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Speaker 1: dot net slash join. Perfectionism is such a disease really
Speaker 1: in a way, you know, it's sad. It makes us
Speaker 1: frightened of our own awesomeness. Welcome to the one you feed.
Speaker 1: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 1: you are what you think, ring true. And yet for
Speaker 1: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Norman Fisher, a poet, author, Zen, Buddhist teacher
Speaker 1: and priest. He's a graduate of iowa's Writer's Workshop and
Speaker 1: has been publishing poetry since nineteen seventy nine. He's the
Speaker 1: author of seventeen books of poets, six books of pros
Speaker 1: on Zen and religion, as well as numerous articles and essays. Today,
Speaker 1: Eric and Norman discussed his book The World Could Be
Speaker 1: Otherwise Imagination and the Bodhi Sought for Path. Hi Norman,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, good to be here.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you on. We are going
Speaker 1: to discuss your book called The World Could Be Otherwise
Speaker 1: Imagination and the Bodhi Sotfa Path. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do with the parable and
Speaker 1: it goes like this. There's a grandfather who's talking with
Speaker 1: his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 1: inside of us that are always a battle. One's a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops
Speaker 1: and he thinks about it for a second, and he
Speaker 1: looks up at his grandfather says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do well, being a grandfather, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a very meaningful parable for me. This is human beings, right.
Speaker 1: We have these two wolves inside of us, But maybe
Speaker 1: it would be a good idea to not think of
Speaker 1: one as bad and one as good, but think of
Speaker 1: one as the one that brings us happiness and one
Speaker 1: is the one that brings us challenges and suffering. And
Speaker 1: maybe we need both those things to be a full
Speaker 1: human being. And we need to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get the wolf that brings us suffering and trouble to
Speaker 1: be in good communication with the other wolves so that
Speaker 1: together they kind of bring us a life that has
Speaker 1: all the colors of the rainbow in and not just
Speaker 1: the bright ones but also the dark ones. I think
Speaker 1: that's very well said and and an important point as
Speaker 1: we sort of think about this parable and where it's
Speaker 1: useful and where it's uses kind of end up falling short.
Speaker 1: So let's transition into the book. I'd like to ask
Speaker 1: you for the book again, is called The World Could
Speaker 1: Be Otherwise Imagination in the Bodhist for Path. I'd like
Speaker 1: to first start off by talking about the imagination part
Speaker 1: of this. So talk to me about what role imagination
Speaker 1: has in spiritual paths, because that's what this book is.
Speaker 1: It's about a spiritual path. You're a you're a zen teacher,
Speaker 1: So tell me what role imagination has well in this book,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to really redefine and expand what we usually
Speaker 1: mean by imagination. I think the average person, all of us,
Speaker 1: you know. Really the way that we've come to see
Speaker 1: this now, in this time of maximum scientific materialist philosophy,
Speaker 1: is we think that the material world, the world of society,
Speaker 1: the world of institutions, the world of stuff, is real,
Speaker 1: and the imagination is the world of our fantasies. You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's stuff we make up. It's like TV scripts
Speaker 1: and movie ease and stories and parables and ideas, and
Speaker 1: that stuff is imaginative and not real. It's not nearly
Speaker 1: as persuasive as institutions, the newspaper, the physical world. So
Speaker 1: when I think of imagination, I'm actually trying to change
Speaker 1: that dichotomy. And I'm actually trying to say, as many
Speaker 1: many philosophers, thinkers, poets, authors and religious people have said
Speaker 1: throughout the generations, that in fact this world are living in,
Speaker 1: we literally are imagining. It's actually the case, according to
Speaker 1: cognitive science, that we do have sense organs that do
Speaker 1: take in raw data from a world, but the actual
Speaker 1: world that we live in is a product of our
Speaker 1: imaginations as we put together that data into an imaginative framework.
Speaker 1: So to a great extent, you know, we are making
Speaker 1: up the world, imagining the world according to our conditioning.
