhaps it was because of my fatigue or my nervous excitation, but I
became so immersed in the shadows of the leaves that by the time don Juan
stood up I could almost group the dark masses of shadows as effectively as I
normally grouped the foliage. The total effect was startling. I told don
Juan that I would like to stay longer. He laughed and patted me on my hat.
"I've told you, " he said. "The body likes things like this." He then
said that I should let my stored power guide me through the bushes to my
notebook. He gently pushed me into the chaparral. I walked aimlessly for a
moment and then I came upon it. I thought that I must have unconsciously
memorized the direction in which don Juan had thrown it. He explained the
event, saying that I went directly to the notebook because my body had been
soaked for hours in "not-doing."
NOT-DOING
Wednesday, April 12, 1962
Upon returning to his house, don Juan recommended that I work on my
notes as if nothing had happened to me, and not to mention or even be
concerned with any of the events I had experienced. After a day's rest he
announced that we had to leave the area for a few days because it was
advisable to put distance between us and those "entities." He said that they
had affected me deeply, although I was not noticing their effect yet because
my body was not sensitive enough. In a short while, however, I would fall
seriously ill if I did not go to my "place of predilection" to be cleansed
and restored.
We left before dawn and drove north, and after an exhausting drive and
a fast hike we arrived at the hilltop in the late afternoon. Don Juan, as he
had done before, covered the spot where I had once slept with small branches
and leaves. Then he gave me a handful of leaves to put against the skin of
my abdomen and told me to lie down and rest. He fixed another place for
himself slightly to my left, about five feet away from my head, and also lay
down.
In a matter of minutes I began to feel an exquisite warmth and a sense
of supreme well-being. It was a sense of physical comfort, a sensation of
being suspended in mid-air. I could fully agree with don Juan's statement
that the "bed of strings" would keep me floating. I commented on the
unbelievable quality of my sensory experience. Don Juan said in a factual
tone that the "bed" was made for that purpose.
"I can't believe that this is possible!" I exclaimed. Don Juan took my
statement literally and scolded me. He said he was tired of my acting as an
ultimately important being that has to be given proof over and over that the
world is unknown and marvelous.
I tried to explain that a rhetorical exclamation had no significance.
He retorted that if that were so I could have chosen another statement. It
seemed that he was seriously annoyed with me. I sat up halfway and began to
apologize, but he laughed and, imitating my manner of speaking, suggested a
series of hilarious rhetorical exclamations I could have used instead. I
ended up laughing at the calculated absurdity of some of his proposed
alternatives. He giggled and in a soft tone reminded me that I should
abandon myself to the sensation of floating.
The soothing feeling of peace and plenitude that I experienced in that
mysterious place aroused some deeply buried emotions in me. I began to talk
about my life. I confessed that I had never respected or liked anybody, not
even myself, and that I had always felt I was inherently evil, and thus my
attitude towards others was always veiled with a certain bravado and daring.
"True, " don Juan said. "You don't like yourself at all." He cackled
and told me that he had been "seeing" while I talked. His recommendation was
that I should not have remorse for anything I had done, because to isolate
one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil was to place an unwarranted
importance on the self.
I moved nervously and the bed of leaves made a rustling sound. Don Juan
said that if I wanted to rest I should not make my leaves feel agitated, and
that I should imitate him and lie without making a single movement. He added
that in his "seeing" he had come across one of my moods. He struggled for a
moment, seemingly to find a proper word, and said that the mood in question
was a frame of mind I continually lapsed into. He described it as a sort of
trap door that opened at unexpected times and swallowed me.
I asked him to be more specific. He replied that it was impossible to
be specific about "seeing." Before I could say anything else he told me I
should relax, but not fall asleep, and be in a state of awareness for as
long as I could. He said that the "bed of strings" was made exclusively to
allow a warrior to arrive at a certain state of peace and well-being. In a
dramatic tone don Juan stated that well-being was a condition one had to
groom, a condition one had to become acquainted with in order to seek it.
"You don't know what well-being is, because you have never experienced
it, " he said. I disagreed with him. But he continued arguing that well
being was an achievement one had to deliberately seek. He said that the only
thing I knew how to seek was a sense of disorientation, ill-being, and
confusion.
He laughed mockingly and assured me that in order to accomplish the
feat of making myself miserable I had to work in a most intense fashion, and
that it was absurd I had never realized I could work just the same in making
myself complete and strong. "The trick is in what one emphasizes," he said.
