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Speaker 1: Doctor Don Chappelle. Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, happy to be here.

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Speaker 3: So we have a Belgian living in the States talking

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Speaker 3: to an Irishman living in Australia.

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Speaker 1: This could be quite an interesting journey for people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, should we call somebody in Kennedy emergency or yeah?

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Speaker 3: So Dad, you are a You've got a really interesting background.

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Speaker 1: So you're background kind of you're.

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Speaker 3: A clinical psychologist by trade, but also a bona fide

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Speaker 3: philosopher who's interested in religion as well. So you you

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Speaker 3: have a really interesting journey. Tell us, first of all,

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Speaker 3: how did you get into what was the what was

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Speaker 3: the first driver of your study? Was it philosophy, was

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Speaker 3: it psychology or was it kind of a dual interest

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Speaker 3: right from the get go?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was probably It started off with psychology. I

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Speaker 2: discovered a book on psycho analysis when I was in

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Speaker 2: my teens in my father's library and I tried to

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Speaker 2: read it. Of course, didn't understand much of it, but

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Speaker 2: I kept reading, you know, unlike many of my friends

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Speaker 2: who sort of gave up on those things. You know,

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Speaker 2: they you know a lot of people I think they

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Speaker 2: say philosophy, I don't know. I can't get into it. Well,

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Speaker 2: I just didn't give up. I kept on reading, and

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Speaker 2: so eventually I developed simultaneous or you know, equal interest

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Speaker 2: in psychology and philosophy, with the initial emphasis on depth psychology,

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Speaker 2: you know, psychology of the unconscious Freud and Young, and

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Speaker 2: then archetypal psychology that means anything. And I was I'm

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Speaker 2: a student of James Hillman, who was a primary student

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Speaker 2: of care Jung and so wow, yeah, so I got

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Speaker 2: into archetypal psychology and what we called and what is

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Speaker 2: still called phenomenological psychology, that is to say, trying to

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Speaker 2: understand human experience from the basis of human experience itself,

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Speaker 2: not from models from physics or from physiology or biology,

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Speaker 2: but sort of straight from direct experience and to sort

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Speaker 2: of make a great leap already into the connections with philosophy.

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Speaker 2: I think the original phenomenologist and phenomenological psychologist was the

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Speaker 2: Buddha of all people. And this was, you know, the

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Speaker 2: West didn't have something called psychology until about the sixteenth

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Speaker 2: or seventeenth century. The Buddha spelled out two thousand and

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Speaker 2: five hundred years ago a very comprehensive, sophisticated psychology of

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Speaker 2: everyday life. And so the other person who is much

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Speaker 2: closer to home for us, who is I think also

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Speaker 2: a phenomenological philosopher and psychologist, is Nietzsche. So to make

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Speaker 2: sort of a kind of a long journey long story short,

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Speaker 2: I went from Freud and company, you know, Young and Helen,

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Speaker 2: to Nietzsche, and from Nietzsche I went to, of all people,

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Speaker 2: the Buddha, and from the Buddha I eventually ended up

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Speaker 2: with a Taoist, you know us, first Confucius, and then

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Speaker 2: a Laudza who is very well known in the West,

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Speaker 2: and then someone who's not at all known in the West,

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Speaker 2: which is a philosopher who came a couple of generations

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Speaker 2: after Laudze. And his name is Zwangzhu, and he's a very,

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Speaker 2: at least when you first encounter him, very bizarre sounding guy.

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Speaker 2: Like all these these ancient Chinese philosophers, they operate in

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Speaker 2: a very different way from the way we do. You know,

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Speaker 2: we are essentially Greeks by origin in philosophy, and we

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Speaker 2: became you know, first you were Greek philosophers, then we

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Speaker 2: became European philosophers, and then on top of that we

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Speaker 2: became Christian philosophers. And it's all very discursive. You know,

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Speaker 2: one thing follows from another, one thing argues for another

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Speaker 2: from another, and the Chinese are very different in style,

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Speaker 2: and that takes some serious getting used to. They'll start

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Speaker 2: with a little anecdote to figure off. Let's say two

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Speaker 2: men fishing in the river and they have a conversation

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Speaker 2: that is no more than one page long, and you go,

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Speaker 2: what so, it takes quite some introduction. But once you

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Speaker 2: get past that, and you need help getting past that,

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Speaker 2: you know, help from from western skul of uh Chinese philosophy,

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Speaker 2: then you begin to see, like some very bizarre and

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Speaker 2: shocking things, Like one of the things you discovered is

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Speaker 2: this Chinese philosopher Zumangzhu. He is, in more than just

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Speaker 2: one way, a kind of a Nietzschean philosopher before Nietzsche,

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Speaker 2: two five hundred years before Nietzsche. And you go, what so,

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Speaker 2: once you begin to see these connections, that opens up

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Speaker 2: a world so wide and the windows so wide that

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Speaker 2: it is just unbelievable. And so that's that's the that's

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Speaker 2: that's the the ground that I plow, so to speak,

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Speaker 2: you know, the area that I work in. And so

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Speaker 2: my last book, which is called a Minimalist ethic, a

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Speaker 2: minimalist ethic for everyday life. It is, it's it goes.

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Speaker 2: It starts with Socrates and it ends up all the

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Speaker 2: way with the Chinese, and it includes things like the

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Speaker 2: celebration of the Sabbath and and and Buddhism and Taoism

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Speaker 2: and what have you. And you begin to see I

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Speaker 2: I am. Originally I was sort of an academic type,

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Speaker 2: but I got away from academia and being a practicing psychologist,

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Speaker 2: I had to learn to talk the language of people

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Speaker 2: with whom I said, need to need so to speak.

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Speaker 2: That's very different from it. It's very different from an

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Speaker 2: academic audience. And so I write for that audience. And

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Speaker 2: this last little book is my shortest, but I think

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Speaker 2: my best and actually most important and most original book,

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Speaker 2: which is that that minimalist ethic from for everyday life.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you're familiar with somebody named it's

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Speaker 2: a Scottish person, Ian McGilchrist.

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Speaker 3: Ian McGilchrist, yes, yes, yes, says he's a neuroscientist, isn't

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Speaker 3: he Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Neuroscientists, psychiatrist, philosophy, literary critic, you name it, he does

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Speaker 2: it all. He wrote this book two major works, the

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Speaker 2: last one is a two volume thing. It's too big

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Speaker 2: to publish in one volume. It's like sixteen hundred pages

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Speaker 2: or something like that. But he covers very similar kind

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Speaker 2: of ground, but he does it in a very different way.

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Speaker 2: He starts off with a critique of Western habits of

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Speaker 2: philosophying from what he calls the left brain type approach.

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Speaker 2: And it's not a simplicity.

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Speaker 1: Can you explain what you done? Can you just explain

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Speaker 1: what you mean by that to people?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, left brain, right brain. All animals, all mammals

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Speaker 2: have their brains are made of two parts, the left

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Speaker 2: side and the right side, and the different parts control

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Speaker 2: different parts of our functioning. For example, the left brain,

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Speaker 2: am I pointing at my left rain. Now we're in

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Speaker 2: reverse here. The left brain controls the muscles of the

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Speaker 2: right side of the body, and the other way around,

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Speaker 2: the right side of the brain controls the left side

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Speaker 2: of the muscles of the body. But there's not only that.

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Speaker 2: The more important part is that the left brain and

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Speaker 2: the right brain they're sort of phenomenologically different. They do

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Speaker 2: different functions. The left brain is more the analytic, rational, focused, scientific, argumentative,

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Speaker 2: logical kind of approach to things. It's the thing that

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Speaker 2: with which we focus our attention on something that's right

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Speaker 2: under our nose, you know, like under the microscope. The

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Speaker 2: right brain knowledge has to do with a more comprehensive

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Speaker 2: knowledge of the entire world around. It's not so focused

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Speaker 2: on one specific thing or and it's sort of more

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Speaker 2: comprehensive in the sense that it involves like intuitive ways

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Speaker 2: of knowing, in the effective importance of the elements of

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Speaker 2: knowing and so on. And these two brain hemispheres they

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Speaker 2: work together. You can't be if your one side of

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Speaker 2: your brain is seriously damaged, and then one side of

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Speaker 2: your personality so to speak, is damaged as well, doesn't

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Speaker 2: function as well. So his critique being a neurophysiologist, which

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Speaker 2: I am not at all. I'm like the Buddha, you know,

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Speaker 2: the Buddha never heard of the brain, so to speak,

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Speaker 2: but he did very well for himself. Nonetheless, you know,

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Speaker 2: he wasn't a scientific researcher, but he came up with

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Speaker 2: this fantastic, fantastically sophisticated psychology. This guy, Ian McGilchrist would

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Speaker 2: absolutely worth checking out. He sort of argues that our culture,

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Speaker 2: largely since the Enlightenment, has focused has has sort of

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Speaker 2: given the rain of governing our lives and our decisions

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Speaker 2: and whatever to the more left brain part of our person.

