Speaker 1: I'll get a team. It's you project Craig Anthony Harper's here.
Speaker 1: Who else would be here but the bloke who hosts
Speaker 1: the show. I've just met someone new. I just have
Speaker 1: a brand new friend who's been doing a hard cell.
Speaker 1: I will say on Bhutan, and it seems I have
Speaker 1: to go there, maybe move there, maybe become celibate, maybe
Speaker 1: change my life, get rid of all my stuff and
Speaker 1: just become monastic. That seems unlikely, but maybe that's going
Speaker 1: to happen. Hi, Emma Slade, how are you?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm waiting to see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you've got the right hairstyle for the monastic life, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's it's been pointed out that I'm not
Speaker 1: particularly her shoot around the head region, so thanks for that. No,
Speaker 1: you're right, I don't know. Look, my listeners would say
Speaker 1: to you, Emma, he probably swears too much to be
Speaker 1: any common but I can. I'm sure I can back
Speaker 1: off on that. I'm sure that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you think about of silence is not the
Speaker 3: way you're going to go in your life, is it?
Speaker 2: Or yeah?
Speaker 1: Gosh, I literally talk for a living. Imagine that I
Speaker 1: don't have any other skills. I'm essentially an idiot that
Speaker 1: talks for a job. So imagine that that'd be Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like telling a tradesman or a carpenter he can't
Speaker 1: build anything, but good luck making money.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe we're just leaving happily there in Australia then
Speaker 3: with the podcast, and I'll just carry on here and
Speaker 3: being in an atset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you do you, I do me, and maybe
Speaker 1: who knows, I might have a visit and some kind
Speaker 1: of existential kind of cathartic life changing moment. You never know,
Speaker 1: you never know, right, I've.
Speaker 2: Heard it can happen, Greg, I've heard it can happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you would have heard because you are in
Speaker 1: tune with whatever there is to be in tune with.
Speaker 1: You are in tune. Do you think that happens where
Speaker 1: people go, I'm just going to head over to this
Speaker 1: place and have a bit of a look around, and
Speaker 1: they have no intention of any big kind of spiritual
Speaker 1: moment or awakening or cathartic kind of episode, and it
Speaker 1: almost it finds them rather than the other way around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's definitely possible. I think it's definitely possible.
Speaker 3: I think it's about the right time, the right moment,
Speaker 3: the right place, and yeah, I think it can definitely happen,
Speaker 3: not just in Bhutan, but I think other places too.
Speaker 1: And I guess not just the right geographic place, but mental, emotional,
Speaker 1: spiritual place too. Right, we're speaking in metaphors, not just
Speaker 1: like it can probably even happen in Melbourne.
Speaker 3: Folks who know I reckon, I reckon, I reckon it
Speaker 3: definitely can you find those people, Craig.
Speaker 1: I'm out. I'm on the hunt after this. If anyone
Speaker 1: needs something, it's me so many issues. How much time
Speaker 1: have you got, Emma?
Speaker 2: Oh, you don't know time enough to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Craig is absolutely fine, as you know, I just finished
Speaker 3: my massive four hundred and three kilometer walk across your time,
Speaker 3: so I am now sitting down a lot because I
Speaker 3: kind of need to slightly recover from it.
Speaker 2: So you got me at just the right moment.
Speaker 1: Well, we really appreciate you. Rather than me bang on
Speaker 1: about a dot point list of your bio or achievements,
Speaker 1: could you whatever you want to share with my listeners,
Speaker 1: just kind of introduce yourself, who you are, what you do,
Speaker 1: and then we'll dive in from there, if you would
Speaker 1: be so gracious, that'd be great.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, okay, So hello everybody.
Speaker 3: My name is Emma Slade or you can call me
Speaker 3: Ani Permadeci and I'm born in England, but I spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time in Bhutan, where I became a
Speaker 3: monastic thirteen years ago. So if you can't see me,
Speaker 3: you have to imagine somebody with no hair and red
Speaker 3: and orange robes. And I left actually a very high
Speaker 3: powered corporate job.
Speaker 2: Slowly.
Speaker 3: I left it slowly to become a monastic eventually in Bhutan.
Speaker 3: And I set up a charity for special needs children
Speaker 3: in Bhutan ten years ago called Opening your Heart to Beutan.
Speaker 2: I wrote a book called Set Free, which people seem
Speaker 2: to enjoy.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and I'm just an all round very enthusiastic
Speaker 3: let's make the world a better place type human.
Speaker 1: Yeah you are. I love that I've done. Like I've
Speaker 1: had a bit of a look at your ted X
Speaker 1: talk and read some stuff and you you are quite inspirational,
Speaker 1: although I'm sure you don't love the accolades. But tell
Speaker 1: me about was there a was there a particular genesis
Speaker 1: or moment in time for leaving the high powered world
Speaker 1: of you know, the corporate space and getting out of
Speaker 1: the suits and getting into the robes and getting rid
Speaker 1: of the hair and getting rid of pretty much everything,
Speaker 1: Like was there something that was there an existential crisis?
Speaker 1: Was there an event or was it a slow burn?
Speaker 2: I think it was a combination. I think.
Speaker 3: I you know, I had this turning point in my life.
Speaker 3: Many people have a turning point, I think, and turning
Speaker 3: points usually involve some difficulty, right, Actually, turning points often
Speaker 3: have that quality to them. So I happened to be
Speaker 3: end up being held hostage at gunpoint in a hotel
Speaker 3: room in Jakarta, and that had obviously a huge impact
Speaker 3: on my life and also my feeling about having survived
Speaker 3: and maybe what I wanted to do with my life.
Speaker 2: But I think turning.
Speaker 3: Points, I mean, I don't think it's an inevitable that
Speaker 3: if you have a difficult experience that it will inevitably
Speaker 3: change your life. I think it was like a door
Speaker 3: opened to kind of think more clearly about what I
Speaker 3: wanted to do.
Speaker 2: But I could have carried on.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I think I think it is a combination of turning
Speaker 3: points and then steps after that, And then I guess
Speaker 3: I had another turning point on my very first vision.
Speaker 3: It to Bhutan in two thousand and eleven when I
Speaker 3: met a monk here, and so I think those two
Speaker 3: turning points feel quite connected to me.
Speaker 2: It feels like.
Speaker 3: One was very tough and made me question everything, and
Speaker 3: one was very amazing and made me feel very.
Speaker 2: Clear about everything.
Speaker 3: So I feel like there's actually two turning points, but
Speaker 3: they were quite quite long years apart.
Speaker 1: I feel like, and this is just my perspective, so
Speaker 1: i'd love yours like I think a lot about the
Speaker 1: human experience, obviously with my research with the brain and
Speaker 1: the mind and human behavior and who we are and
Speaker 1: how we are and why I think the way I think,
Speaker 1: and where my stories come from. And you know how
Speaker 1: I see the world, Like there's the world and then
Speaker 1: there's my view of the world, and they're different things.