"We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount
of work is the same."
I closed my eyes and relaxed again and began to feel I was floating;
for a short while it was as if I were actually moving through space, like a
leaf. Although it was utterly pleasurable, the feeling somehow reminded me
of times when I had become sick and dizzy and would experience a sensation
of spinning. I thought perhaps I had eaten something bad. I heard don Juan
talking to me but I did not really make an effort to listen. I was trying to
make a mental inventory of all the things I had eaten that day, but I could
not become interested in it. It did not seem to matter.
"Watch the way the sunlight changes," he said.
His voice was clear. I thought it was like water, fluid and warm.
The sky was totally free of clouds towards the west and the sunlight
was spectacular. Perhaps the fact that don Juan was cueing me made the
yellowish glow of the afternoon sun truly magnificent.
"Let that glow kindle you, " don Juan said. "Before the sun goes down
today you must be perfectly calm and restored, because tomorrow or the day
after, you are going to learn not-doing."
"Learn not doing what?" I asked.
"Never mind now, " he said. "Wait until we are in those lava
mountains."
He pointed to some distant jagged, dark, menacing-looking peaks towards
the north.
Thursday, April 13, 1962
We reached the high desert around the lava mountains in the late
afternoon. In the distance the dark brown lava mountains looked almost
sinister. The sun was very low on the horizon and shone on the western face
of the solidified lava, tinting its dark brownness with a dazzling array of
yellow reflections. I could not keep my eyes away. Those peaks were truly
mesmerizing.
By the end of the day the bottom slopes of the mountains were in sight.
There was very little vegetation on the high desert; all I could see were
cacti and a kind of tall grass that grew in tufts.
Don Juan stopped to rest. He sat down, carefully propped his food
gourds against a rock, and said that we were going to camp on that spot for
the night. He had picked a relatively high place. From where I stood I could
see quite a distance away, all around us.
It was a cloudy day and the twilight quickly enveloped the area. I
became involved in watching the speed with which the crimson clouds on the
west faded into a uniform thick dark gray. Don Juan got up and went to the
bushes. By the time he came back the silhouette of the lava mountains was a
dark mass. He sat down next to me and called my attention to what seemed to
be a natural formation on the mountains towards the northeast. It was a spot
which had a color much lighter than its surroundings. While the whole range
of lava mountains looked uniformly dark brown in the twilight, the spot he
was pointing at was actually yellowish or dark beige. I could not figure out
what it could be. I stared at it for a long time. It seemed to be moving; I
fancied it to be pulsating.
When I squinted my eyes it actually rippled as if the wind were moving
it.
"Look at it fixedly!" don Juan commanded me.
At one moment, after I had maintained my stare for quite a while, I
felt that the whole range of mountains was moving towards me. That feeling
was accompanied by an unusual agitation in the pit of my stomach. The
discomfort became so acute that I stood up.
"Sit down!" don Juan yelled, but I was already on my feet. From my new
point of view the yellowish formation was lower on the side of the
mountains, I sat down again, without taking my eyes away, and the formation
shifted to a higher place. I stared at it for an instant and suddenly I
arranged everything into the correct perspective. I realized that what I had
been looking at was not in the mountains at all but was really a piece of
yellowish green cloth hanging from a tall cactus in front of me.
I laughed out loud and explained to don Juan that the twilight had
helped to create an optical illusion. He got up and walked to the place
where the piece of cloth was hanging, took it down, folded it, and put it
inside his pouch. "What are you doing that for?" I asked.
"Because this piece of cloth has power, " he said casually. "For a
moment you were doing fine with it and there is no way of knowing what may
have happened if you had remained seated."
Friday, April 14, 1962
At the crack of dawn we headed for the mountains. They were
surprisingly far away. By midday we walked into one of the canyons. There
was some water in shallow pools. We sat to rest in the shade of a hanging
cliff. The mountains were clumps of a monumental lava flow. The solidified
lava had weathered over the millennia into a porous dark brown rock. Only a
few sturdy weeds grew between the rocks and in the cracks.
Looking up at the almost perpendicular walls of the canyon, I had a
weird sensation in the pit of my stomach. The walls were hundreds of feet
high and gave me the feeling that they were closing in on me. The sun was
almost overhead, slightly towards the southwest. "Stand up here, " don Juan
said and maneuvered my body until I was looking towards the sun. He told me
to look fixedly at the mountain walls above me. The sight was stupendous.