Speaker 1: And what I'm arguing is that what we need in
Speaker 1: our time is an expansion of the imagination. We need
Speaker 1: to realize the extent to which we are making up
Speaker 1: our world, and we need to make it up based
Speaker 1: on a different set of more open, more compassionate, more loving,
Speaker 1: more expansive assumptions. And so for me, that's what the
Speaker 1: spiritual path is really about. To me, the spiritual path
Speaker 1: in all its forms, not just Zen Buddhism or Buddhism,
Speaker 1: but all spirituality for me is a path of imagination.
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's stories and and myths and feelings
Speaker 1: and practices that expand the heart, that expand our lives
Speaker 1: and make our lives that could be, you know, rather
Speaker 1: small and pathetic into something much more grand and much
Speaker 1: more expansive and much more loving. So for me, imagination
Speaker 1: is really the world and how we think of the
Speaker 1: world and how we live in it. There's so many
Speaker 1: good points in there that that we could maybe hit
Speaker 1: on real quick, but I think one of them is
Speaker 1: this idea that we think we're just sort of observing
Speaker 1: the world as it is out there, but that's really
Speaker 1: not true. We are observing the world through a certain
Speaker 1: set of senses that have certain abilities to take in
Speaker 1: certain things and others, and then, as you said, a
Speaker 1: pretty high dose of construction of that world in a
Speaker 1: way that our brains have learned to do. And so
Speaker 1: to the extent that we can sort of loosen our
Speaker 1: grasp on the world out there is exactly the way
Speaker 1: we think it looks, it helps. And then I think
Speaker 1: the second piece there that's so important, and we talked
Speaker 1: about this on the show from time to time. Is
Speaker 1: so much of what's happening in our heads are stories
Speaker 1: that we are making up. Why not if that's the case,
Speaker 1: construct useful ones, Yes, exactly. And the reason why this
Speaker 1: is as practice book, which includes meditation and all kinds
Speaker 1: of other practices as part of it, is that it's
Speaker 1: easy enough to decide to do that, right, I am
Speaker 1: now going to make up a set of new stories
Speaker 1: from my life and I'm going to therefore have a
Speaker 1: better life. That that's an easy thing to say, It's
Speaker 1: an easy thought to have, but it's not an easy
Speaker 1: thing to actually pull off. Because the stories that we
Speaker 1: tell ourselves are deeply ingrained in us right there, embedded
Speaker 1: in our psychologies, they're even almost in our bodies. So
Speaker 1: in order to have a different story, in a different
Speaker 1: view of our life and our of our world, we
Speaker 1: really need, you know, a real life change. We need
Speaker 1: to do spiritual practices, we need to do stuff on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, we need to change our way of
Speaker 1: life if that's ever going to be a reality. That's
Speaker 1: another really good point that it You're right, it isn't
Speaker 1: far easier to say, oh, I'm just going to change
Speaker 1: my stories, my view of the world, my attitude and
Speaker 1: actually doing that is is a whole another animal. Although
Speaker 1: I think the points that you're making are important. I
Speaker 1: think that when we start to actually more deeply understand
Speaker 1: that we are making it up, it does become easier
Speaker 1: because before that, before that, it's just true, right, And
Speaker 1: who's going to argue with truth? Once we can get
Speaker 1: that next step. So yeah, I love that idea. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna just read a little bit about what you say
Speaker 1: about imagination because I think it's it's really good you
Speaker 1: say imagination isn't an escape from reality. Imagination deepens and
Speaker 1: enriches reality, adding texture, depth, dimension, feeling, impossibility. The truth
Speaker 1: is all that is creative and ennobling in us ultimately
Speaker 1: sources in the imagination. Without imagination, reality is too flat,
Speaker 1: too matter of fact, lacking in color and fervor. To
Speaker 1: go beyond the possible to the impossible, we need to
Speaker 1: imagine it. And I just love that paragraph, particularly, the
Speaker 1: reality is too flat, too matter of fact, lacking in
Speaker 1: color and fervor describes the experience of depression for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it describes the experience of way too many people
Speaker 1: in our world. I mean, I think the world is
Speaker 1: really getting people down. This idea of the world that
Speaker 1: we have of is really difficult for people. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's why there is so much depression and
Speaker 1: addiction and all kinds of reduced function that we've got
Speaker 1: in our world, is because we have created for ourselves
Speaker 1: such a small and difficult world. And that's why I
Speaker 1: wrote the book. You know, I really wanted to say, look,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't live in that world. We really
Speaker 1: have to live in another world. And that's something that
Speaker 1: we don't need to depend on the government or somebody
Speaker 1: else to produce for us. We can produce that ourselves
Speaker 1: through our own endeavors. To be sure, it takes some doing.