Speaker 1: That's you and I are in the same conversation, but
Speaker 1: we're not in the same experience because you don't live
Speaker 1: in my head or thoughts or ideas or beliefs, and
Speaker 1: I don't live in yours. I feel like it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of us. And this might sound judgmental, I
Speaker 1: don't mean it too, because I think it was me
Speaker 1: for a lot of my life and probably is still
Speaker 1: at times we tend to do life on almost like
Speaker 1: an unconscious auto pilot, where we just kind of get
Speaker 1: up and do what we did yesterday, even though it
Speaker 1: wasn't particularly fulfilling or joyful or meaningful, or it's just
Speaker 1: like we're in this almost this cognitive groove or this
Speaker 1: behavioral groove, and we don't kind of think, what do
Speaker 1: I want the next one, two, five, ten years of
Speaker 1: my life to look? Like? Like what is my what
Speaker 1: is my purpose?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Do I have a purpose? What does that mean? Is
Speaker 1: am I meant to be doing the thing that I'm doing?
Speaker 1: Not in a self loathing way or a self critical way,
Speaker 1: but in a almost like a self awareness way, like
Speaker 1: I'll shut up after this. But one of my stories
Speaker 1: is I built this quite successful business when I was
Speaker 1: pretty young, and then by the time I was thirty,
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of businesses in a of employees
Speaker 1: and a bunch of money. And in the middle of
Speaker 1: all of that, I'm like, Oh, this doesn't feel that
Speaker 1: amazing at all, and not that maken dough and not
Speaker 1: that having employees and building a brand is bad. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's like, ah, because I think I kind of had
Speaker 1: this idea that I probably never really examined that when
Speaker 1: I have all this external stuff, then all this internal
Speaker 1: stuff will be great didn't work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess I'd say a couple of
Speaker 2: things there.
Speaker 3: Firstly, you know, so I've just spent quite a lot
Speaker 3: of time in rural Bhutan with people who live as
Speaker 3: subsistence farmers, right, and they definitely have to get up
Speaker 3: every day and do the same thing, and their lives
Speaker 3: are harsh.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is a subsistence line start.
Speaker 3: So I would first of all say that if you
Speaker 3: have the good fortune to be in a situation where
Speaker 3: you have the chance to think again about those getting
Speaker 3: up doing the same thing, where you have a choice
Speaker 3: to change that, I think it's wonderful. But for many
Speaker 3: people in the world living very subsistence lifestyle, they don't
Speaker 3: actually have that choice, to be frank, because they need
Speaker 3: to put the potatoes in the earth and then harvest
Speaker 3: those potatoes. And you know, so I think first of all,
Speaker 3: we should remember that even if we're having this conversation,
Speaker 3: we're already pretty lucky to be able to have that conversation.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, true, Yeah, So.
Speaker 3: Let's just remember that for you know, for a minute.
Speaker 3: But obviously, you know, external things are very helpful. It's
Speaker 3: really helpful to have a central eating system, it's really
Speaker 3: helpful to have nice dentist to go to. And I
Speaker 3: don't think we should start to loathe the external things. Yes,
Speaker 3: they support us, they help us, they keep us safe.
Speaker 3: It's like Maslow's hierarchy of human need. So I'm sure
Speaker 3: you'd have studied that in your time, right, So we
Speaker 3: have to have those basic needs fulfilled. And if they
Speaker 3: are fulfilled, then yes, maybe we get the opportunity to
Speaker 3: think more deeply about what it is to be human
Speaker 3: and how happiness arises. But we should I think it's
Speaker 3: dangerous to take in a sort of two extreme position
Speaker 3: where we imagine that external things don't matter.
Speaker 2: That it doesn't matter if you don't have a house
Speaker 2: or you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But it's just a limit to how far those things
Speaker 3: can give us permanent, unchanging happiness.
Speaker 2: They just can't. But that's kind of quite handy.
Speaker 1: One. I like the fact that I have a car
Speaker 1: and a house. They're quite handy, and beds are good
Speaker 1: and air conditioning in Australia air conditioning is good, and
Speaker 1: also food is nice, so yeah, I guess. I guess
Speaker 1: I think like that. Maybe what I meant was some
Speaker 1: of us grow up in a kind of a collective
Speaker 1: cultural kind of thing that success is about things, you know,
Speaker 1: happiness is about things. It's about your stuff, what you have,
Speaker 1: what you earn, what you own, what you drive, where
Speaker 1: you live, what people think of you, what you look like.
Speaker 1: How many Instagram followers you have, I don't know, if
Speaker 1: there's Instagram and Bhutan.
Speaker 2: You know, Instagram is huge and biton it's huge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I guess it's just more that maybe more
Speaker 1: awareness than judgment, you know, where it's like, yeah, that's great,
Speaker 1: you've got all that stuff. That's good. But also and
Speaker 1: I think for me it was that, you know, but
Speaker 1: also yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I think it's always really you know, actually
Speaker 3: most humans actually understand this stuff. I think when you
Speaker 3: really talk to somebody properly and they understand this stuff.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows when they're on their deathbed, yeah, that whatever
Speaker 3: car they have is not going to help them. And
Speaker 3: they also know that it that won't be the thing
Speaker 3: that it's hard to leave, right.
Speaker 2: They know that. Yes, So I think it's often I.
Speaker 3: Know it may be sound a bit more bid, But
Speaker 3: it's if you really want to get to the heart
Speaker 3: of the matter, just think of what's going to matter
Speaker 3: to you at the point of dying, and you can
Speaker 3: pretty much work things out from there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So what is the day to day for
Speaker 1: Emma the Buddhist? None? The day? Like? What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you? What do you do?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: How does your life work?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Could you keep up with it? Craig, I think
Speaker 2: that's the question. I'm thinking. Maybe you probably could from
Speaker 2: the time I'd been spending.
Speaker 1: With you, but I mean I definitely couldn't you overestimate me?
Speaker 1: Lower your expectations?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess, you know, if we really think of
Speaker 3: the question. For you know, one thing I think about
Speaker 3: a lot. Is it better that I remain in the world,
Speaker 3: very active and helping in the world, you know, with
Speaker 3: actions and fundraising.
Speaker 2: And speaking to people, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Or is it better to go into solitary retreat and meditate.
Speaker 2: Is that the better way as a monastic?
Speaker 5: Not?
Speaker 2: I think usually people don't have.
Speaker 3: That dilemma, But as a monastic, that's our basic dilemma.
Speaker 3: Do we stay helping in the world or are we
Speaker 3: more helpful to the world if we're in meditation retreat
Speaker 3: or some combination of those two. So basically my life
Speaker 3: is some combination of those two. That's the kind of
Speaker 3: contract I've drawn with things. Right, So I've been you know,
Speaker 3: as you know, I've been doing this incredible walk across
Speaker 3: butan not that it should be called a walk, it
Speaker 3: should be called a massive climb across Darlp Mountains. Just
Speaker 3: raised a lot of money for special needs children. But
Speaker 3: now from February, I'll be in a three month solitary
Speaker 3: retreat in the.