The magnificent height of the lava flow staggered my imagination. I began to
wonder what a volcanic upheaval it must have been. I looked up and down the
sides of the canyon various times. I became immersed in the richness of
color in the rock wall. There were specks of every conceivable hue. There
were patches of light gray moss or lichen in every rock. I looked right
above my head and noticed that the sunlight was producing the most exquisite
reflections when it hit the brilliant specks of the solidified lava.
I stared at an area in the mountains where the sunlight was being
reflected. As the sun moved, the intensity diminished, then it faded
completely. I looked across the canyon and saw another area of the same
exquisite light refractions. I told don Juan what was happening, and then I
spotted another area of light, and then another in a different place, and
another, until the whole canyon was blotched with big patches of light.
I felt dizzy; even if I closed my eyes I could still see the brilliant
lights. I held my head in my hands and tried to crawl under the hanging
cliff, but don Juan grabbed my arm firmly and imperatively told me to look
at the walls of the mountains and try to figure out spots of heavy darkness
in the midst of the fields of light.
I did not want to look, because the glare bothered my eyes. I said that
what was happening to me was similar to staring into a sunny street through
a window and then seeing the window frame as a dark silhouette everywhere
else. Don Juan shook his head from side to side and began to chuckle. He let
go of my arm and we sat down again under the hanging cliff.
I was jotting down my impressions of the surroundings when don Juan,
after a long silence, suddenly spoke in a dramatic tone. "I have brought you
here to teach you one thing, " he said and paused. "You are going to learn
not-doing. We might as well talk about it because there is no other way for
you to proceed. I thought you might catch on to not-doing without my having
to say anything. I was wrong."
"I don't know what you're talking about, don Juan."
"It doesn't matter, " he said. "I am going to tell you about something
that is very simple but very difficult to perform; I am going to talk to you
about not-doing, in spite of the fact that there is no way to talk about it,
because it is the body that does it."
He stared at me in glances and then said that I had to pay the utmost
attention to what he was going to say. I closed my notebook, but to my
amazement he insisted that I should keep on writing.
"Not-doing is so difficult and so powerful that you should not mention
it, " he went on. "Not until you have stopped the world; only then can you
talk about it freely, if that's what you'd want to do."
Don Juan looked around and then pointed to a large rock. "That rock
over there is a rock because of doing" he said.
We looked at each other and he smiled. I waited for an explanation but
he remained silent. Finally I had to say that I had not understood what he
meant.
"That's doing!" he exclaimed.
"Pardon me?"
"That's also doing."
"What are you talking about, don Juan?"
"Doing is what makes that rock a rock and that bush a bush. Doing is
what makes you yourself and me myself."
I told him that his explanation did not explain anything. He laughed
and scratched his temples.
"That's the problem with talking, " he said. "It always makes one
confuse the issues. If one starts talking about doing, one always ends up
talking about something else. It is better to just act.
"Take that rock for instance. To look at it is doing, but to see it is
not-doing"
I had to confess that his words were not making sense to me. "Oh yes
they do!" he exclaimed. "But you are convinced that they don't because that
is your doing. That is the way you act towards me and the world."
He again pointed to the rock. "That rock is a rock because of all the
things you know how to do to it, " he said. "I call that doing. A man of
knowledge, for instance, knows that the rock is a rock only because of
doing, so if he doesn't want the rock to be a rock all he has to do is
not-doing. See what I mean?"
I did not understand him at all. He laughed and made another attempt at
explaining.
"The world is the world because you know the doing involved in making
it so, " he said. "If you didn't know its doing, the world would be
different."
He examined me with curiosity. I stopped writing. I just wanted to
listen to him. He went on explaining that without that certain "doing" there
would be nothing familiar in the surroundings. He leaned over and picked up
a small rock between the thumb and index of his left hand and held it in
front of my eyes.
"This is a pebble because you know the doing involved in making it into
a pebble, " he said.
"What are you saying?" I asked with a feeling of bona fide confusion.
Don Juan smiled. He seemed to be trying to hide a mischievous delight.
"I don't know why you are so confused, " he said. "Words are your
predilection. You should be in heaven."
He gave me a mysterious look and raised his brows two or three times.
Then he pointed again to the small rock he was holding in front of my eyes.