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Speaker 2: And again, you can't be too literal or too simplistic

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Speaker 2: about these things, because these these two brain hemispheres, they overlap,

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Speaker 2: they work together, they compensate for each other, and what

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Speaker 2: have you. But anyway, his argument is, and there's no argument,

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Speaker 2: no arguing with that argument, that ever since the Enlightenment,

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Speaker 2: we've become like super weighted on the side of rationalism scientism.

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Speaker 2: Religion is out the window. Religious experiences, bull religious dogmas,

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Speaker 2: certainty out of the window, you know, introspection, you can't

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Speaker 2: rely on it. Really, So it's behavioral science is what

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Speaker 2: we want. And that's how a psychology is how we

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Speaker 2: got where we are too, because all of science is

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Speaker 2: sort of in that sense. And his argument, and it

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Speaker 2: is mine, well, although I commented very differently, and I

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Speaker 2: ad I skipped the brain altogether, so to speak. But

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Speaker 2: his argument is that the whole person we need to

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Speaker 2: develop the right side of existence more. That's why I

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Speaker 2: think so many people are into yoga and meditation and

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Speaker 2: spirituality and and uh earth, you know, earth awareness and

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Speaker 2: so on. That's that's more right, brain kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: It's funny here I am talking about McGilchrist's book instead

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Speaker 2: of my own. But the point is that we end

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Speaker 2: up in the same place. And I actually recently wrote

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Speaker 2: to him and I hope that I'll hear back from him,

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Speaker 2: is that, you know, we both end up with what

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Speaker 2: he calls and what I also call religious experience, direct

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Speaker 2: religious experience, you which is different from religion. Hume has

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Speaker 2: a fantastic line which says, religion is a defense against

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Speaker 2: religious experience. You know, religion is the stuff handled with

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Speaker 2: left brain materials, you know, Catholic theologian arguments and you

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Speaker 2: will believe this and dogma in whatever. That's a defense

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Speaker 2: against the directness of phenomenological experience because you know, very

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Speaker 2: few of us are really interested in religious dogma, but

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Speaker 2: all of us are interested in what we might call

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Speaker 2: religious experience. And that doesn't have to be something fantastic, great,

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Speaker 2: you know, something biblical, although you know, biblical literature, of course,

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Speaker 2: is full of the material of religious experience. You know,

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Speaker 2: like people allow Dawkins and whatever who poo pooh religion.

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Speaker 2: I think they're missing the boat entirely. They they think

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Speaker 2: that religions is about gods. You know, like these supernatural

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Speaker 2: things which are easy to to do away with, you know,

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Speaker 2: with some clever, you know arguments. But the point of

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Speaker 2: real religion, a real religious study, is not it's not

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Speaker 2: about God, it's about who we are. It's about humans.

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Speaker 2: Religion is about what it is like to be human.

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Speaker 2: And so these people they forget that day sort of,

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Speaker 2: you know, Dawkins, you know, they they think they do

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Speaker 2: away with religious religious dogma, and they have thereby done

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Speaker 2: away with all of religious tradition and religious experience, which

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Speaker 2: is of course not true. And so my book ends

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Speaker 2: up the little one, you know, the medal, the minimalists,

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Speaker 2: I think in everyday life ends up in the with

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Speaker 2: with with the Sabbath. I'm not Jewish. You don't have

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Speaker 2: to be you don't have to be Jewish, you don't

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Speaker 2: even have to be religious to really get the idea

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Speaker 2: of what the Sabbath is, you know, in the mythology

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Speaker 2: of Judeo Christian tradition, in Genesis, the Book of Creation,

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Speaker 2: you know. And again you don't have to believe these things,

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Speaker 2: but they nonetheless they say something about something, and what

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Speaker 2: you hear them say depends largely on how you tend

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Speaker 2: to listen. And so in any case, we all know,

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Speaker 2: we all grew up learning that it took God six

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Speaker 2: days to create the universe and the world, and then

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Speaker 2: he saw that it was all good, very good. And

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Speaker 2: then on the seventh day, what does he do? Nothing?

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Speaker 2: Now he leaves at the west then and we do

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Speaker 2: a pretty good job. So he rests and he says,

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Speaker 2: you know, it's all good, it's very good. And I

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Speaker 2: think the Sabbath is that capacity to rest, to come

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Speaker 2: to a place rest in your own life after all

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Speaker 2: the week, the week of the kind of work that

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Speaker 2: you do, and you come to a Sunday or a

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Speaker 2: rest day, or a day on the golf course or

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Speaker 2: whatever it may be, mountain climbing, where you reach a

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Speaker 2: point where you say, ah, this is what it's all about.

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Speaker 2: You know, some an experience that that that adds to

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Speaker 2: the usual. You know, you can have good food on

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Speaker 2: a daily basis, but that does not really satisfy. There

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Speaker 2: are a few things in our life that satisfy us,

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Speaker 2: and the Sabbath is one of those. And that's God's invention.

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Speaker 2: And again I'm not a religious person. I'll talk about

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Speaker 2: Einstein about that, but I've lost my train of thought

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Speaker 2: here that also comes.

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Speaker 3: With you were you were talking about this, that the

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Speaker 3: concept of the Sabbath.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it's the it's it's God inventing. And I learned

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Speaker 2: it from a a friend of mine, acquaintance rabbi. He said,

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Speaker 2: on the seventh Day, God doesn't rest because he's tired.

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Speaker 2: It's not like the rest of us, you know, or

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Speaker 2: because he's gotten lazy or something. On the seventh Day. No,

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Speaker 2: he discovers or he creates the felt sense of the sacred,

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Speaker 2: the felt sense of holiness. He looks at the whole creation,

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Speaker 2: that all that has come into being, and he says,

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Speaker 2: pretty good, you know, amazing. And that's what celebrating or

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Speaker 2: keeping the Sabbath, as they put it, is about that.

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Speaker 2: It's about finding ways through ritual behavior or through any

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Speaker 2: other behavior. Buddhists do it through meditation. They reach that

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Speaker 2: point of shedding all their usual thoughts, you know, and

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Speaker 2: coming to a place of profound peace. Not peace after war,

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Speaker 2: not peace when you make up with your spouse, but

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Speaker 2: a piece that is that income is the whole world,

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Speaker 2: and that is what the Sabbath is, and that is

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Speaker 2: what meditation aims at, you know, similar to God, the creator.

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Speaker 2: There's the legend of the Buddha. Has it that when

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Speaker 2: he reached the enlightenment, you know, he had been meditating

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Speaker 2: for six years and then one day he wasn't getting

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Speaker 2: where he wanted to get. One day he decided, I'm

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Speaker 2: not leaving this seat here until until I'm enlightened. And

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Speaker 2: guess what he got enlightened haliloja. And so what happened

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Speaker 2: after that is he took I think it's seventy four

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Speaker 2: days forty seven days of complete rest. He didn't do anything,

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Speaker 2: and he said, everything has done nothing else needs to

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Speaker 2: be done. That's the same thing that God said on

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Speaker 2: the seventh day. Everything has good, everything has done nothing else.

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Speaker 2: We don't need to worry about anything else that has

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Speaker 2: to be done. And that's the kind of experience that

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Speaker 2: all of us are capable of in the smallest ways perhaps,

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Speaker 2: but the essential dimension is the same. You know, Like

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Speaker 2: one time I wrote that in one of my books,

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Speaker 2: I think, or in two. Well, one day I fell

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Speaker 2: in love with a paper clip. Excuse me, Yes, I

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Speaker 2: did some moment where all of a sudden the paper

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Speaker 2: clip struck me. I wasn't just using it, although I

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Speaker 2: needed a paper clip or whatever. But when I reached

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Speaker 2: for the paper clip, it struck me as a wonderfully

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Speaker 2: miraculous little thing. What an invention it, what a humble

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Speaker 2: job it does, but how well he does it? And

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Speaker 2: I didn't think all those words with it. When you

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Speaker 2: start adding words to your experience, you're done. You know

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Speaker 2: your experience done. That's sort of like trying to explain

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Speaker 2: a poem. If you have to explain a poem, you've

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Speaker 2: lost a poem. And the same thing with my paper clip,

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Speaker 2: And distinctly remember that day when I fell in love

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Speaker 2: with that darn little paper clip, And so small things

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Speaker 2: like that, A moment of quiet, of like real silence

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Speaker 2: can do the same thing, and.

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Speaker 3: So donad But can I just I want to take

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Speaker 3: this into a practical application perspective, right, And so the

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Speaker 3: Western for me, Western thought in general, Western society is

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Speaker 3: overly focused on the idea of happiness and and for

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Speaker 3: me often not always, but but some types of modern

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Speaker 3: psychology I don't think are helpful because I describe it

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Speaker 3: as the psychology of.

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Speaker 2: Me, me, me, me, me, absolutely right.

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Speaker 3: So so both Nietzsche and and the Buddha they talked about.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you think of the.