Speaker 2: Mountains of Bhutan.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: So you know, my life can be either very active
Speaker 3: in the world helping a lot, or it can be
Speaker 3: very disciplined in strict meditation retreat. Because I'm unusual for
Speaker 3: a monastic, because I'm quite you know, I'm like a
Speaker 3: bit like I'm on rocket fuel, so I can do
Speaker 3: a lot in the world. I think, I don't mind
Speaker 3: speaking to people, and I'm mind organizing stuff. I don't
Speaker 3: mind getting stuff done in the world. So you know,
Speaker 3: I had those two sides to my personality, I think,
Speaker 3: because so that's that's my world. So day to day,
Speaker 3: if I'm in the world, it will be I could
Speaker 3: be translating stuff helping to translate things from Tibetan. I
Speaker 3: could be helping children with special needs.
Speaker 2: I could be talking to somebody like you.
Speaker 3: If I'm in a retreat, then I'll be up at
Speaker 3: four in the morning and I'll be meditating and praying
Speaker 3: for around eleven hours a day, all seated, seeing no
Speaker 3: one and just training my mind.
Speaker 1: Wow, eleven hours a day for three months. Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1: Tell me, Okay, tell me about this.
Speaker 2: That stopped you in your tracks.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, feless All right, right, well done, well done,
Speaker 4: em I'll tell you what for a none? Goodness, I'm
Speaker 4: not your normal No, no, you are not. No, I've
Speaker 4: met none like you. See what I did there, I've
Speaker 4: met like you. Tell me about the mind.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I've just spent six years studying a
Speaker 1: part of the mind, that human behavior thinking, and I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated to tell me about how you explore your own mind,
Speaker 1: how you understand the self that's in the middle of
Speaker 1: you know you, you know, what does that even mean?
Speaker 1: How do you explore your mind?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is that? What does that look like?
Speaker 3: And it's difficult because the minute we call it the mind,
Speaker 3: we make it an object.
Speaker 1: Yes, like a fixed.
Speaker 3: Object, right, So just I mean we have to use
Speaker 3: the word to mind, but in a way that's already problematic.
Speaker 3: There's just a moment by moment, a rising of thought
Speaker 3: moment by moment.
Speaker 2: But the question of whether it comes.
Speaker 3: From something that we can call a mind that already
Speaker 3: that's a tricky tricky thing.
Speaker 2: I think if we're going to bring things back to
Speaker 2: sort of basic Buddhist principle, we would say that there's
Speaker 2: a part of your being which is already.
Speaker 3: How can you say, clear and awakened and without any confusion,
Speaker 3: but around it, if you like, if we imagine it
Speaker 3: like that, which is a bit crude, but anyway, but
Speaker 3: around this, there's like layers which cover it, and those
Speaker 3: layers are selfishness or self clinging.
Speaker 2: Greed and anger.
Speaker 3: And for most of our life we interact with those
Speaker 3: layers and they pull and they push us.
Speaker 2: Right, that's kind of what a human life is like
Speaker 2: from a Buddh's point of view.
Speaker 3: We believe, with study and meditation and development of more compassion, etc.
Speaker 3: That we can break through those layers and discover a
Speaker 3: part of our being which is like, how can you
Speaker 3: say it's a part of our being that could become awakened,
Speaker 3: could become a Buddha.
Speaker 2: And so that's.
Speaker 3: A mental activity which is no longer under the pull
Speaker 3: and push of anger, greed, and self clinging, because most
Speaker 3: of the time, all of our mental activity is in that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: in those areas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if this question is going to
Speaker 1: make sense, But tell me about the knowing and the
Speaker 1: understanding and the wisdom that we have that we've never
Speaker 1: been taught. Yeah, So that's like, yeah, that's there.
Speaker 2: That's definitely there.
Speaker 3: It's definitely there, and I believe it's there for all
Speaker 3: of us to discover for ourselves. And I think once
Speaker 3: you have some kind of glimpse of that, then you're
Speaker 3: already you've already stepped out from a lot of things
Speaker 3: which otherwise will like there'll be like the tail wagging
Speaker 3: the dog, right, yes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but.
Speaker 3: Whether we call that knowing and that wisdom, the mind
Speaker 3: becomes complicated.
Speaker 2: I think it's but there is that wisdom there for sure. Definitely.
Speaker 1: I feel like the mind is. Yeah, Like it's like
Speaker 1: when we get any word, but we'll go with this
Speaker 1: four letter word M I N D. Right, it means
Speaker 1: different things to different people. Absolutely, it's like love what
Speaker 1: is love? It means different things to different people. It's like,
Speaker 1: well that's stressful. What is you know? It's like there
Speaker 1: are so many and because we have our own version
Speaker 1: of what love is, or what the mind is, or
Speaker 1: what knowledge is, or what good or bad is or
Speaker 1: you know, and these are all subjective interpretations by different individuals. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to find any kind of universal alignment.
Speaker 1: But you know, and then and then, you know, I think,
Speaker 1: almost ironically, the mind is the thing that gets in
Speaker 1: the way. You know, overthinking can get in the way, Like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe that wisdom, that insight, that genius that lives through
Speaker 1: me and doesn't come from me, Maybe that's got nothing
Speaker 1: to do with my mind. Maybe that's just me being
Speaker 1: able to access something that isn't me. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: Like I was having a chat just before with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who speaks on stage. We both speak
Speaker 1: on stage a lot. I do a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: public and corporate speaking, and there are times when you know,
Speaker 1: I'll do a three hour workshop and I start not often,
Speaker 1: by the way, but it's usually somewhere between okay and
Speaker 1: pretty good. But there have been a few times where
Speaker 1: I look up in three hours have gone and it
Speaker 1: feels like twenty minutes and I'm like, where did that go?
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, time is a constant, but our
Speaker 1: experience of time is a variable, right, and so how
Speaker 1: time seems to me? And then I've spoken for three hours.
Speaker 1: But it's almost like that that what came out or
Speaker 1: what transpired was almost in spite of me, not because
Speaker 1: of me. It's like there was some flow state that,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I just feel like there's
Speaker 1: a wisdom and an intelligence and a love and I
Speaker 1: don't know what the right word is, but that's accessible
Speaker 1: to us if we can get to that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean one hundred percent. You know, I think
Speaker 3: the flow stage is very interesting, and I do hear
Speaker 3: about it from, you know, from people, so I think
Speaker 3: it's it. There's a lot of links between Buddhist ideas
Speaker 3: of meditation and things like this flow stage. When we're
Speaker 3: in retreat, actually time goes very very slowly.
Speaker 1: Yeah wow.
Speaker 3: So mostly in daily life, our life, you just got
Speaker 3: oh well today went like that, Oh my god, Like
Speaker 3: people are like, it's Christmas?
Speaker 2: How can they be Christmas? I feel like it was
Speaker 2: just or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right, So in retreat, time goes incredibly slowly, which I
Speaker 3: found is kind of interesting in terms of your this,
Speaker 3: you know, our perception of our perception of time. I
Speaker 3: think that if we recognize the potential that you're talking about,
Speaker 3: the potential to you know, be in flow, love, wisdom,
Speaker 3: whatever these wonderful words are, I think the question is
Speaker 3: just how are you going to get there? So, as
Speaker 3: a monatic, what's nice is we have like a roadmap. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so what I want to know is how how do
Speaker 3: you get that?