"I say that you are making this into a pebble because you know the
doing involved in it, " he said. "Now, in order to stop the world you must
stop doing." He seemed to know that I still had not understood and smiled,
shaking his head. He then took a twig and pointed to the uneven edge of the
pebble.
"In the case of this little rock, " he went on, "the first thing which
doing does to it is to shrink it to this size. So the proper thing to do,
which a warrior does if he wants to stop the world, is to enlarge a little
rock, or any other thing, by not-doing."
He stood up and placed the pebble on a boulder and then asked me to
come closer and examine it. He told me to look at the holes and depressions
in the pebble and try to pick out the minute detail in them. He said that if
I could pick out the detail, the holes and depressions would disappear and I
would understand what "not-doing" meant.
"This damn pebble is going to drive you crazy today, " he said.
I must have had a look of bewilderment on my face. He looked at me and
laughed uproariously. Then he pretended to get angry with the pebble and hit
it two or three times with his hat.
I urged him to clarify his point. I argued that it was possible for him
to explain anything he wanted to if he made an effort.
He gave me a sly glance and shook his head as if the situation were
hopeless.
"Sure I can explain anything, " he said, laughing. "But could you
understand it?" I was taken aback by his insinuation. "Doing makes you
separate the pebble from the larger boulder, " he continued. "If you want to
learn not-doing, let's say that you have to join them."
He pointed to the small shadow that the pebble cast on the boulder and
said that it was not a shadow but a glue which bound them together. He then
turned around and walked away, saying that he was coming back to check on me
later. I stared at the pebble for a long time. I could not focus my
attention on the minute detail in the holes and depressions, but the tiny
shadow that the pebble cast on the boulder became a most interesting point.
Don Juan was right; it was like a glue. It moved and shifted. I had the
impression it was being squeezed from underneath the pebble.
When don Juan returned I related to him what I had observed about the
shadow.
"That's a good beginning, " he said. "A warrior can tell all kinds of
things from the shadows." He then suggested that I should take the pebble
and bury it somewhere.
"Why?" I asked.
"You've been watching it for a long time," he said. "It has something
of you now. A warrior always tries to affect the force of doing by changing
it into not-doing. Doing would be to leave the pebble lying around because
it is merely a small rock. Not-doing would be to proceed with that pebble as
if it were something far beyond a mere rock. In this case, that pebble has
soaked in you for a long time and now it is you, and as such, you cannot
leave it lying around but must bury it. If you would have personal power,
however, not-doing would be to change that pebble into a power object."
"Can I do that now?"
"Your life is not tight enough to do that. If you would see, you would
know that your heavy concern has changed that pebble into something quite
unappealing, therefore the best thing you can do is to dig a hole and bury
it and let the earth absorb its heaviness."
"Is all this true, don Juan?"
"To say yes or no to your question is doing. But since you are learning
not-doing I have to tell you that it really doesn't matter whether or not
all this is true. It is here that a warrior has a point of advantage over
the average man. An average man cares that things are either true or false,
but a warrior doesn't. An average man proceeds in a specific way with things
that he knows are true, and in a different way with things that he knows are
not true. If things are said to be true, he acts and believes in what he
does. But if things are said to be untrue, he doesn't care to act, or he
doesn't believe in what he does. A warrior, on the other hand, acts in both
instances. If things are said to be true, he would act in order to do doing.
If things are said to be untrue, he still would act in order to do
not-doing. See what I mean?"
"No, I don't see what you mean at all, " I said. Don Juan's statements
put me in a belligerent mood. I could not make sense of what he was saying.
I told him it was gibberish, and he mocked me and said that I did not even
have an impeccable spirit in what I liked to do the most, talking.
He actually made fun of my verbal command and found it faulty and
inadequate.
"If you are going to be all mouth, be a mouth warrior, " he said and
roared with laughter. I felt dejected. My ears were buzzing. I experienced
an uncomfortable heat in my head. I was actually embarrassed and presumably
red in the face. I stood up and went into the chaparral and buried the
pebble.
"I was teasing you a little bit, " don Juan said when I returned and
sat down again. "And yet I know that if you don't talk you don't understand.
Talking is doing for you, but talking is not appropriate and if you want to
know what I mean by not-doing you have to do a simple exercise. Since we are
concerned with not-doing it doesn't matter whether you do the exercise now
or ten years from now."