Speaker 1: It's it's a big commitment, and and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a whole change in our way of life. But it
Speaker 1: is within our power to do that, especially when, as
Speaker 1: you say, we start with the with the insight that
Speaker 1: you know what, we are making this for ourselves. We
Speaker 1: do have the power to remake it. We can do that.
Speaker 1: So let's turn to the second part of the subtitle,
Speaker 1: which is the Bodhi sought for path. So plenty of
Speaker 1: our listeners are going to know what a bodhisattva is,
Speaker 1: but I imagine plenty don't. So let's start with what
Speaker 1: it What is a bodhisattva and what is the bodhisatva path. Well,
Speaker 1: let's see, Buddhism has a lot of forms, a lot
Speaker 1: of countries where it's been, It's undergone a lot of
Speaker 1: development over its long history. And there is one kind
Speaker 1: of Buddhism which is called Mahayana Buddhism. Mayana Buddhism is
Speaker 1: mostly the Buddhism of China, Japan, and more or less Tibet.
Speaker 1: It's in Vietnam. It's different from the Buddhism of Sri
Speaker 1: Lanka and Thailand, and therefore the Vipassana Buddhism that is
Speaker 1: so popular in America sources from Thailand and Sri Lanka
Speaker 1: and other countries in that area. So it's not Mahyana Buddhism.
Speaker 1: But Mahyana Buddhism is a very imaginative form of Buddhism.
Speaker 1: And in Mahayana buddhis him, the spiritual hero is more
Speaker 1: the Bodhisatta even than the Buddha. So the Bodhisatta is
Speaker 1: a Buddha, and training the Bodhisata is an energetic and
Speaker 1: enthusiastic spiritual practitioner who is willing to make incredible efforts
Speaker 1: over a long period of time, not only to achieve
Speaker 1: spiritual awakening, but specifically to achieve spiritual awakening for the
Speaker 1: benefit of others. That's the motivation and the point of
Speaker 1: spiritual awakening is to be able to help and express
Speaker 1: love for others. So compassion and love and regard for
Speaker 1: sentient beings is the chief characteristic of the Bodhisatta. And
Speaker 1: compassion and love lie at the heart of my honor
Speaker 1: Buddhist practice. So that's who Bodhisat is wonderful. And so
Speaker 1: what is the body sofa path? Well, the body sifa
Speaker 1: path is the course of activity that a Bodhi sofa
Speaker 1: commits herself too over the long haul. So she just
Speaker 1: rolls up her sleeves and she says, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do this path for the benefit of others, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to just keep on doing it year after year,
Speaker 1: decade after decade, lifetime after lifetime. In fact, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter to me how long I keep on doing this,
Speaker 1: because I don't really have a goal other than complete
Speaker 1: happiness and well being of infinite numbers of beings and
Speaker 1: so that's going to take a while. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go on and do this. And there are many ways
Speaker 1: of defining the body soata path, but I would say
Speaker 1: probably the dominant one is to define the path as
Speaker 1: the perfection of six different spiritual practices. And these are
Speaker 1: the chapters of the book, and I define and discuss
Speaker 1: these at length each one in the book. The first
Speaker 1: one is generosity or giving. The second one is ethical
Speaker 1: conduct or moral practice. The third one is a tolerance
Speaker 1: or patient forbearance. The fourth one is energy or joyful effort.
Speaker 1: The fifth one is meditation, and the sixth one is
Speaker 1: transcendent wisdom, which here specifically means the wisdom that enables
Speaker 1: a person to see with their own eyes, in their
Speaker 1: whole body, that there are no separate beings in this world.
Speaker 1: Even though it looks like that to us and we
Speaker 1: feel our loneness and we feel small maybe against the
Speaker 1: mass of humanity, in fact, there are no separate beings.