Speaker 2: Great? How are you going to make that happen?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Well it's funny. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: very Christian household, so you know, different path to yours.
Speaker 1: And I'm I would call myself, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I am agnostic now. I'm definitely not the golden child
Speaker 1: of Christianity, that's for sure, as you can tell. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I still, like, you know, I have a certain
Speaker 1: faith and belief and part of that for me is
Speaker 1: I you know, I have to identify all my own
Speaker 1: human garbage, my ego, my insecurity, my fear, my need
Speaker 1: for attention, all of that, which is it's never disappearing,
Speaker 1: right it. The volume gets louder and softer, but I
Speaker 1: recognize that, and so I basically say a little prayer,
Speaker 1: and my prayer would be something like, I don't want
Speaker 1: this to be about me at all, and I just
Speaker 1: want I just want to be a value and service
Speaker 1: to the people. And if something amazing happens for those people,
Speaker 1: that is great, but that isn't about me, and it's
Speaker 1: not for me. So I think for me, it depends
Speaker 1: a lot on my intention and my attitude. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have this capacity, as you probably you know,
Speaker 1: where I can be cheeky and funny and a good storyteller.
Speaker 1: So there's all, you know, the kragon stage, there's a skill,
Speaker 1: the knowledge, the academic stuff, the butupp apart, that's all
Speaker 1: somewhat very human and performative to an extent, you know.
Speaker 1: And the dichotomy is also, as a professional speaker, you
Speaker 1: can't get up there and be boring. So you've got
Speaker 1: to be entertaining. You've got to be a little bit funny.
Speaker 1: You've got to be able to tell stories, build rapport,
Speaker 1: build connection, read the room. You've got to do all
Speaker 1: of that skill based stuff as well as try and
Speaker 1: not just be a performer, like try and be a
Speaker 1: real aligned human, a bit vulnerable, and like I talk
Speaker 1: about my myriad of shortcomings and failures and issues NonStop,
Speaker 1: and not because I hate me, but because I want
Speaker 1: people to realize how unspectacular I am, so that I
Speaker 1: might be more relatable and they might go, Craig's done. Okay,
Speaker 1: he's also an idiot. Maybe I could do okay, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but as you say, you know, whatever skill you have,
Speaker 3: if we can use it, but with that intention to
Speaker 3: help many beings, you know, yes, with that idea of service,
Speaker 3: I'm genuinely wanting to offer what we have to help others.
Speaker 3: Then that's that's great. I mean, that's great. We should
Speaker 3: not use our talents we have to. We've allays given talents,
Speaker 3: we've all been given things that can help in the world.
Speaker 3: Just the question is is it only helping you or
Speaker 3: are you using those talents to help many people?
Speaker 2: That's it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think for me when I was young,
Speaker 1: I was quite because when I was growing up, I
Speaker 1: was a morbidly obese kid and a whole lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and off the back of that, lots of issues, lots
Speaker 1: of insecurity, So I became very self focused and selfish
Speaker 1: only child. All this stuff, and I kind of realized
Speaker 1: over time that I needed to have a purpose bigger
Speaker 1: than me and had when I kind of opened that
Speaker 1: door and tried to be, you know, a value and
Speaker 1: service to just more than myself, I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is actually this is where I feel most alive, This
Speaker 1: is where I feel most aligned, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that so that was just experiential and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's great that you worked it out, though,
Speaker 3: I mean, isn't it great? That's the journey. We're all
Speaker 3: on this journey. But I think the more the more
Speaker 3: kind of awake you get, the more of service you
Speaker 3: want to be. Your own failings that continue to be there.
Speaker 3: They can get quite painful, They can feel quite painful,
Speaker 3: and often my teacher has to say to me, you know,
Speaker 3: just see where you are now, See where you are now,
Speaker 3: understand clearly where you are now? Right you know you've
Speaker 3: moved this far. You know you've moved this far, and
Speaker 3: you'll carry on moving. But right now, you're not completely perfect,
Speaker 3: right so I think we But it's just when you
Speaker 3: try your hardest to be a good human being and
Speaker 3: serve O, there's your own failings. Somehow they strike you
Speaker 3: so clearly far more so than when you were being
Speaker 3: selfish like whatever you called it earlier on right, you
Speaker 3: couldn't see them then at that point, right, you're so
Speaker 3: covered in layers a delusion at that point. But I
Speaker 3: think it's quite natural at that point, you know, just see,
Speaker 3: just accept I'm here now, I've been on this journey.
Speaker 3: I've got to hear. I'm not kind of finished yet,
Speaker 3: and you're still the weaknesses that are they're the failings
Speaker 3: that are there, whatever you want to call them, They
Speaker 3: too will go in time. But sometimes it can just
Speaker 3: be very painful to realize you're still not completely there yet,
Speaker 3: you haven't finished your journey yet.
Speaker 1: When you were a young up and coming corporate superstar,
Speaker 1: and could you have imagined, you know, thirty years later
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, that you'd be talking to some
Speaker 1: guy in Australia, you'd be in Britan and you would
Speaker 1: spend eleven hours a day for months on end in
Speaker 1: silent meditation and prayer, and could would now.
Speaker 3: If yeah, now, I was always very interested in Buddhism,
Speaker 3: even as a child. I was always very interested in
Speaker 3: images of the Buddhist sitting down meditating. I was always
Speaker 3: really fascinated with what is that person doing and why
Speaker 3: does he look so happy?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: But no, I could never have thought that the way
Speaker 3: my life is turned out and look and looks now,
Speaker 3: And you know, I think occasionally I have those moments
Speaker 3: when you're like, Okay, you could have been a CEO.
Speaker 2: You could have been actually pretty rich right now.
Speaker 3: You could have probably had some incredible, swanky house with
Speaker 3: somebody doing your laundry, and you know, it's just like unbelievable.
Speaker 3: But that that could have been my life. That could have.
Speaker 2: Been who I am today.
Speaker 3: So sometimes it's quite useful to think about the paths
Speaker 3: you chose not to take, as well as the paths
Speaker 3: you chose to take.
Speaker 2: I think it's both helpful to be aware of.
Speaker 1: Tell me about if you would your family and how
Speaker 1: they responded to your left turn, your radical left turn
Speaker 1: in life. I'm just teating, Hey, everyone enjoy that path.
Speaker 1: I'll be over here in Weedsmell, just wearing like, you
Speaker 1: know whatever, doing whatever.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's funny, you know, because when I was in when
Speaker 3: I was in investment banking, my mom didn't understand what
Speaker 3: I did, right, She's like, I don't really know. She's
Speaker 3: something like a stockbroker, and I was nothing like a stockbroker. Actually,
Speaker 3: so now she's like, I don't know she but it's
Speaker 3: not I don't really know what she does, right, So
Speaker 3: actually I think they were confused by pretty much everything
Speaker 3: I did in my life. I think everybody gets the charity.