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Speaker 3: First noble truth of Buddhism life is suffering, which I

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Speaker 3: think is a bit of a misquote, isn't it that

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Speaker 3: that I give duca is kind of better translated of

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Speaker 3: life is hard to do.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's what I learned. After decades of practicing psychology,

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Speaker 2: I learned life is difficult.

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Speaker 3: Yes, And for me this needs to be the fundamental

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Speaker 3: thing that every person is taught. Life can be amazing,

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Speaker 3: but it's also hard, and it was never meant to

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Speaker 3: be easy. And he ever told you that life was

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Speaker 3: meant to be easy and you're entitled to happiness.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but they've lied to you.

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Speaker 3: And to talk about the importance because I know you're

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Speaker 3: a fan of that as well as unhappiness as necessary

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Speaker 3: living absolutely, rather than a pathology that has to be medicated.

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Speaker 2: Hello, yep, yeah we're still here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're still here.

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Speaker 3: So so so please talk to us about this idea

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Speaker 3: of unhappiness is necessary absolutely.

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Speaker 2: First of all, starting with the Buddha he you know,

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Speaker 2: as you pointed out, you know, his first novel, noble

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Speaker 2: truth is life is unhappiness. That's not sort of like

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Speaker 2: a simple complaint or being sort of in a bitchy

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Speaker 2: mood or something like that. It is a fact that

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Speaker 2: the things we pursue in life, none of those will

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Speaker 2: ever deeply truly satisfy us. That's all he meant that

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Speaker 2: what whatever we pursue, it's not going to make us happy.

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Speaker 2: The best career in the world, the best fortune in

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Speaker 2: the world, the best test line in the world, the

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Speaker 2: best wife. You know, none of it is going to

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Speaker 2: make you happy. That's a realization you have to make,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of us don't make that until we're

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Speaker 2: like in the middle of our life. You know, when

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Speaker 2: you're young, you think, oh, you're going to do it.

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Speaker 2: It's sort of like it applies to other people, but

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Speaker 2: not to me. You know. One popular teacher of Buddhist teachings,

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Speaker 2: he was at a conference and he talked about that,

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Speaker 2: and he said, you know, we have to start here

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Speaker 2: with the idea that life is sort of unsatisfactory as

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Speaker 2: they also call it, instead of suffering, you know. And

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Speaker 2: he said, well, there will be some people here who

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Speaker 2: say will say, well, yeah, that applies to most people maybe,

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Speaker 2: but not for me. I just got a new girlfriend.

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Speaker 2: I'm as happy as one can get. And he said,

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Speaker 2: I'll see you next year, you know. But it is true.

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Speaker 2: So I did write a book about that, the Necessity

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Speaker 2: of Unhappiness, and it talks about you unhappiness of four figures,

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Speaker 2: first the Buddha, secondly Nietzschee, who also realized that he

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Speaker 2: as a philosopher, he noticed that everybody was after truth,

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Speaker 2: you know, all traditional Western philosopher daring the truth. He says,

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Speaker 2: one not other tru one not rather untruth or even

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Speaker 2: illusion or something else. And he said, the basis, you know,

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Speaker 2: we have to start with the fact that existence is

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Speaker 2: very tough, very hard. It's difficult. It is you know,

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Speaker 2: it's suffering, you know, and we're not made for this

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Speaker 2: sort of you know, one day we'll have land, the

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Speaker 2: perfect job will be happily. Ever after no, he said,

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Speaker 2: you know, happiness is Unhappiness is necessary. And I have

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Speaker 2: a third figure, which is the Book of Job, from

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Speaker 2: the biblical figure of the Book of Job. Also he

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Speaker 2: I don't know if you listeners are familiar, but Job

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Speaker 2: is sort of a saintly figured like a real good.

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Speaker 1: What is it Old Testament Job?

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Speaker 2: It is Old Testament. Yes, it belongs with the Testament,

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Speaker 2: although it appears also in other non Jewish traditions. It's

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Speaker 2: older than the Jewish tradition, I think, but it is

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Speaker 2: an essential part of the wisdom writings in Judaism. Job

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Speaker 2: who is, you know, perfect perfectly devoted to his God.

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Speaker 2: And one day his God plans, you know, decides to

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Speaker 2: test him, and he inflicts all kinds of pains on him.

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Speaker 2: He burns down his holdings, he kills all his workers,

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Speaker 2: and he kills all his children, and you know, when

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Speaker 2: there's nothing left to take away from him, he inflicts

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Speaker 2: him with boils that are untreatable, incurable. But at the

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Speaker 2: same time he won't let him die or commit suicide.

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Speaker 2: So he's stuck there, you know. And so he goes

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Speaker 2: from being the most devoted person you know, to being

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Speaker 2: the most blasphemous person more than nietzs you and Nietzsche.

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Speaker 2: Everybody knows God is dead. We have murdered him. That

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Speaker 2: is niets you he's famous or from his line, Job

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Speaker 2: does some he says something far more blasphemous. He says,

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Speaker 2: once he really can't handle his suffering anymore, he gets

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Speaker 2: enraged and he yells out. He says, goddamn, the day

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Speaker 2: I was born, let it never have been If you

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Speaker 2: look carefully at that is goddamned today I was born.

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Speaker 2: Let it not have been. Let it never have been.

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Speaker 2: That is sort of a counter creation myth, you know,

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Speaker 2: wishing not to have been created, which of course none

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Speaker 2: of us can do. If you're wishing not to have

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Speaker 2: been created, you too late, because you're already fully involved

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Speaker 2: in life. If you you say you wish you know,

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Speaker 2: I wish you had died at birth, too late again,

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Speaker 2: because you're, you know, by the time you realize that

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Speaker 2: you're you're you're too old, you know, to be dying

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Speaker 2: in her as a baby, and and so on. And

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Speaker 2: so Job goes through all these faces, and each of

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Speaker 2: those makes him feel even worse. And so he says, God,

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Speaker 2: damn the day I was born. And then he goes

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Speaker 2: on blaspheming so called blasts feaming. I don't think it's

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Speaker 2: blest feeming at all. And actually, at the end of

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Speaker 2: the book of Job, God himself comes out and he

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Speaker 2: says to Job, you have spoken the truth about me

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Speaker 2: and your friends who said you must have done something wrong,

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Speaker 2: otherwise God wouldn't have punished you. They were absolutely wrong.

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Speaker 2: So God sides with Job. And so what Job does.

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Speaker 2: Then what God does is he gives them like a

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Speaker 2: panoramic overview of all of creation. He says, look around,

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Speaker 2: you know, bird feathers, the wind, you know, seasons. How

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Speaker 2: does the cow know when it's time to have her calf?

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Speaker 2: Where is the wind when it doesn't blow? Who tells you?

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Speaker 2: Who calls the lightning for you? And Job is sort

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Speaker 2: of it's some people describe that's one of some of

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Speaker 2: the best nature literature ever written. And so after that, God,

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00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 2: you know, these are all things we can see it

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Speaker 2: on an everyday basis, all of us, you know, even

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Speaker 2: on the worst day of our lives, just as it

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Speaker 2: was the case for Job. And when he sees that

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Speaker 2: and he remembers, yeah, he realizes, yes, it is true.

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Speaker 2: This is this is amazing stuff that we're born into.

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Speaker 2: And then he becomes silent. He stops complaining, stops swearing,

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Speaker 2: stops complaining, and he says, you know, I've heard of

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Speaker 2: you with my ears, but now I've seen you directly.

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Speaker 2: So what he has seen is nothing but things that

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Speaker 2: we can see on an everyday basis, the wind, trees, leaves,

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Speaker 2: you know, on trees, and so on. So that's the

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Speaker 2: third figure in that book on the necessity of unhappiness.

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Speaker 2: Is the figure of Job, because then the book ends

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Speaker 2: by saying and Job then lived content for the rest

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Speaker 2: of his life, which is like one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 2: years or something like that, and he died content deeply content.

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Speaker 3: Contentment is different to happiness, right yes, And I think

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Speaker 3: this is a critical part of all of this.

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Speaker 2: Right we go, I aim for contentment, not happiness, because

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Speaker 2: New Mercedes or whatever, you know. Content And because what's

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Speaker 2: interesting about Job here is that of all the hundreds

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Speaker 2: upon hundreds of people measure mentioned in the Bible, both

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Speaker 2: new and old, you know, Jewish and Christian, there's only

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Speaker 2: a handful of people of whom it is said that

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Speaker 2: they died content. And Job, of all people, is one

428
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 2: of those. The most unhappy guy in the world becomes

429
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 2: one of the few who ends up dying content. And

430
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 2: then the fourth figure in my book on the necessity

431
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 2: of unhappiness is The Catcher in the Rye, which is

432
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 2: a very famous American novel. It's a superbly well written novel.

433
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: If you ever have a chance, it's an easy read.

434
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 2: It's written. It came out in nineteen fifty or thereabouts.