He made me lie down and took my right arm and bent it at my elbow. Then
he turned my hand until the palm was facing the front; he curved my fingers
so my hand looked as if I were holding a doorknob, and then he began to move
my arm back and forth with a circular motion that resembled the act of
pushing and pulling a lever attached to a wheel.
Don Juan said that a warrior executed that movement every time he
wanted to push something out of his body, something like a disease or an
unwelcome feeling. The idea was to push and pull an imaginary opposing force
until one felt a heavy object, a solid body, stopping the free movements of
the hand. In the case of the exercise, "not-doing" consisted in repeating it
until one felt the heavy body with the hand, in spite of the fact that one
could never believe it was possible to feel it. I began moving my arm and in
a short while my hand became ice cold. I had begun to feel a sort of
mushiness around my hand. It was as if I were paddling through some heavy
viscous liquid matter.
Don Juan made a sudden movement and grabbed my arm to stop the motion.
My whole body shivered as though stirred by some unseen force. He
scrutinized me as I sat up, and then walked around me before he sat back
down on the place where he had been.
"You've done enough, " he said. "You may do this exercise some other
time, when you have more personal power."
"Did I do something wrong?"
"No. Not-doing is only for very strong warriors and you don't have the
power to deal with it yet. Now you will only trap horrendous things with
your hand. So do it little by little, until your hand doesn't get cold any
more. Whenever your hand remains warm you can actually feel the lines of.
the world with it."
He paused as if to give me time to ask about the lines. But before I
had a chance to, he started explaining that there were infinite numbers of
lines that joined us to things. He said that the exercise of "not-doing"
that he had just described would help anyone to feel a line that came out
from the moving hand, a line that one could place or cast wherever one
wanted to. Don Juan said that this was only an exercise, because the lines
formed by the hand were not durable enough to be of real value in a
practical situation.
"A man of knowledge uses other parts of his body to produce durable
lines, " he said.
"What parts of the body, don Juan?"
"The most durable lines that a man of knowledge produces come from the
middle of the body," he said. "But he can also make them with his eyes."
"Are they real lines?"
"Surely."
"Can you see them and touch them?"
"Let's say that you can feel them. The most difficult part about the
warrior's way is to realize that the world is a feeling. When one is
not-doing, one is feeling the world, and one feels the world through its
lines."
He paused and examined me with curiosity. He raised his brows and
opened his eyes and then blinked. The effect was like the eyes of a bird
blinking. Almost immediately I felt a sensation of discomfort and
queasiness. It was actually as if something was applying pressure to my
stomach.
"See what I mean?" don Juan asked and moved his eyes away.
I mentioned that I felt nauseated and he replied in a matter-of-fact
tone that he knew it, and that he was trying to make me feel the lines of
the world with his eyes. I could not accept the claim that he himself was
making me feel that way. I voiced my doubts. I could hardly conceive the
idea that he was causing my feeling of nausea, since he had not, in any
physical way, impinged on me. "Not-doing is very simple but very difficult,
" he said. "It is not a matter of understanding it but of mastering it.
Seeing, of course, is the final accomplishment of a man of knowledge, .and
seeing is attained only when one has stopped the world through the technique
of not-doing."
I smiled involuntarily. I had not understood what he meant. "When one
does something with people, " he said, "the concern should be only with
presenting the case to their bodies. That's what I've been doing with you so
far, letting your body know. Who cares whether or not you understand?"
"But that's unfair, don Juan. I want to understand everything,
otherwise coming here would be a waste of my time."
"A waste of your time!" he exclaimed parodying my tone of voice. "You
certainly are conceited." He stood up and told me that we were going to hike
to the top of the lava peak to our right. The ascent to the top was an
excruciating affair. It was actual mountain climbing, except that there were
no ropes to aid and protect us. Don Juan repeatedly told me not to look
down; and he had to actually pull me up bodily a couple of times, after I
had begun to slide down the rock. I felt terribly embarrassed that don Juan,
being so old, had to help me. I told him that I was in poor physical
condition because I was too lazy to do any exercise. He replied that once
one had arrived at a certain level of personal power, exercise or any
training of that sort was unnecessary, since all one needed, to be in an
impeccable form, was to engage oneself in "not-doing."
When we arrived at the top I lay down. I was about to be sick. He
rolled me back and forth with his foot as he had done once before. Little by
little the motion restored my balance. But I felt nervous. It was as if I
were somehow waiting for the sudden appearance of something. I involuntarily
looked two or three times to each side. Don Juan did not say a word but he
also looked in the direction I was looking.