Speaker 3: Everybody understands if somebody is going out of their way
Speaker 3: year after year to help others with the charity.
Speaker 2: I think that everybody gets, yeah, right, So I think
Speaker 2: the charity they understand.
Speaker 3: I think that it hasn't always been easy for my family, yes,
Speaker 3: to understand what I've done. Mostly, I think we find
Speaker 3: it easy to put ourselves in the shoes of others,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I feel like I can imagine what
Speaker 3: it's like to be a bus driver or a.
Speaker 2: Gardener or whatever.
Speaker 3: I think it is quite hard to understand and know
Speaker 3: what it's like to be a monastic. Yes, So I
Speaker 3: think my mum always imagined that I would get married
Speaker 3: and have like a nice house in the country in
Speaker 3: England with a nice person that had a big life
Speaker 3: insurance policy or something, I don't know what, you know,
Speaker 3: Like she wanted that kind of life for me, So
Speaker 3: I guess she was probably a bit worried because you know,
Speaker 3: there's no pension with being a fanastic, right, So I
Speaker 3: think you know, your parents always want you to be safe,
Speaker 3: like you said, like the things we were talking at
Speaker 3: the beginning.
Speaker 2: They want you to have food, they want you to
Speaker 2: have a roof, they want inter things.
Speaker 3: So I think she meant it may have been a
Speaker 3: bit worried that in some way it's going to be
Speaker 3: more vulnerable as a result of my decisions.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously.
Speaker 3: I've made the right decision absolutely for me, and I
Speaker 3: think they you know, as I say, they respect it,
Speaker 3: but I think it from where I started in my life,
Speaker 3: born by the sea in England, in Whitstable to a
Speaker 3: mother who was a housewife and a father who worked
Speaker 3: in insurance, you know, to have the oldest child end
Speaker 3: up as a Buddhist nun.
Speaker 2: In Bhutan doing what I do. Yeah, it's quite a leap.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. How many how many what is lunds do you
Speaker 1: make who have a similar story to yours? Who are
Speaker 1: who are Westerners who now live in Bhutan or somewhere
Speaker 1: else in the world.
Speaker 2: I'm the only one in Bhutan for sure. In Bhtan. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there is now a there's two Western monks here. One
Speaker 2: is American and the other one I haven't met.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure his nationality, but I'm certainly the only female.
Speaker 3: There are obviously quite a number of Western women who
Speaker 3: have become Himalayan Vadriana Buddhist practitioners monastics, and they mainly
Speaker 3: live in India, maybe Daramsalah or other places around the world.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many of them there are, but
Speaker 3: they definitely there's definitely a lot of them. But you know,
Speaker 3: you how can you say it's like being a zebra
Speaker 3: in a group of elephants? Right, So, if you're somebody
Speaker 3: who's born in the West and is ordained in a
Speaker 3: Buddhist country in the east, you know you're never going
Speaker 3: to be surrounded by thousands of you. There's there's not
Speaker 3: there's not going to be tons of us.
Speaker 1: Right, yes? And how how are you received by you know,
Speaker 1: how is the zebra received by the elephants?
Speaker 3: I think it's received fine. I mean it's taken some while.
Speaker 3: I've had to be very determined and also very lucky.
Speaker 3: My karma, as we would talk about karma, definitely arises
Speaker 3: in Bhutan, which is where sometimes the power of our
Speaker 3: place can be really important. And obviously they know how
Speaker 3: much work I do to help the country and the
Speaker 3: children of the country, so I think I'm very appreciated
Speaker 3: for that. But if you're the only one you know,
Speaker 3: you're always going to be breaking down preconceptions, You're always
Speaker 3: going to be establishing new grounds, new ideas of what's possible.
Speaker 3: And I probably have had to do that a bit.
Speaker 3: In terms of being a Western woman here in Bhutan, m.
Speaker 1: Tell me about karma. Tell the westerner about karma. Explain
Speaker 1: that to me.
Speaker 3: Karma is just the natural consequence of previous actions continuing
Speaker 3: to arise. It's arising all the time, even as we speak.
Speaker 3: Karma is what we would say ripening. So it can
Speaker 3: ripen and cause suffering, it can ripen and cause happiness.
Speaker 3: It's a bit like we think about time. You know,
Speaker 3: we can't take ourselves out of time, right time is
Speaker 3: it's a It's just the same with karma.
Speaker 2: Karma is just it's just ripening. And so yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's karma. We're all riding on the wave of garma.
Speaker 1: What does Buddhism teach I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: the right question. So you get the gist of my questions.
Speaker 1: But what does Buddhism teach about our desire for happiness?
Speaker 1: It's like it's almost like the universal goal, like nobody's
Speaker 1: goal is to be miserable or said, everybody wants to
Speaker 1: be happy?
Speaker 2: Is okay, Well we just leave it right there for
Speaker 2: a second. Let's just question that for a second. Right,
Speaker 2: let's just question that.
Speaker 3: Sure, because you've studied the mind, right you said, You've
Speaker 3: said psychology and all this kind of stuff, So we
Speaker 3: know that the human mind has this negative bias, right, yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: So with that negativity bias, you know, and often people say,
Speaker 3: like I don't know, we say three critical things we meant,
Speaker 3: you know, say, let me see, like somebody might say, okay,
Speaker 3: three people said something positive, but you remember the one
Speaker 3: one thing.
Speaker 2: That somebody said it was negative? Right, So I'm going
Speaker 2: to question that. I'm going to question is.
Speaker 3: Our human brain at this point really wired for happiness
Speaker 3: because I don't know that it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't think it is either. I think
Speaker 1: your brain is wired to primarily keep you safe.
Speaker 2: And it's about averting threat right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, predicting threats and danger and identifying threats and danger.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I agree with you. I think the
Speaker 1: expectation that we would be perpetually and maybe even regularly
Speaker 1: happy is not always the most logical expectation, you know,
Speaker 1: or goal.
Speaker 2: I think we should just accept. Let's and I don't
Speaker 2: know if this is right, but let's just say yeah
Speaker 2: that right now, the human is still wired to be
Speaker 2: largely unhappy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's actually because of that that we're also
Speaker 3: desperate to be happy, right, because it's not our natural state.
Speaker 3: It's actually isn't something that comes easily or automatically to us.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's such a It's like I know that, but
Speaker 1: when you say that, it's like, happiness is not our
Speaker 1: natural state? That is?
Speaker 2: I mean, wouldn't it help if we just admitted that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very insightful and the you know when Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. I'm just writing that down because I think
Speaker 1: that's going to be the title of this conversation. But well,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, and it's clearly you know, happiness and
Speaker 1: joy and fun and connection. And I think like when
Speaker 1: I talk to people and I'm not guru, I'm still
Speaker 1: a student, right, I don't I would I would happily.