435
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 2: You know. The Catcher in the Eye very one of

436
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 2: the best novels of that century. And it describes a

437
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: young man, an adolescent, you know, who has been already

438
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 2: kicked out of three prep schools, and he's about to

439
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,520
Speaker 2: be expelled from the fourth, you know, like adolescent going downhill,

440
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,360
Speaker 2: you know, pure and simple. And he also he's the

441
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 2: most wretchedly unhappy adolescent you can imagine. But it is

442
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 2: so beautifully written that it speaks to you, you know,

443
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 2: like you. And he also has to go through all

444
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 2: his misery before he can come to the end and

445
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 2: begins to see like something turn around. You know. He's

446
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 2: alienated everybody, he's pissed off everybody. He has no friends,

447
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 2: he's drifting, he's totally desperate. And then he sits in

448
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,960
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist's office at the end and he starts telling

449
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 2: his story. And that's the whole book, is the telling

450
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:12,960
Speaker 2: of his story. And then at the end he says

451
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 2: heribed after he has described a scene where he has

452
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 2: some kind of argument with his friends in school, high

453
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: school or whatever, and he makes this amazing discovery and

454
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 2: it's very easy to read over it. He says, it's funny.

455
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 2: He says, don't ever tell anybody anything, because if you do,

456
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,680
Speaker 2: you start missing everybody. And this comes from the mouth

457
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 2: of the most cynical, you know, sharpest tongued adolescent you've

458
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:48,680
Speaker 2: ever read about. And he says at the end, it's funny.

459
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: Don't ever tell anybody anything, because if you do, you

460
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 2: start missing everybody. So something has melted, you know. And

461
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 2: it's just like the one line is the beginning of

462
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 2: the turnaround for him, just like it is for Job.

463
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 2: You know, you have to read thirty seven of the

464
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 2: forty two books of Job before you the turnaround begins,

465
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 2: you know. And the same thing with the Buddha. Six

466
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 2: years of meditation, after multiple many, many endless rebirds, you know,

467
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,280
Speaker 2: and six years of meditation, and then finally it's like bang,

468
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 2: you know, and then he says, nothing else needs to

469
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 2: be done. Everything is done. Six days of creation, artwork,

470
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 2: you know, serious business. And then there's a seventh day. Oh,

471
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 2: this is beautiful. That's where psychology, I think, has to go,

472
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 2: and that's where my writing goes, and that's where McGilchrist goes.

473
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 2: And again I'm putting in plugs for McGilchrist. It's almost funny.

474
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:59,600
Speaker 3: But is this similar to the Japanese psychology concept of arugamama,

475
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 3: which is basically an acceptance of what is so, but

476
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:08,959
Speaker 3: it's it's not a passive acceptance. It's a you know,

477
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 3: shit happens, that life happens.

478
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: It is what it is.

479
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 3: But it's also the second part of aurugamama is what

480
00:32:16,800 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 3: needs to be done. So it's not what you get

481
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 3: focused on external stuff. This just happens. The universe happens.

482
00:32:24,320 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 3: You'll get a shit sandwich. But it's about that acceptance

483
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 3: and then thinking about what needs to be done with

484
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 3: all of that going on.

485
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not familiar with the Japanese term that you mentioned,

486
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,840
Speaker 2: but I am very familiar with the idea of radical acceptance,

487
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 2: which is of course part of you know, a lot

488
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 2: of Japanese culture generally, and Zen in particular. Yes, it

489
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 2: is pure Zen. It is also pure Buddhism. Of course

490
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 2: Zen is Buddhism, you know, and it is that you know,

491
00:32:56,360 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 2: it is also Yeah, absolutely it's radical acceptance. It's calls

492
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:09,480
Speaker 2: it a more fattyue love, more fat love of fake

493
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 2: love of everything that has been, everything that is, and

494
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 2: everything that will be, and that is.

495
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 3: N's go and and talk to us from from a

496
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 3: psychologist perspective, like like, how do you when when someone

497
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 3: is is rocking up, or or are people listening who

498
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 3: are struggling with their thoughts and struggling with their emotions

499
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 3: and wanting to change their reality in their heads and

500
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 3: talk to us about this this concept Nietzsche's am more fatty,

501
00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 3: which is very similar to that that job.

502
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 2: So so.

503
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 3: Like, how do you How do you get that across

504
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:51,400
Speaker 3: to people?

505
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 2: Not easily so or with difficulty, But that's why, that's

506
00:33:58,960 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 2: why God invented Yes.

507
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 3: For me, it is absolutely key to accept that you

508
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 3: cannot control reality. And I think so many people get

509
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 3: in trouble psychologically when they when they are wishing for

510
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:17,720
Speaker 3: things to be different, right, right.

511
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 2: No, You're absolutely right. It is key. It is the

512
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 2: central objective almost of Buddhist meditation. It is what is medita,

513
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 2: What is Buddhist meditation. It is simply watching how your

514
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 2: mind does what your mind does, and not fighting with it,

515
00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 2: not saying oh I shouldn't have thought that, or why

516
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:43,800
Speaker 2: is my mind wandering again? Or am I still having

517
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 2: doubts about this or that? It is accepting the way

518
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 2: your your mind is. Eventually you discover that your mind

519
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,839
Speaker 2: is not your mind, it's not your property, but it's

520
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 2: sort of mind playing itself out in this space of

521
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,359
Speaker 2: life that we call me. You know, I'm you know,

522
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 2: you're in Melbourne, but you're also in a different way

523
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 2: in your own life. And I'm in Massachusetts, but I'm

524
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 2: also in a in a space that is not geographic,

525
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:16,319
Speaker 2: but that is sort of the all the stuff, all

526
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:21,240
Speaker 2: the place where all my all my Dan Chapelle stuff happens,

527
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:26,280
Speaker 2: you know, and yours is where all your pall stuff happens,

528
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 2: you know, and it is it requires there are different

529
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 2: levels of different ways of understanding. First of all, if

530
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 2: you study Nietzsche, it's important to understand that this is

531
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:43,200
Speaker 2: an essential that is essential part of Nietzsche. It's aphorism

532
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:47,319
Speaker 2: two seventy six of his book The Gay Science, where

533
00:35:47,360 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 2: he spells that out. And you can actually sum up

534
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 2: Nietzsche in three aphorisms if you like. The First one

535
00:35:55,520 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 2: is aphorism three hundred and forty one from from well

536
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 2: The Gay Science, Aphorism three forty one, Aphorism two seventy eight,

537
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,839
Speaker 2: also from The Gay Science, and then section fifty six

538
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 2: from his book called Beyond Good and Evil and Beyond

539
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 2: Good and Evil fifty six is a boy I haven't

540
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 2: been in that place. I haven't visited this area of

541
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,399
Speaker 2: my writing and thinking in a while, but you brought

542
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 2: it up because of your awareness that almorphati is such

543
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 2: an important point, you know. Section fifty six and beyond

544
00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 2: good and evil is a place where Nietzschee talks about

545
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:51,959
Speaker 2: discovering that all the things you thought were actually bad

546
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 2: in your life were They were not at all bad.

547
00:36:56,239 --> 00:37:00,160
Speaker 2: They were just who what your life is. And it

548
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 2: has to do with one thing that coming to a

549
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,720
Speaker 2: point where you can see that, hey, this is good,

550
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,919
Speaker 2: like seventh Day, you know, kind of this is good,

551
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 2: this is very good. Where your life, even the ship

552
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 2: in your life is good, very good. You find the

553
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 2: same idea in Saint Augustine, who says somewhere he has

554
00:37:21,280 --> 00:37:28,959
Speaker 2: a prayer in his confessions, and he says, and again,

555
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 2: you don't have to be religious for these things to

556
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: make any sense for you. But he says to his

557
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,840
Speaker 2: he prays to his God, and he says, in your creation,

558
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 2: in your in what you've done or whatever, there's some

559
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 2: things which we human beings think think are good, and

560
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,440
Speaker 2: some things which we think are not so good, but totalent,

561
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: but the totality of all things is even better than

562
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 2: the best of the good things. So it's a kind

563
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,879
Speaker 2: of an amorphattigue, is the totality of things, the acceptance

564
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 2: the way things are. We don't have to make them good,

565
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:09,879
Speaker 2: they already are, you know. And this this.

566
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 3: Kind of aligns with the historic philosophy idea that that

567
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,439
Speaker 3: that nothing is either good or bad, but it's rather

568
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 3: our judgments of them that bad. Right, And and that

569
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 3: that then if we if we then come into psychology

570
00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 3: and neuroscience, it's really our emotional responses. I think, I

571
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 3: think that's what the stoics we're talking about, the emotional

572
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 3: responses that you have that then shape your judgments on things.

573
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,800
Speaker 3: And so so talk to us a little bit about that,

574
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 3: because this is kind of central to all of this, right,

575
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 3: is that that amorphatty, that understanding that that that stuff

576
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 3: is neither good or bad.