"Shadows are peculiar affairs, " he said all of a sudden. "You must
have noticed that there is one following us."
"I haven't noticed anything of the sort, " I protested in a loud voice.
Don Juan said that my body had noticed our pursuer, in spite of my
stubborn opposition, and assured me in a confident tone that there was
nothing unusual about being followed by a shadow.
"It is just a power, " he said. "These mountains are filled with them.
It is just like one of those entities that scared you the other night."
I wanted to know if I could actually perceive it myself. He asserted
that in the daytime I could only feel its presence. I wanted an explanation
of why he called it a shadow when obviously it was not like the shadow of a
boulder. He replied that both had the same lines, therefore both were
shadows.
He pointed to a long boulder standing directly in front of us.
"Look at the shadow of that boulder, "He said. "The shadow is the
boulder, and yet it isn't. To observe the boulder in order to know what the
boulder is, is doing, but to observe its shadow is not-doing.
"Shadows are like doors, the doors of not-doing. A man of knowledge,
for example, can tell the innermost feelings of men by watching their
shadows."
"Is there movement in them?" I asked.
"You may say that there is movement in them, or you may say that the
lines of the world are shown in them, or you may say that feelings come from
them."
"But how could feelings come out of shadows, don Juan?"
"To believe that shadows are just shadows is doing" he explained. "That
belief is somehow stupid. Think about it this way: There is so much more to
everything in the world that obviously there must be more to shadows too.
After all, what makes them shadows is merely our doing."
There was a long silence. I did not know what else to say.
"The end of the day is approaching, " don Juan said, looking at the
sky. "You have to use this brilliant sunlight to perform one last exercise."
He led me to a place where there were two peaks the size of a man
standing parallel to each other, about four or five feet apart. Don Juan
stopped ten yards away from them, facing the west. He marked a spot for me
to stand on and told me to look at the shadows of the peaks. He said that I
should watch them and cross my eyes in the same manner I ordinarily crossed
them when scanning the ground for a place to rest.
He clarified his directions by saying that when searching for a resting
place one had to look without focusing but in observing shadows one had to
cross the eyes and yet keep a sharp image in focus. The idea was to let one
shadow be superimposed on the other by crossing the eyes. He explained that
through that process one could ascertain a certain feeling which emanated
from shadows. I commented on his vagueness, but he maintained that there was
really no way of describing what he meant.
My attempt to carry out the exercise was futile. I struggled until I
got a headache. Don Juan was not at all concerned with my failure. He
climbed to a dome like peak and yelled from the top, telling me to look for
two small long and narrow pieces of rock. He showed with his hands the size
rock he wanted. I found two pieces and handed them to him. Don Juan placed
each rock about a foot apart in two crevices, made me stand above them
facing the west, and told me to do the same exercise with their shadows.
This time it was an altogether different affair. Almost immediately I
was capable of crossing my eyes and perceiving their individual shadows as
if they had merged into one. I noticed that the act of looking without
converging the images gave the single shadow I had formed an unbelievable
depth and a sort of transparency. I stared at it, bewildered. Every hole in
the rock, on the area where my eyes were focused, was neatly discernible;
and the composite shadow, which was superimposed on them, was like a film of
indescribable transparency.
I did not want to blink, for fear of losing the image I was so
precariously holding. Finally my sore eyes forced me to blink, but I did not
lose the view of the detail at all. In fact, by remoistening my cornea the
image became even clearer. I noticed at that point that it was as if I were
looking from an immeasurable height at a world I had never seen before. I
also noticed that I could scan the surroundings of the shadow without losing
the focus of my visual perception. Then, for an instant, I lost the notion
that I was looking at a rock. I felt that I was landing in a world, vast
beyond anything I had ever conceived. This extraordinary perception lasted
for a second and then everything was turned off. I automatically looked up
and saw don Juan standing directly above the rocks, facing me. He had
blocked the sunlight with his body. I described the unusual sensation I had
had, and he explained that he had been forced to interrupt it because he
"saw" that I was about to get lost in it. He added that it was a natural
tendency for all of us to indulge ourselves when feelings of that nature
occur, and that by indulging myself in it I had almost turned "not-doing"
into my old familiar "doing." He said that what I should have done was to
maintain the view without succumbing to it, because in a way "doing" was a
manner of succumbing.