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to learn more from you than you
Speaker 1: would ever learn from me. And I don't say that
Speaker 1: disingenuously right, Like it seems to me like what a
Speaker 1: lot of people really want is just not to be
Speaker 1: anxious anymore, like whatever that looks like, like I just
Speaker 1: want to be Like so many people that I talk
Speaker 1: to are overthinkers. Like there's just this the chaotic mind,
Speaker 1: the overthinking, the anxiety, the rumination, which then has a
Speaker 1: physiological consequence of heart rate and breathing and adrenaline and
Speaker 1: cortisol and sympathetic nervous system and all of this physical elevation.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like thought, You know, thoughts and emotions
Speaker 1: and physiology the body are one system, not three, Like
Speaker 1: everything operates and effects. You know. It's like your thought
Speaker 1: will have a physical consequence. If somebody is listening to
Speaker 1: this and right now they think they're in danger, and
Speaker 1: they believe they're in danger but they're not, then there
Speaker 1: will be a corresponding physical response despite the fact that
Speaker 1: there is no danger. So what caused the physical response
Speaker 1: was not the situation or circumstance or the reality of
Speaker 1: the situation, but rather a thought. And so try to
Speaker 1: navigate life with that kind of sometimes chaotic internal landscape Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why.
Speaker 3: You know, but we're very wired to that, aren't we.
Speaker 3: That way of thinking is very seductive. It goes right
Speaker 3: into that basic hard wiring of ours. And that's why
Speaker 3: sometimes I say, Okay, does the human race really want
Speaker 3: to be peaceful?
Speaker 2: Do they really want that?
Speaker 3: Because it's not very seductive. Nothing happens when you're peaceful.
Speaker 3: There's no drama, there's nothing to talk about, there's no
Speaker 3: crisis to define yourself as a result of, there's no
Speaker 3: emergencies to share with anybody.
Speaker 2: It's pretty dull.
Speaker 1: Wow wow, wow, what Why don't we want pace?
Speaker 3: Seems like I just don't know that we're wired to
Speaker 3: be peaceful creatures right now. And I think a peaceful
Speaker 3: state is if we look at the activities of humans.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that if you really want to be
Speaker 2: pe there may be quite a lot of steps to
Speaker 2: go down. And bear in mind that being peaceful.
Speaker 3: Is not very exciting, and people seem very interested in excitement.
Speaker 1: That is that is really that is something? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: also you know, you have a look at generally, have
Speaker 1: a look at the world, there's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: of peace.
Speaker 3: No, So I think we had to become we have
Speaker 3: to be Okay, so we say, all right, humans want
Speaker 3: to be peaceful, humans want to be happy. Really, are
Speaker 3: we white for that? Can we really look at our
Speaker 3: species right now and say that's honestly true? The evidence
Speaker 3: would argue otherwise, sadly, So.
Speaker 1: When you ask are we wired for that? Are you
Speaker 1: asking is that the way that our brain works? Is
Speaker 1: that our biochemistry?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Partially, yeah, because.
Speaker 3: I don't think we are white for that, right right?
Speaker 3: I mean that's not the case. Our cognitive function, our
Speaker 3: frontal cortex is the smallest part of our brain.
Speaker 2: It's the part that gets tired most easily.
Speaker 3: And I think often when people are overwhelmed, they're anxious,
Speaker 3: all these states that are very common for people. As
Speaker 3: you've just explained, we know they're not in their frontal
Speaker 3: cortex anymore.
Speaker 2: They're not in their executive.
Speaker 3: Function, right, So I think there is a piece around
Speaker 3: that biological evidence for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always talk about my prefrontal cortex being hijacked
Speaker 1: by mayamigdala. You know, so you're like.
Speaker 5: Yeah all the time, right, all the time, Yeah, all
Speaker 5: the time. Not just you, but you know, most of us.
Speaker 5: So I think it is clearly to everyone's benefit.
Speaker 3: If somebody is happy, they benefit the people around them, benefit,
Speaker 3: their partner, their family, their community. I'm just saying that,
Speaker 3: I think we have to be honest about some of
Speaker 3: the biology one might be fighting, and therefore the deliberate
Speaker 3: nature of our path to happiness, because I think sometimes
Speaker 3: when I read about happiness, I think some people think
Speaker 3: it's just your kind of like your basic human state.
Speaker 3: I don't think it is our basic human state. That's
Speaker 3: all I'm saying that. I think you can get it.
Speaker 3: I think you can accomplish it. I think you may
Speaker 3: have to use methods to get there, but I don't
Speaker 3: think we should see that. I think that we are
Speaker 3: inherently happy, and somehow we haven't worked that out yet.
Speaker 3: I think it's that's probably not accurate. Yeah, from a
Speaker 3: Buddhist point of view. You know, if you're most of
Speaker 3: your happiness once you have your woof and you have
Speaker 3: your food and you have your heating and whatever, most
Speaker 3: of it will, as you say, come from the whatever
Speaker 3: this thing is that we're calling the mind, your stream
Speaker 3: of mental activity, that will be the prime determine of
Speaker 3: your level of happiness.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you in most communities in the world, well
Speaker 1: in kind of you know, Australia and England and America
Speaker 1: and Canada and most of our countries, well a lot
Speaker 1: of maybe not. I was going to say that there's
Speaker 1: huge mental health issues, you know, anxiety, depression, you know, sleeplessness,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of people with a lot of
Speaker 1: medication to you know, try to deal with and it's growing,
Speaker 1: it's getting bigger, and it's it's despite all this information
Speaker 1: and education, it's not resolving itself. And what I'm imagining,
Speaker 1: that's not the case within the Buddhist community.
Speaker 3: Oh no, I think it is. I mean I think that,
Speaker 3: and that's why I feel very much that it's slightly
Speaker 3: dangerous to say these people are suffering from mental or
Speaker 3: health and these people aren't. Because unless you are never
Speaker 3: afflicted by you know, anger, jealousy, greed, confusion, anxiety, worry,
Speaker 3: I mean pretty much every human is going to be
Speaker 3: subject to that, right.
Speaker 2: So I think it's more.
Speaker 3: About recognizing the basic human condition, which, like the Buddha said,
Speaker 3: is one unfortunately of mental suffering.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what the Buddha said, right, and so
Speaker 2: most of us are mentally suffering to some degree.
Speaker 3: It's the degree that differs, right, it's the degree that differs. Yes,
Speaker 3: So here in Bhuton, you know, they're not without that
Speaker 3: mental suffering, definitely, for sure they're not. But I think
Speaker 3: that the pace of life here remains slower.
Speaker 2: The community feeling is very, very strong.
Speaker 3: The fabric of community support is huge here y, So
Speaker 3: I think that maybe it's not as intense as some
Speaker 3: places in the world, but obviously we still see it here,
Speaker 3: you know, because it's part of the human.
Speaker 2: Condition.
Speaker 3: It's part of the challenge of being a human is
Speaker 3: how do you deal with your own mind?
Speaker 1: Yeah? How long after your nine ninety seven being held
Speaker 1: at gunpoint experience, did you decide that you wanted to
Speaker 1: change the way you do life?
Speaker 3: So I had to recover first, right, it was a
Speaker 3: big thing to recover from, Okay, and.
Speaker 2: That really took some time.