577
00:38:53,640 --> 00:38:57,840
Speaker 1: It's our judgments on that. Like how do you help people?

578
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 3: And to kind of get into that head space, is

579
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 3: there any techniques or strategies or is it just an

580
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 3: understanding of that concept that like a real guttural understanding

581
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 3: of it.

582
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 2: It helps to start with an intellectual philosophical understanding, but

583
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 2: that's not enough. You need something more practical. And the

584
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 2: more practical way is the long process of meditation. That's

585
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 2: where you learn to recognize that things are as they are,

586
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:31,960
Speaker 2: and that your unhappiness has a lot to do with

587
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:35,680
Speaker 2: your wishing that they were different from the way they are.

588
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,399
Speaker 2: If you're constantly fighting with everything in your life, if

589
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 2: you stop fighting, your life will stop fighting with you.

590
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 2: And so that's meditation is a long, long approach, and

591
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 2: there's no better approach to this then meditation, I think

592
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:57,040
Speaker 2: if you want to approach it on an experiential, really

593
00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 2: lived level, not just intellectual stuff to talk about, not

594
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 2: academic lectures to talk about behind the podium. I don't

595
00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 2: do podiums, you know. I sit with people, need to need,

596
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: as I said, you know, and my language isn't always

597
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:19,200
Speaker 2: you know, kouth maybe I think that's the word in English, right, yes,

598
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,399
Speaker 2: But my language is everyday language, which is a very

599
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 2: fine language, I'll have you know, because that's where we suffered,

600
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 2: that's how we suffer, that's how we fight with our

601
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 2: spouses or lovers or whatever, you know. So it's a

602
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 2: very good language. And the Buddha, the Buddha too spoke

603
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 2: a very vernacular language, whatever it was that he spoke

604
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 2: because he was always talking about images from nature from

605
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:54,120
Speaker 2: you know, he lived in an agricultural culture and he

606
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 2: had images of that all over the place. So he

607
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 2: was not an academic standing up behind the podium either.

608
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 2: And so I figured, if it's good enough for the

609
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,840
Speaker 2: budd it's probably good enough for the rest of us.

610
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:15,000
Speaker 2: But so meditation is something I have. My two favorite

611
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 2: books are the little one that I mentioned already, which

612
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 2: is a minimalist ethic for everyday life, and the one,

613
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:29,720
Speaker 2: the practical one about meditative self care, which is also

614
00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 2: the name of the website meditative self care dot com.

615
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 2: That's where we make our get our hands dirty, why

616
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 2: sticking them in our own experiences, you know, in our

617
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 2: own see how our own minds work and so on.

618
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:48,000
Speaker 2: So those two books for people who are listening who

619
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:51,319
Speaker 2: might be interested in, you know, what do I do

620
00:41:51,440 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 2: now or is there something I can do? Those two

621
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:56,440
Speaker 2: little books, they're both very cheap.

622
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:04,799
Speaker 3: And talk to us about the the thing I've been

623
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 3: thinking about more and more, and I think this is

624
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:13,320
Speaker 3: what brings kind of neuroscience and philosophy and experience all together.

625
00:42:13,520 --> 00:42:13,840
Speaker 2: For me.

626
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 3: Attention is really key around all of this stuff. And

627
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 3: again I'm want to borrow from Japanese psychology. It is

628
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 3: all about attention.

629
00:42:25,360 --> 00:42:25,760
Speaker 1: Attention.

630
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:30,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in Japanese psychology they say there.

631
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:31,400
Speaker 1: Was a guy Greg Greg Creach.

632
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,800
Speaker 3: My wife is a practitioner of Japanese psychology, her mentor

633
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 3: Greg Creach. I interviewed him and he said that a

634
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 3: key thing in Japanese psychology is about the flashlight of

635
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 3: your attention.

636
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: And they say that is the most important thing in

637
00:42:48,600 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 1: that you have control of.

638
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 3: And I kind of love that as the neuroscientist in me,

639
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:58,320
Speaker 3: because whatever you pay attention to your brand commits sales

640
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 3: to it. And for me, attention precedes emotion and all

641
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:04,399
Speaker 3: of this.

642
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: Stuff, right, And so talk to us, and I think.

643
00:43:09,360 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 3: That that meditaition can sometimes be interpreted as attention training.

644
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

645
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 3: So just talk to us about your experience around attention

646
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,640
Speaker 3: or what how people should start to think about their attention.

647
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 2: Attention is probably the most important thing we do, you know,

648
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 2: it is the most important thing because everything else that

649
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 2: we do or think or feel follow us from attention. Again,

650
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 2: back to McGilchrist, you know, he also speaks about the importance,

651
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 2: the cardinal importance of attention, and you find it throughout

652
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 2: the ages. You know, like there's one person whose name

653
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 2: I forgot. He said, attention is our natural mystical prayer.

654
00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 2: How about that? Huh? Interesting, right, is natural mystical prayer?

655
00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 2: And yes, indeed, meditation starts with attention, learning to to

656
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 2: tame your attention. You know, like the meditators, the Buddhist

657
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 2: they talk about monkey mind. You know, like our minds.

658
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 2: We all have sort of adhdal. You know, our minds

659
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 2: are like monkeys, jumping from one thing to another. And

660
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 2: the first thing you learned to do in meditation is

661
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 2: to to train the mind to stay put on You say,

662
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 2: I'm going to focus on that, put my attention on

663
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 2: this and keep it there. That's how you started meditation.

664
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 2: And then the second what happens is you learn I

665
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:45,799
Speaker 2: can't do that in my mind jumps to something else

666
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:50,360
Speaker 2: all the time. And they said, aha, look what you're learning.

667
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 2: What your mind is doing. You got monkey mind. We

668
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 2: all have monkey mind. And so meditation begins with bringing

669
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,760
Speaker 2: attention back again and again and again to the topic

670
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 2: on which you placed it or want to place it.

671
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 2: So and then also you begin to you begin to

672
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,280
Speaker 2: see what else your mind is always doing, is bringing

673
00:45:13,360 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 2: up stuff, and you're chasing after your mind. Another little

674
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: story or analogy that they use in the Buddhist us,

675
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: they say is attention is like if you throw a

676
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 2: stick in front of a dog, the dog chases after

677
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:32,440
Speaker 2: the stick, and you know, keep chasing after it, says.

678
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, if you what they call

679
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: the lion gaze as opposed to the dog's chasing, the

680
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:43,280
Speaker 2: lion gaze is if you throw a stick in front

681
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:47,480
Speaker 2: of the lion, the lion looks at the origin of

682
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 2: the stick, but doesn't run after the stick. And this

683
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 2: is sort of like you develop the lion's gaze by

684
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 2: you watch your mind and you see things coming up,

685
00:46:00,239 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 2: but you don't chase after all of them. You watch

686
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 2: that mind, you know, kicking up, throwing up all kinds

687
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 2: of sticks, and you don't run after them. That's the

688
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 2: beginning of meditations, and.

689
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 3: That brings in self awareness obviously into the peace, but

690
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 3: to really then dig into a little bit deeper in this.

691
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 3: You know, if we think about as you'll be well aware,

692
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:32,759
Speaker 3: our mental health, particularly in developed in our brackets nation,

693
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:38,360
Speaker 3: is is just going down the gurglar. But if we

694
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 3: think the two major ones anxiety and depression, If we

695
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 3: think about people with depression, their attention often is rooted

696
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,840
Speaker 3: in the past and lamenting on the past and anxiety.

697
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 3: Their attention is future focused, and there's strong concern about

698
00:46:56,120 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 3: the future. But the whether attention is absolutely key to

699
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 3: their pathology.

700
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 2: Isn't it absolutely? Absolutely? The little book on meditative self

701
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 2: care begins or is centered around this one idea. We

702
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 2: suffer from who we think we are. I love that,

703
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 2: you know, and we're always thinking we're somebody or other,

704
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 2: you know, like somebody in front of you, what a

705
00:47:23,680 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 2: cash register is taking too much time, and then you

706
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 2: get irritated because you know you've got important things to do,

707
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 2: you know, more important spend in your life. You know,

708
00:47:32,680 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 2: the universe revolves around me exactly. So we suffer from

709
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 2: who we think we are. And as you become more

710
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,960
Speaker 2: aware by paying more attention to how your mind works,

711
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,440
Speaker 2: you catch yourself at your irritability and at your whatever,

712
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 2: your hostility, and you begin to see, Jesus, I'm a

713
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:55,440
Speaker 2: horrible person. Well you're not a horrible person. You're just

714
00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,399
Speaker 2: a regular guy, you know. But this is how our

715
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:01,600
Speaker 2: minds work, and this is how it produces our unhappiness.

716
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,399
Speaker 2: Because if you think you're going to you're special. You're

717
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:10,440
Speaker 2: going to be very disappointed because you know, so we

718
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 2: suffer from who we think we are, and we're always

719
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 2: thinking with somebody. It's not just like one thing. I

720
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 2: am professor so and so, well you're that, Yeah, sure

721
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 2: everybody can see that, but you see many other things.