I complained that he should have told me beforehand what to expect and
what to do, but he pointed out that he had no way of knowing whether or not
I would succeed in merging the shadows.
I had to confess I was more mystified than ever about "not-doing." Don
Juan's comments were that I should be satisfied with what I had done,
because for once I had proceeded correctly, that by reducing the world I had
enlarged it, and that, although I had been far from feeling the lines of the
world, I had correctly used the shadow of the rocks as a door into
"not-doing."
The statement that I had enlarged the world by reducing it intrigued me
to no end. The detail of the porous rock, in the small area where my eyes
were focused, was so vivid and so precisely defined that the top of the
round peak became a vast world for me; and yet it was really a reduced
vision of the rock. When don Juan blocked the light and I found myself
looking as I normally would do, the precise detail became dull, the tiny
holes in the porous rock became bigger, the brown color of the dried lava
became opaque, and everything lost the shiny transparency that made the rock
into a real world.
Don Juan then took the two rocks, laid them gently into a deep crevice,
and sat down cross-legged facing the west, on the spot where the rocks had
been. He patted a spot next to him to his left and told me to sit down.
We did not speak for a long time. Then we ate, also in silence. It was
only after the sun had set that he suddenly turned and asked me about my
progress in "dreaming." I told him that it had been easy in the beginning,
but that at the moment I had ceased altogether to find my hands in my
dreams.
"When you first started dreaming you were using my personal power,
that's why it was easier, " he said. "Now you are empty. But you must keep
on trying until you have enough power of your own. You see, dreaming is the
not-doing of dreams, and as you progress in your not -doing you will also
progress in dreaming. The trick is not to stop looking for your hands, even
if you don't believe that what you are doing has any meaning. In fact, as I
have told you before, a warrior doesn't need to believe, because as long as
he keeps on acting without believing he is not-doing." We looked at each
other for a moment.
"There is nothing else I can tell you about dreaming." he continued.
"Everything I may say would only be not-doing. But if you tackle not-doing
directly, you yourself would know what to do in dreaming. To find your hands
is essential, though, at this time, and I am sure you will." "I don't know,
don Juan. I don't trust myself."
"This is not a matter of trusting anybody. This whole affair is a
matter of a warrior's struggle; and you will keep on struggling, if not
under your own power, then perhaps under the impact of a worthy opponent, or
with the help of some allies, .like the one which is already following you."
I made a jerky involuntary movement with my right arm.
Don Juan said that my body knew much more than I suspected, because the
force that had been pursuing us was to my right. He confided in a low tone
of voice that twice that day the ally had come so close to me that he had
had to step in and stop it.
"During the day shadows are the doors of not-doing" he said. "But at
night, since very little doing prevails in the dark, everything is a shadow,
including the allies. I've already told you about this when I taught you the
gait of power." I laughed out loud and my own laughter scared me.
"Everything I have taught you so far has been an aspect of not-doing"
he went on. "A warrior applies not-doing to everything in the world, and yet
I can't tell you more about it than what I have said today. You must let
your own body discover the power and the feeling of not-doing." I had
another fit of nervous cackling.
"It is stupid for you to scorn the mysteries of the world simply
because you know the doing of scorn," he said with a serious face. I assured
him that I was not scorning anything or anyone, but that I was more nervous
and incompetent than he thought. "I've always been that way, " I said. "And
yet I want to change, but I don't know how. I am so inadequate."
"I already know that you think you are rotten, " he said.
"That's your doing. Now in order to affect that doing I am going to
recommend that you learn another doing. From now on, and for a period of
eight days, I want you to lie to yourself. Instead of telling yourself the
truth, that you are ugly and rotten and inadequate, you will tell yourself
that you are the complete opposite, knowing that you are lying and that you
are absolutely beyond hope."
"But what would be the point of lying like that, don Juan?"
"It may hook you to another doing and then you may realize that both
doings are lies, unreal, and that to hinge yourself to either one is a waste
of time, because the only thing that is real is the being in you that is
going to die. To arrive at that being is the not-doing of the self."
THE RING OF POWER
Saturday, April 15, 1962
Don Juan felt the weight of our gourds and concluded that we had
exhausted our food supply and that it was time to return home. I casually
mentioned that it was going to take us at least a couple of days to get to
his house. He said he was not going back to Sonora but to a border town
where he had some business to take care of. I thought we were going to start
our descent through a water canyon but don Juan headed towards the northwest
on the high plateaus of the lava mountains. After about an hour of walking
he led me into a deep ravine, which ended at a point where two peaks almost
joined. There was a slope there, going almost to the top of the range, a
strange slope which looked like a slanted concave bridge between the two
peaks. Don Juan pointed to an area on the face of the slope.