Speaker 3: So I think, let me see now, it was about
Speaker 3: eighteen months later that I decided to resign, and then
Speaker 3: I basically traveled around the world learning about yoga, which
Speaker 3: is just the most wonderful thing. I think yoga is
Speaker 3: the most powerful healing and kind of centering tool in
Speaker 3: the world. And so that was really the start of
Speaker 3: my journey.
Speaker 2: It also involved going to Barron Bay.
Speaker 3: I lived in Barron Bay for quite a few months,
Speaker 3: so Australia was part.
Speaker 2: Of my journey.
Speaker 1: Hippies would have fit right in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think, you know you, I had to
Speaker 3: digest all the consequences of that trauma properly. I had
Speaker 3: to recover in order to see clearly what the next
Speaker 3: step might have been. So it would not have been
Speaker 3: a good idea in a way for me to come
Speaker 3: out of the hostage situation and the next day you've
Speaker 3: become up.
Speaker 2: It is not I think that would have been a
Speaker 2: sure recipe for disaster, because trauma's changed you and they
Speaker 2: need to be kind of integrated into the whole of
Speaker 2: you as part of your history, as you know, part of.
Speaker 3: Your jour and only then I think, can you begin
Speaker 3: to see a new way forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Tell me about your walk four hundred
Speaker 1: and three kilometers. It doesn't sound like it was a
Speaker 1: stroll around the park, and as you kind of alluded to,
Speaker 1: it's not like we're going for four hundred and three
Speaker 1: kilometers around suburban Melbourne like this is. This is a
Speaker 1: very what a complicated trek in the middle of wilderness.
Speaker 1: This is not a stroll. Why did you do that? Why?
Speaker 1: I know why you did it, but tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about it.
Speaker 2: So I've had a few moments in my life when
Speaker 2: I've just stood still and known something.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And I was crossing a bridge in London, I
Speaker 7: don't know, maybe a year and a half ago, and
Speaker 7: in the middle of that bridge, everything became very quiet,
Speaker 7: even though I was in the middle of London, and
Speaker 7: I just knew at that point I needed to walk
Speaker 7: across Butan from west to east.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know why. It wasn't to do with
Speaker 2: the charity.
Speaker 3: I just occasionally you get I think in your life,
Speaker 3: you get these thunderbolt moments where you know something and
Speaker 3: you don't question it. You don't go into that mental
Speaker 3: whirling of is this a good idea?
Speaker 2: Is this not? That I just knew it? Right? So
Speaker 2: when I have those moments, I always listen to them.
Speaker 2: I don't overthink them. I just know them. And so
Speaker 2: that was the start of it. And you know, actually
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I didn't really have a clue of the scale of
Speaker 3: challenge that I was thinking about doing. So, like you say,
Speaker 3: four and three kilometers doesn't sound too bad as a distance,
Speaker 3: but I think it's so over the course of the
Speaker 3: thirty seven days, we climbed the equivalent of Mount Everest
Speaker 3: two and a half times. That's more than reality of
Speaker 3: what I just did. Yeah, and obviously I'm not a trekker,
Speaker 3: I'm not a hiker. As you can hear, I spend
Speaker 3: a lot of time I'm sitting down praying, right, So
Speaker 3: it was a huge, a.
Speaker 2: Huge physical and mental challenge and accomplishment. Yeah, and I'm
Speaker 2: I'm recovering from my own great idea as we speak.
Speaker 1: Right, amazing. Well, congratulations on that. How long ago did
Speaker 1: you finish? It's like in the last week or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of lost track of the days. What
Speaker 2: day is it? Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, right, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: think we finished about ten days ago. Yeah. It was
Speaker 2: very weird coming back from the forest. I have to
Speaker 2: say it was.
Speaker 3: Even though Bhutan is a very unpopulated country.
Speaker 2: It's not like I came back to Manhattan.
Speaker 3: But it was very strange coming back to the speed
Speaker 3: and the confusion of city.
Speaker 2: Life here in Bhutan. Afterwards.
Speaker 1: Interesting, it's brilliant speaking about the speed of life. I
Speaker 1: was going to ask you when you're talking about being
Speaker 1: on that bridge London a year and a half ago
Speaker 1: where you had this kind of idea or revelation or
Speaker 1: what's it like when you go back to London.
Speaker 2: I mean it's okay.
Speaker 3: I mean I don't spend a lot of time in London,
Speaker 3: to be frank, I'm very rarely there.
Speaker 2: It's just not how I want to live.
Speaker 3: But for the benefit of the charity and various other things,
Speaker 3: if I need to go to London, I go to London.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, amazing. What was the coming out of, you know,
Speaker 1: corporate land and that life and that very kind of
Speaker 1: typical existence of people grow up in England and Australia
Speaker 1: and America. What was the hardest to let go of? Like,
Speaker 1: what did you struggle, if anything, to let go of
Speaker 1: or embrace in becoming this whatever different version of you
Speaker 1: or taking this different path. What was hard for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think that first of all, I
Speaker 3: think that obviously, actually when I was in the corporate world, it.
Speaker 2: Was not that usual to be frank.
Speaker 3: I mean I back in the nineties, I was often
Speaker 3: the only woman in the room.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I think that I would say that.
Speaker 3: I felt very lucky to have that chance, that career
Speaker 3: to be in like Hong Kong, New York. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think so I don't want to kind of dismiss
Speaker 3: it as a like a boring everyday life. It was
Speaker 3: amazing and I was I learned a lot from it.
Speaker 3: I was very pleased to be part of it in
Speaker 3: a way. I think when you decide to be a monastic,
Speaker 3: you know what, often the reason why monastics live in
Speaker 3: communities is because monastic life is quite lonely.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: If I could use a word that freaks everybody out,
Speaker 3: it's like the final h I don't know, the final
Speaker 3: bogie man, the word lonely. Right, you have no companion,
Speaker 3: you have no partner, your celibate, but you also have
Speaker 3: nobody to share your day with. Yes, And I think
Speaker 3: that from a monastic point of view, there's something very
Speaker 3: beautiful about, you know, a couple or a kind of
Speaker 3: deep friendship where you can really say how you are,
Speaker 3: share how you are, you know. And I think that
Speaker 3: the hardest thing about being a monastic is sometimes that's
Speaker 3: hard to get.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: I think that was an expectation I had to kind
Speaker 3: of let go of. And you still have these very
Speaker 3: like deep conditionings about the way to be a human
Speaker 3: is to find your partner and stay with the partner,
Speaker 3: and you know whatever, and even you know, you imagine
Speaker 3: you're going to be old by a fireplace with grandchildren
Speaker 3: or whatever. Right, So I think that that conditioning is
Speaker 3: very deep. And so I think letting go of that
Speaker 3: idea of what you should find in life, what you
Speaker 3: should hold onto in life, and what your well, the
Speaker 3: end of your life will look like very much all
Speaker 3: bound around having a partner.
Speaker 2: I think that was a big conditioning to let go
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I've never been married, so I'm
Speaker 1: somewhat monastic.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, You've got potential, Craig, You've got potential. This
Speaker 3: just sounds good, sounds good.