722
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 2: You know, you're an old letcher who's drooling over all

723
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 2: your young female students or something, you know, and you're

724
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 2: you're and at home you're like a you know, a

725
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 2: door mat, you know, and and you're afraid of your

726
00:48:40,719 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 2: children so you avoid them. You know, you're all those

727
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 2: things as well. You know. So we suffer from who

728
00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 2: we think we are. That's the core issue of the

729
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:54,320
Speaker 2: Meditative Self Care book. So if you put those two together,

730
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 2: then I think you cover all the bases. You know. So,

731
00:48:59,280 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 2: but attention that.

732
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, sorry, I wanted to today and talk a little

733
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 3: bit about karma.

734
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: So, so you a very good.

735
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:14,040
Speaker 3: Job of connecting the East to the West and and

736
00:49:14,040 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 3: and I guess explaining it better. So, so this idea

737
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 3: of karma is often misunderstood in in the West, So

738
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:27,720
Speaker 3: so talk to us about the real impact of what

739
00:49:27,840 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 3: really karma is and how it can be used in

740
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 3: our lives.

741
00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, first, but it isn't What it isn't is all

742
00:49:34,719 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 2: the things we think it is in the West, you know,

743
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:41,439
Speaker 2: like some sort of magical force of the universe that's

744
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 2: going to get you for bad things you did. You know,

745
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:48,200
Speaker 2: like what goes around comes around that kind of you know,

746
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 2: that's not what it is. What it is is it's

747
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 2: an understanding. It's a psychological understanding of why our lives is,

748
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 2: why our lives is as it is, and why we

749
00:49:59,120 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 2: suffer from what we suffer and while we experience what

750
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 2: we experience. And you know, it has to do with

751
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:13,800
Speaker 2: becoming more aware on a moment to moment basis of

752
00:50:13,880 --> 00:50:17,960
Speaker 2: all your intentions. You know, like if you find yourself

753
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 2: drooling again over this young female student in your classroom,

754
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 2: catch yourself at that and see where that leads you.

755
00:50:27,120 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 2: It's going to disappoint you because you're an old geezer.

756
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 2: You have no business chasing after young women, you know,

757
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,479
Speaker 2: and so your karma is going to be that they're

758
00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 2: going to laugh at you. That's not something that is

759
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 2: regulated by the stars or the heavens. It's just your

760
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 2: own psychology. If you act like a in a pretentious manner.

761
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 2: People are going to take a distance from you, you know,

762
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:56,719
Speaker 2: because you're a cold person, cold fish or something like that.

763
00:50:57,239 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 2: And so that's all it is. That sounds very simple.

764
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:03,080
Speaker 2: The point of it is it has to do with

765
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 2: becoming aware of intention. You know, you say attention is

766
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 2: the most important thing. Attention and intention. Attention is where

767
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 2: you put your your consciousness. Intention is where do you

768
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:19,200
Speaker 2: want to go from here? You know you want to

769
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 2: cut off, you want to cut off the guy in

770
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 2: front of you, or you want to get even with

771
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:26,600
Speaker 2: the guy who cut you off in traffic, or you know,

772
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 2: that's intention. And you know if you're the guy, if

773
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 2: you want to get even with the guy in the

774
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 2: car next to you, you're an angry guy yourself, and

775
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:38,720
Speaker 2: guess what you're going to experience. You're going to experience

776
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 2: a lot of anger. Don't be surprised if you do.

777
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:48,880
Speaker 2: That's karma and which is completely perfectly understandable as is

778
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,240
Speaker 2: the result of your intention. Karma means the word karmen

779
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 2: sounds great. Karma means action. Doing Karma is simply what

780
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 2: you do, what you know, your intention in what you do,

781
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 2: and and what you the price you pay for that intention.

782
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 2: If you isolate yourself from people, you're going to be

783
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,120
Speaker 2: a lonely person. You know, if you're if you're above people,

784
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,799
Speaker 2: you know, they're not going to come and comfort you

785
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 2: when you need it. Um, that's that's very simple. Karma. Well,

786
00:52:24,040 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 2: it gets I mean it gets complicated also, of course,

787
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 2: but it is it's a very down to earth you know.

788
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 2: The Buddhists say, we think that karma is maybe a

789
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 2: part of your life. The Buddhas said, no, Karma isn't

790
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 2: part of your life. Karma is your whole life, everything

791
00:52:39,960 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 2: you do, from moment to moments. You know, it's a

792
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:49,280
Speaker 2: very typical Buddhist expression, from moment to moment because nothing

793
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 2: ever stays the same. You don't ever stay the same

794
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:56,200
Speaker 2: for two moments in rome and everything. What happens is

795
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:59,319
Speaker 2: what shifts is your intention. Your attention shifts and your

796
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 2: intentionship and your intention is going to point to where

797
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 2: you're going to end up. You know.

798
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 3: It seems to me, you know, as you talk about

799
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:14,680
Speaker 3: this and Dan, it's kind of adding to my thinking

800
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 3: of it. And it seems to me that if if

801
00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 3: most people could master those two things, their attention and

802
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:26,839
Speaker 3: their intention, then I think life would just be so

803
00:53:27,000 --> 00:53:27,960
Speaker 3: much better.

804
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:44,720
Speaker 2: Without absolutely absolutely, you're absolutely right. The yeah, the little

805
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:47,320
Speaker 2: book on ethics, you know, for ethics, for an ethic

806
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 2: for everyday life, it's largely about intention. It is larger,

807
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:54,600
Speaker 2: it's it's actually and i'll tell you a little secrets

808
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 2: of the book. It's a it's a negative ethic, you know,

809
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 2: the Judeo Christian ethics as love your neighbor as yourself,

810
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 2: which is not a bad idea, but have you ever

811
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:09,520
Speaker 2: tried it? It is way harder than we mortals can

812
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 2: actually do, because there's so many more negative emotions that

813
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 2: we have and impulses and whatever. So there's a Chinese

814
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:21,000
Speaker 2: philosopher Confusions. Instead of saying love your neighbor as yourself,

815
00:54:21,280 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 2: he says, don't do to other people what you don't

816
00:54:23,560 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 2: want done to yourself. That sounds like the same thing,

817
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,799
Speaker 2: except formulated differently. One in a positive fashion, but you

818
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:34,960
Speaker 2: must do the other in negative. What you shouldn't do

819
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:38,279
Speaker 2: what you don't do. And actually, in reality, it is

820
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 2: easier to avoid doing something than it is to positively

821
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 2: do something. It's easier to you know, none of us

822
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 2: can generate loving feelings all the time. I certainly can't,

823
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 2: you know, we spend our whole life trying those of

824
00:54:56,200 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 2: us who try a little bit, you know, but you can't.

825
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:03,680
Speaker 2: But what you we can always do is say no

826
00:55:03,960 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 2: to ourselves. Don't do this, don't do what you just

827
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 2: intended to do. And again that's where you know you

828
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 2: have to pay attention to your intention. Socrates said famously,

829
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 2: I know I don't know anything except for one thing.

830
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:24,760
Speaker 2: The one thing I know is that I know nothing.

831
00:55:25,640 --> 00:55:29,080
Speaker 2: And he wasn't being just humble, you know, or pretending

832
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 2: to be humble. What he meant was he followed the

833
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,400
Speaker 2: dictates of what he calls his namon. His inner namon

834
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 2: is you know the voice that talked to him, and

835
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,800
Speaker 2: the voice always told them, no, don't do this, don't

836
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 2: say that, don't believe that. And so I start with

837
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 2: in my book with Socrates as a person who says,

838
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 2: you first have to cultivate the doing no and saying

839
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 2: no in leaving though, which means you have to get

840
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:06,240
Speaker 2: to a place where you tell yourself, well, I really

841
00:56:06,280 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 2: don't know about this situation, instead of saying, oh I

842
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 2: got my opinions about it. Every situation you mean that

843
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:17,120
Speaker 2: I don't know, Or you reach a point in your

844
00:56:17,239 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 2: so called knowledge to where you can say, where you

845
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:24,080
Speaker 2: can realize that you really don't understand it. You know.

846
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:27,520
Speaker 2: That's what he did with his audience with his students.