"Look there fixedly, " he said. "The sun is almost right."
He explained that at midday the light of the sun could help me with
"not-doing." He then gave me a series of commands: to loosen all the tight
garments I had on, to sit in a cross-legged position, and to look intently
at the spot he had specified.
There were very few clouds in the sky and none towards the west. It was
a hot day and the sunlight beamed on the solidified lava. I kept a very
close watch over the area in question.
After a long vigil I asked what, specifically, I was supposed to look
for. He made me be quiet with an impatient gesture of his hand. I was tired.
I wanted to go to sleep. I half closed my eyes; they were itching and I
rubbed them, but my hands were clammy and the sweat made my eyes sting. I
looked at the lava peaks through half-closed eyelids and suddenly the whole
mountain was lit up.
I told don Juan that if I squinted my eyes I could see the whole range
of mountains as an intricate array of light fibers.
He told me to breathe as little as possible in order to maintain the
view of the light fibers, and not to stare intently into it but to look
casually at a point on the horizon right above the slope. I followed his
instructions and was able to hold the view of an interminable extension
covered with a web of light.
Don Juan said in a very soft voice that I should try to isolate areas
of darkness within the field of light fibers, and that right after finding a
dark spot I should open my eyes and check where that spot was on the face of
the slope.
I was incapable of perceiving any dark areas. I squinted my eyes and
then opened them up various times. Don Juan drew closer to me and pointed to
an area to my right, and then to smother one right in front of me. I tried
to change the position of my body; I thought that perhaps if I shifted my
perspective I would be able to perceive the supposed area of darkness he was
pointing to, but don Juan shook my arm and told me in a severe tone to keep
still and be patient.
I again squinted my eyes and once more saw the web of light fibers. I
looked at it for a moment and then I opened my eyes wider. At that instant I
heard a faint rumble - it could have easily been explained as the distant
sound of a jet plane - and then, with my eyes wide open, I saw the whole
range of mountains in front of me as an enormous field of tiny dots of
light. It was as if for a brief moment some metallic specks in the
solidified lava were reflecting the sunlight in unison. Then the sunlight
grew dim and was suddenly turned off and the mountains became a mass of dull
dark brown rock and at the same time it also became windy and cold.
I wanted to turn around to see if the sun had disappeared behind a
cloud but don Juan held my head and did not let me move. He said that if I
turned I might catch a glimpse of an entity of the mountains, the ally that
was following us. He assured me that I did not have the necessary strength
to stand a sight of that nature, and then he added in a calculated tone that
the rumble I had heard was the peculiar way in which an ally heralded its
presence. He then stood up and announced that we were going to start
climbing up the side of the slope.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
He pointed to one of the areas he had isolated as being a spot of
darkness. He explained that "not-doing" had allowed him to single out that
spot as a possible center of power, or perhaps as a place where power
objects might be found.
We reached the spot he had in mind after a painful climb. He stood
motionless for a moment a few feet in front of me. I tried to come closer to
him but he signaled me with his hand to stop. He seemed to be orienting
himself. I could see the back of his head moving as if he were sweeping his
eyes up and down the mountain, then with sure steps he led the way to a
ledge. He sat down and began to wipe some loose dirt off the ledge with his
hand. He dug with his fingers around a small piece of rock that was sticking
out, cleaning the dirt around it. Then he ordered me to dig it out.
Once I had dislodged the piece of rock, he told me to immediately put
it inside my shirt because it was a power object that belonged to me. He
said that he was giving it to me to keep, and that I should polish and care
for it.
Right after that we began our descent into a water canyon, and a couple
of hours later we were in the high desert at the foot of the lava mountains.
Don Juan walked about ten feet ahead of me and kept up a very good pace. We
went south until just before sunset. A heavy bank of clouds in the west
prevented us from seeing the sun but we paused until it had presumably
disappeared over the horizon.
Don Juan changed directions then and headed towards the southeast. We
went over a hill and as we got to the top I spotted four men coming towards
us from the south. I looked at don Juan. We had never encountered people in
our excursions and I did not know what to do in a case like that. But he did
not seem to be concerned. He kept on walking as if nothing had happened. The