Speaker 2: But how do you find it? I mean, how do
Speaker 2: you find it? I'm sure that there's there's there's positives.
Speaker 3: And negatives to every situation, and some people marriage you
Speaker 3: sound like hell on Earth to me, I'll be honest.
Speaker 2: So, but I mean, how do you find that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So it's interesting because obviously when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I had you know, girlfriends, partners, and but I never
Speaker 1: got married. And you know, like, I've never had alcohol,
Speaker 1: I've never had a beer. I've never been drunk. I've
Speaker 1: never had a drug, I've never had a cigarette, I've
Speaker 1: never been high. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So my life is very monastic in a way and
Speaker 1: very very atypical. Like and I'm not saying better or worse,
Speaker 1: it's just for an Australian bloke who is like me,
Speaker 1: like a blow key bloke, it's very unusual to the
Speaker 1: point where people are like, what is like, what is
Speaker 1: wrong with him? There's like something got to be wrong
Speaker 1: with him, which there probably is, but I don't know
Speaker 1: that that's well, they're definitely is, let's be honest, but
Speaker 1: I don't know that that is the issue. But for me,
Speaker 1: I do you know what is? I feel like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't even say this to you, but I'm just going
Speaker 1: to be honest, right I think. So I set up
Speaker 1: the first personal training center in Australia. Do you know
Speaker 1: what personal trainer is yet? Right? Yeah? In a gym
Speaker 1: kind of thing, yeah yeah, and you'd work one on
Speaker 1: one with people. So I set up the first center,
Speaker 1: I wrote the first course, and I worked in gyms
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty two when I was eighteen, and I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time, eventually working one on one
Speaker 1: with people late decades where it would be me and
Speaker 1: another human being in the gym and you'd see them often,
Speaker 1: that person three times a week, and so you would
Speaker 1: have a one on one pretty in depth, pretty kind
Speaker 1: of you know, going deep. And because you're not a
Speaker 1: friend per se, and you're not their family and you're
Speaker 1: people would confide in you. And I'm like, the stuff
Speaker 1: that I get told is mind blowing. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, some things they would tell me that no
Speaker 1: one else in the world knew, and which is a
Speaker 1: privilege and an honor and you need to respect that.
Speaker 1: But then the amount of people that would talk to
Speaker 1: me about their relationships and of what they say would
Speaker 1: be negative. It kind of put me off. I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is I'm not in any hurry to get married.
Speaker 1: I'm not in any and you know, I think also,
Speaker 1: and of course I'm not anti marriage at all. I'm
Speaker 1: also not anti having a beer. I'm not anti anti
Speaker 1: cigarettes and anti drugs. But you know, if somebody wants
Speaker 1: to have a bit of booze, or someone wants to
Speaker 1: get married or does want to get married, or gets
Speaker 1: married three times or whatever, I'm not judging that or
Speaker 1: evaluating that. But for me, it didn't hold a lot
Speaker 1: of appeal. And you know, which is not say so
Speaker 1: things are amazing and I'm the smartest guy in the world.
Speaker 1: Definitely not that. But for the most part, I still
Speaker 1: feel loved and valued. I still have, you know, connection
Speaker 1: with people. I ironically don't have lots of friends, Like
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people a lot, but I
Speaker 1: probably have five six seven ends in the world. Yeah
Speaker 1: that I really know and trust. Yeah. So it's it's
Speaker 1: funny and I you know a little bit like you
Speaker 1: you know, my mom is like my mum was doing
Speaker 1: come on, where are the grandchildren? She was doing that
Speaker 1: till I was about forty five and then just gave up,
Speaker 1: you know. So and you know, at no stage was
Speaker 1: it really my plan to wake up one day and
Speaker 1: be sixty ish years old and whatever whatever I am Now,
Speaker 1: this wasn't you know, that's my life goal. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it is interesting and also to just question, you know,
Speaker 1: like I actually got asked in an interview myself, why
Speaker 1: are my anti marriage? And I said, well, I've never
Speaker 1: ever said that, and I wouldn't say that. I think
Speaker 1: for some people marriage is beautiful and amazing, I think,
Speaker 1: and I think for some people not just like I
Speaker 1: think for some people drinking milk is absolutely amazing, for
Speaker 1: other people not so much. You know, it's not like
Speaker 1: milk is good or bad, or marriage is good or bad,
Speaker 1: or becoming a nun is what everyone should do or
Speaker 1: not do, or you know what I'm saying. It's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to figure out what is going to work
Speaker 1: for us individually, you know, I think, while hopefully bringing
Speaker 1: some value to people around us or some service in
Speaker 1: some way, maybe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's about you know, hopefully being wise
Speaker 3: enough to know, okay, what really brings out the best
Speaker 3: in me. You know, I may like the idea of
Speaker 3: having a boyfriend or whatever, but you know, if it
Speaker 3: makes me anxious or clingy or you know whatever, then
Speaker 3: it's not really bringing out the best in me. And
Speaker 3: I think, you know, I feel being a monastic does
Speaker 3: bring out the best in me. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: I couldn't be a lot of other things, and I
Speaker 3: could have been a lot of other things, but I
Speaker 3: think it brings out the best in me. And that's
Speaker 3: what we want to do, is bring out the best
Speaker 3: in ourselves, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do Hey, it's been an hour. Can you
Speaker 1: believe that already?
Speaker 2: No, it's been very enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much. Hate. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: your book. Your book is called Set Free. Your charity.
Speaker 1: Your charity is called opening your Heart to pretend tell
Speaker 1: people about those like all the plugging and promoing.
Speaker 6: That's really kind of weird. Thank you. You know that's
Speaker 6: on Amazon. You can find it on Amazon. I guess
Speaker 6: in Australia you have to order it. But you have
Speaker 6: Amazon and stuff in Australia, right, I mean you must.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just got television too, fantastic, there you go.
Speaker 2: I just you know, just anyway, So, yeah, the.
Speaker 1: Book is on I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm messing with you. Yes,
Speaker 1: we have Amazon.
Speaker 2: So it has a lot of five star reviews. I
Speaker 2: wrote it from my heart and.
Speaker 3: I think it's funny and serious and hopefully you'll laugh
Speaker 3: and your cry. The charity is called Opening your Heart
Speaker 3: to Bhutan, because when we help others, that's what you do.
Speaker 2: You open your own heart. That's what happens.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's a website and you can see
Speaker 3: the campaign even for my massive trek across Butan.
Speaker 2: The campaign is still there if people want to join in.
Speaker 3: And there will be a documentary film about the walk
Speaker 3: made in Bhutan here with the Bhutanese film crew, and
Speaker 3: that should be out in a bad a year and
Speaker 3: that I hope is going to be really something else amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get you back to talk about that. We'll
Speaker 1: primo that as hey, we'll say goodbye fare But Emma,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's really nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: You're a gift and I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. Yeah, okay, hap to see you.
Speaker 1: More and we're out boom, thank you.
Speaker 2: Okay to meet you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you too. You're great. I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: probably don't want to comment, but you're great,