847
00:56:27,600 --> 00:56:30,319
Speaker 2: You know, he always made him feel not so much

848
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 2: dumb as he brought them to a point where they said,

849
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:36,720
Speaker 2: you're right, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

850
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 2: And they were intelligent, well meaning persons, you know, and

851
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 2: he wasn't just making fools of them. You have to

852
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 2: come to a point of not knowing. That's where you

853
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 2: start from. And the essential element in not knowing is

854
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 2: don't believe what you think. The psychologists also have discovered

855
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 2: that in cor to behavior therapy. They say, don't believe

856
00:57:03,040 --> 00:57:08,640
Speaker 2: everything you think. You know, you know, I think, I

857
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:11,480
Speaker 2: think like nobody's gonna love me. I'm not worth loving

858
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:15,759
Speaker 2: all this. Don't believe everything you think. The Buddhists go

859
00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,280
Speaker 2: like a thousand miles further. They say, don't believe anything

860
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:23,400
Speaker 2: you think. Talk about being radical, you know, and that's

861
00:57:23,400 --> 00:57:26,320
Speaker 2: how you become aware of what you actually think, and

862
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 2: then you can refrain from that thinking instead of chasing

863
00:57:30,040 --> 00:57:33,280
Speaker 2: after it like the dog chacing after his stick. You know,

864
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:36,840
Speaker 2: you go like whoa I wasn't aware of that. I

865
00:57:36,880 --> 00:57:39,760
Speaker 2: didn't know that I even thought that, even though I

866
00:57:39,800 --> 00:57:41,960
Speaker 2: never really thought it in so many words or in

867
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:46,440
Speaker 2: English or in complete sentences. But in some level, some level,

868
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 2: I really that's what I believed, you know. And then

869
00:57:49,280 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 2: you can do away with it. You can then go

870
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 2: of it, which is the great the Buddha's great form

871
00:57:56,160 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 2: of saying. No. You know, Socrates his dam and said,

872
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:03,280
Speaker 2: don't don't believe this, don't say that, don't do that.

873
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 2: The Buddha said, let go of everything. Don't believe anything

874
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 2: you think that, no attachment, right, No, exactly exactly. So

875
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:19,200
Speaker 2: I don't know how we got here to this point, but.

876
00:58:19,520 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 3: No, and I I want to I want to kind

877
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:26,600
Speaker 3: of end where we started, right and and and talk

878
00:58:26,640 --> 00:58:29,520
Speaker 3: about God from from two people who are who are

879
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 3: not religious.

880
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:33,080
Speaker 1: I so so my kind of journey.

881
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 3: I'm I'm a recovering Catholic, as I describe it, from

882
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 3: Northern Ireland, got put off and I really got put

883
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 3: off religion from from my upbringing. And I remember being

884
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 3: in church and chapel one day listening to a gospel

885
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:53,600
Speaker 3: and I just thought, actually, I don't really believe what

886
00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:56,800
Speaker 3: they're telling me. So I started looking at other things.

887
00:58:56,840 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 3: I started reading other religions and philosophy. That's or I

888
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:06,000
Speaker 3: in first encountered Buddhism and Stoic philosophy, and and then

889
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 3: I got really interested in Daoism and at the same

890
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 3: time had this interest in physics and quantum physics. And

891
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 3: I remember reading a book called The doll with Physics

892
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 3: or The tawas it's spelled The taw with Physics by.

893
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 1: Free Joff Capra.

894
00:59:23,720 --> 00:59:27,560
Speaker 3: I think, and and and what that kind of journey

895
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 3: laid me into realizing that lots of hardcore scientists like

896
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 3: Capra and and other and even Einstein ended up going

897
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 3: full circle around God, and that that always fascinated me.

898
00:59:46,920 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 3: But for me, I'm certainly not religious, but I would

899
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:54,760
Speaker 3: call myself more spiritual. And for me, Daoism, that essence

900
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 3: of the universe linked to quantum physics and energy is

901
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 3: the kind of thing thing that that I think is

902
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:04,840
Speaker 3: is that that connects everything.

903
01:00:05,320 --> 01:00:08,680
Speaker 1: So why there's so many quantum.

904
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 3: Physicists and end up in the sea in place that

905
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:13,920
Speaker 3: the Daists ended.

906
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 2: Up because I think they sort of understand they're getting

907
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 2: a better understanding of the nature of reality, which is

908
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:24,040
Speaker 2: a very pretentious concept the nature of reality. You know,

909
01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:26,400
Speaker 2: how can we possibly know the nature of anything, let

910
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:29,880
Speaker 2: alone the nature of reality? But these people have done

911
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:33,560
Speaker 2: their homework and they studied knowledge itself. How do we

912
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 2: know anything? And by the way, about Einstein, you'll like

913
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 2: this one, he said, he's supposed to have said, I am.

914
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 2: He makes the distinction like the way that Jung does,

915
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:51,200
Speaker 2: between religious experience and religion. Einstein said, I am a

916
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 2: deep religious, deeply religious non believer. I don't like that.

917
01:00:58,320 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: I do like that.

918
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:02,120
Speaker 2: You can chew on that for a little bit, you know, yes,

919
01:01:02,280 --> 01:01:04,640
Speaker 2: deep little And that's I think what all these people

920
01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 2: end up being, you know, like this McGilchrist again, the

921
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:12,400
Speaker 2: one that I refer to many times in the beginning,

922
01:01:12,560 --> 01:01:15,000
Speaker 2: is the same thing. The end of his book, of

923
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:18,960
Speaker 2: his six hundred sixteen hundred page book is about the

924
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 2: experience of the sacred. And I like that. This is

925
01:01:22,640 --> 01:01:28,800
Speaker 2: a psychiatrist, neuroscientist, philosopher. Yeah, you know, and so no,

926
01:01:29,320 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 2: you're right, I think coming full circle in some fashion.

927
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:39,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so so tell me this. Then I'm going

928
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,040
Speaker 1: to throw a last question with you.

929
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 3: So, I mean, I remember, particularly Zen Buddhism used to

930
01:01:46,960 --> 01:01:50,760
Speaker 3: really hurt my head in good ways, right in trying

931
01:01:50,840 --> 01:01:58,040
Speaker 3: to grasp and understand the concepts and the little sort

932
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:02,760
Speaker 3: of dip into Nietzsche really hurt my head as hell, right,

933
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:05,360
Speaker 3: And I think this stuff is supposed to you, But

934
01:02:06,000 --> 01:02:10,480
Speaker 3: for somebody who has dug so deeply into all of

935
01:02:10,520 --> 01:02:16,560
Speaker 3: this stuff, and is there one insight or concept that

936
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:23,440
Speaker 3: continues to challenge you personally after even decades of study

937
01:02:23,480 --> 01:02:25,320
Speaker 3: and practice.

938
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is the difficulty of putting these things into

939
01:02:30,680 --> 01:02:36,280
Speaker 2: everyday life, you know, into practical everyday life. It's like

940
01:02:37,120 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 2: studying Buddhism. You know, it's a long process. It's never done.

941
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:47,240
Speaker 2: You know, Buddha reached the point where you could say

942
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 2: there's nothing else for me to do here. Well, I

943
01:02:49,640 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 2: can't say that, you know, But that's okay. I don't

944
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:55,840
Speaker 2: mind that as long as I keep, so to speak,

945
01:02:55,920 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 2: keep the faith. Although it's the word I hesitate to use,

946
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 2: but it's the best thing I could possibly do, is

947
01:03:03,360 --> 01:03:06,040
Speaker 2: to just keep practicing these things. And I'm very happy

948
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 2: with that. I have my moments and periods of doubt,

949
01:03:11,240 --> 01:03:15,800
Speaker 2: no question about it. But I think if I didn't

950
01:03:15,800 --> 01:03:18,760
Speaker 2: have any doubt, I would I would be suspicious of myself,

951
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:22,000
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, don't ever trust a priest who

952
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 2: doesn't doubt you know, his priesthood. You know, they become

953
01:03:27,040 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 2: louder and meaner, but not more kindly or compassionate or

954
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:37,919
Speaker 2: more religious. But for me, it's it's it's a thing

955
01:03:37,960 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 2: that continues and I am what I can say a

956
01:03:41,880 --> 01:03:44,200
Speaker 2: good thing, a positive thing that I can say now

957
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 2: is when I look back at my whole life. I

958
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:51,680
Speaker 2: was not born a happy camper. You know, you were

959
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 2: born Irish in an Irish Catholic upbringing, being from Belgium.

960
01:03:57,400 --> 01:04:00,760
Speaker 2: I'm much more aware of that than most Americans might be,

961
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:06,720
Speaker 2: and I appreciate all that I had my other my

962
01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 2: own sort of form of not being a happy camper.

963
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:13,800
Speaker 2: And so I've been searching for my whole life. Essentially.

964
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:17,840
Speaker 2: I started off I mentioned in my teens, you know,

965
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 2: when I discovered psychoanalysis and stuff like that. But like job,

966
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:26,200
Speaker 2: I can now say, I am large. I'm seventy three,

967
01:04:26,520 --> 01:04:30,120
Speaker 2: I'm coming to the end of my life. I'm not

968
01:04:30,160 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 2: too worried about that, and I feel like pretty content

969
01:04:35,160 --> 01:04:39,240
Speaker 2: with the way, you know, like again that word content,

970
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:42,640
Speaker 2: which is not just sort of an everyday kind of experience,

971
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 2: you know, like you can be content after a full meal,

972
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:47,320
Speaker 2: and you say I got a full belly, I'm content.

973
01:04:47,400 --> 01:04:49,840
Speaker 2: Well that's nice, but that's not the content I mean.

974
01:04:49,960 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 2: And I know you know that. But it is all

975
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:56,840
Speaker 2: these things, you know, like the company that I have

976
01:04:57,040 --> 01:05:00,960
Speaker 2: kept of all those people, some of whom I've mentioned here,

977
01:05:01,480 --> 01:05:03,560
Speaker 2: has been a great company. You know. I'm not a

978
01:05:03,720 --> 01:05:08,560
Speaker 2: social butterfly. I you know, don't have massive networks of

979
01:05:08,640 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 2: friends and big family and stuff like that. But those

980
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:15,000
Speaker 2: are my people, so to speak, you know, all these

981
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:21,400
Speaker 2: all these dead people, you know. And so I can

982
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:28,200
Speaker 2: say that I'm content if I keep practicing the stuff

983
01:05:28,920 --> 01:05:32,200
Speaker 2: that I have learned, that I've learned to understand, that

984
01:05:32,280 --> 01:05:35,440
Speaker 2: I've learned to talk about to some degree, and that

985
01:05:35,520 --> 01:05:40,240
Speaker 2: I've written about so especially in the last in the

986
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 2: two little books that I mentioned, those are the other

987
01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 2: books are They do their own job. But it's more

988
01:05:46,880 --> 01:05:50,280
Speaker 2: like my first book was on Nietzsche and psychoanalysis. It's

989
01:05:50,280 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 2: a you know, a pretty decent academic book, you know,

990
01:05:52,400 --> 01:05:56,560
Speaker 2: as those things go. But it's I consider it some

991
01:05:56,600 --> 01:06:02,640
Speaker 2: sort of engineering work, like the engineer building the basement

992
01:06:02,800 --> 01:06:06,400
Speaker 2: of a building. You know, it's an engineering job, you know,

993
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:09,240
Speaker 2: scholarly engineering is what I thought of it, you know,

994
01:06:09,560 --> 01:06:13,200
Speaker 2: whereas the last stuff is really conversational, and I've had

995
01:06:13,240 --> 01:06:17,520
Speaker 2: some very positive reviews about the tone in which it

996
01:06:17,560 --> 01:06:21,200
Speaker 2: has written, Like people can't believe that I was able

997
01:06:21,240 --> 01:06:26,000
Speaker 2: to spell out these very difficult, sometimes complex, subtle issues

998
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 2: in everyday language, and people go, yeah, of course, I

999
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:34,919
Speaker 2: know that. You know that has given me a great

1000
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:35,560
Speaker 2: deal of pleasure.

1001
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:39,640
Speaker 3: Yeah that I think that content and I think that

1002
01:06:39,840 --> 01:06:44,520
Speaker 3: that's the same conclusion that I came to with my

1003
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:48,960
Speaker 3: sort of amateurist double into a different philosophies, is that

1004
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:52,760
Speaker 3: the goal of life is certainly not happiness, but more contentment.

1005
01:06:52,880 --> 01:06:55,640
Speaker 3: But I remember, I think I was in my early

1006
01:06:55,720 --> 01:06:59,120
Speaker 3: twenties reading a book called Zen in the Art of

1007
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:02,680
Speaker 3: Motorcycles inter you know that, you know, the one by

1008
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 3: Robert Persik, And there's a bit in there where he's

1009
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:09,680
Speaker 3: talking about us trying to get to the top of

1010
01:07:09,760 --> 01:07:12,880
Speaker 3: the mountain and always looking for the top, And there.

1011
01:07:12,800 --> 01:07:15,000
Speaker 1: Was a just a few words that.

1012
01:07:15,000 --> 01:07:19,200
Speaker 3: He wrote that has stuck with me forever. Sometimes it's

1013
01:07:19,240 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 3: better to travel than to get there.

1014
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:21,960
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1015
01:07:22,360 --> 01:07:27,120
Speaker 3: And and it's that whole thing of actually embracing life

1016
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 3: as it is, and and actually enjoying the journey rather

1017
01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:34,720
Speaker 3: than always you want to be somewhere, achieve something and

1018
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 3: and and that is your focus. And when I do this,

1019
01:07:37,240 --> 01:07:41,200
Speaker 3: I'll be happy. It's really just about slowing down and

1020
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:45,400
Speaker 3: enjoying the journey, the exploration of of all of this stuff,

1021
01:07:45,480 --> 01:07:49,200
Speaker 3: the shitty stuff, the good stuff, and and just more

1022
01:07:49,280 --> 01:07:50,160
Speaker 3: fatty right.

1023
01:07:50,520 --> 01:07:57,080
Speaker 2: Right, right right, absolutely, Yeah, it's keep going, yes, just.

1024
01:07:57,080 --> 01:08:00,680
Speaker 3: Keep going and and just and and and take it

1025
01:08:00,760 --> 01:08:03,480
Speaker 3: all as it is and do what needs to be done,

1026
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:04,800
Speaker 3: doctor Don Chappelle.

1027
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:07,160
Speaker 1: So where can people go you?

1028
01:08:07,200 --> 01:08:09,160
Speaker 3: So you talk you've written I think it was seven

1029
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:14,880
Speaker 3: books of different levels of complexity, but really I think

1030
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:19,200
Speaker 3: from somebody who has a very deep understanding of philosophy,

1031
01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:23,439
Speaker 3: and there's also a clinical psychologist, I would, without even

1032
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 3: having read your books, would certainly point people in that

1033
01:08:26,600 --> 01:08:30,559
Speaker 3: direction because I think that's more of a I would

1034
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:33,760
Speaker 3: describe you more of a procademic than an academic, right,

1035
01:08:34,560 --> 01:08:37,880
Speaker 3: a procademic of life. So tell us where people can

1036
01:08:38,000 --> 01:08:40,599
Speaker 3: go to access your books, and I know you've got

1037
01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:41,840
Speaker 3: some courses as well.

1038
01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:47,760
Speaker 2: The place to go to start is the website Meditative

1039
01:08:47,840 --> 01:08:51,800
Speaker 2: self Care dot com Meditative self Care dot com and

1040
01:08:51,840 --> 01:08:55,400
Speaker 2: the two books on the seven books are all identified

1041
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:58,360
Speaker 2: there and described in some detail. The two books I

1042
01:08:58,360 --> 01:09:03,719
Speaker 2: would recommend most is are number one is a book

1043
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:07,080
Speaker 2: named Meditative Self Care, and the second one, which is

1044
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:12,200
Speaker 2: my last book, which is a minimalist ethic for everyday life.

1045
01:09:12,400 --> 01:09:15,160
Speaker 2: Those two I think they sort of go together. They

1046
01:09:15,200 --> 01:09:17,800
Speaker 2: hang together. Yeah, all my books, all seven books, hang

1047
01:09:17,880 --> 01:09:22,720
Speaker 2: together in some fashion. But I think they're the most accessible.

1048
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:27,000
Speaker 2: They're short, they're easy to read, and people who are

1049
01:09:27,120 --> 01:09:32,200
Speaker 2: not used to reading maybe challenging ideas or philosophy or whatever,

1050
01:09:32,439 --> 01:09:35,280
Speaker 2: they find themselves perfectly at home in those little books,

1051
01:09:36,000 --> 01:09:39,880
Speaker 2: even people who normally don't like that kind of stuff.

1052
01:09:39,920 --> 01:09:42,599
Speaker 2: You know, I have a brother, and older brother who

1053
01:09:42,680 --> 01:09:45,240
Speaker 2: is totally different from me. He's very smart guy, he's

1054
01:09:45,320 --> 01:09:47,720
Speaker 2: got more in the mind of an engineer, and he's

1055
01:09:47,800 --> 01:09:50,120
Speaker 2: not at all interested in the things that interest me.

1056
01:09:50,640 --> 01:09:52,880
Speaker 2: But the two little books that I mentioned to you,

1057
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:56,559
Speaker 2: he thought they were. He was very impressed with them,

1058
01:09:57,080 --> 01:10:00,000
Speaker 2: And I consider that the best compliment that could possibly

1059
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:04,160
Speaker 2: get from someone who is naturally a critic of everything

1060
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:09,439
Speaker 2: that I you know. So, yeah, so those two books

1061
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:13,559
Speaker 2: and the website, you know, I will.

1062
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 3: I'll jump on the website myself and get them, and

1063
01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:18,200
Speaker 3: I'm actually going to get the one on on on

1064
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:22,240
Speaker 3: Nietzsche as well, because I think it's probably time that

1065
01:10:22,280 --> 01:10:23,840
Speaker 3: I went and revisited him.

1066
01:10:23,840 --> 01:10:29,920
Speaker 2: But that, yeah, I think that would be good.

1067
01:10:30,439 --> 01:10:33,720
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for everything that you do, and

1068
01:10:33,920 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 3: I trust that you will continue to enjoy traveling.