Speaker 1: There's only interconnection. There's only love. There's only spaciousness in
Speaker 1: which being is mixing and matching and flowing into and
Speaker 1: out of each other. And that being that's flowing is
Speaker 1: really pure love. And that's the only thing that in
Speaker 1: fact exists, and so you can imagine that the development
Speaker 1: of this kind of transcendent wisdom is a real vision,
Speaker 1: is a real way that we actually see everything every
Speaker 1: day and all day long. That takes a while, and
Speaker 1: it's something that we aspire to and that we study
Speaker 1: and that we get glimpses of, and that we try
Speaker 1: to develop more and more as much as possible in
Speaker 1: this lifetime. But it's very much aspirational, even though actually
Speaker 1: we can really feel it and it can transform our
Speaker 1: lives even in a short amount relatively short amount of time.
Speaker 1: But there's no end to the possibilities for developing this vision.
Speaker 1: So that's the sixth of the six body Satta practices
Speaker 1: and the other body suffice, you know, practicing all these simultaneously,
Speaker 1: focusing on one, focusing on another. But it defines oh
Speaker 1: way of life of a person who is who is generous,
Speaker 1: who was ethical, who has a great patience with whatever happens,
Speaker 1: negative or positive, who has a lot of energy to
Speaker 1: continue the path, who has some serenity and calmness and
Speaker 1: a stable mind, and who has this wonderful transcendent vision
Speaker 1: of a loving world. That's the path. Excellent that's a
Speaker 1: very good explanation. And I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: Bodhi sotva path, you know, to be all of those
Speaker 1: things we often describe them, or you describe, and they're
Speaker 1: called the paramedes, right, the six perfections, right, and to
Speaker 1: be perfected perfect at any of those we go, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I love in the bookcase you talk about the idea
Speaker 1: of ideals, right, and you say ideals are imaginative projections.
Speaker 1: We need them to propel us to better futures, to
Speaker 1: inspire us to be better people, but that they become
Speaker 1: problematic when we take them too literally. And I think
Speaker 1: that's where a lot of people, myself included, at many
Speaker 1: points get in trouble. We see this ideal of what
Speaker 1: a spiritual person is, a Bodhi sofa or the Buddha
Speaker 1: or Jesus or take your pick, right, the doll a llama,
Speaker 1: and we go, oh, my goodness, I'm nowhere. I'm nowhere
Speaker 1: near all that. I can't I can't live up to that.
Speaker 1: And so I love your idea of the ideals get
Speaker 1: us in trouble when we take them too literally. And
Speaker 1: that the thing about the Bodhi sofa ideal that's so great,
Speaker 1: is it's so over the top, you call it so
Speaker 1: absurdly imaginative that from the start were clear like there's
Speaker 1: no way we're going to get there. Right. One of
Speaker 1: the ideas that I use in the book is this
Speaker 1: idea of binocular vision. Say that on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you do need to think about there's no reason why
Speaker 1: you and I couldn't aspire to be perfect human beings.
Speaker 1: There's no reason why you and I it doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense because we're human beings, right, which is a sacred,
Speaker 1: wonderful thing to be being a human being? Is Is
Speaker 1: it awesome? It's immense. So there's no reason why you
Speaker 1: and I couldn't aspire to be as perfect a human
Speaker 1: being as Jesus or Buddha. And we should. We should
Speaker 1: ask that much of ourselves. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: We should really be doing that. That's one eye. So
Speaker 1: with one eye we should see our ultimate and extreme
Speaker 1: and wonderful human potential. And with the other eye we
Speaker 1: should be very honest and realistic about our actual capacities
Speaker 1: and conduct. Right now, So we see are many imperfections,
Speaker 1: and we see all the ways that we're failing in
Speaker 1: all the ways that we fall down and pick ourselves
Speaker 1: up over and over again. But since with the other
Speaker 1: eye we realize that in potential we are already Buddha,
Speaker 1: and we are are already Jesus, we don't mind our imperfection.
Speaker 1: In other words, we can with two eyes that you
Speaker 1: have depth. Right. That's the thing about binocular vision. Human
Speaker 1: beings of binocular vision, they have depth perception. So with
Speaker 1: binocular vision we can be perfectly content and happy to
Speaker 1: see our failings. And rather than being discouraged by them
Speaker 1: and measuring ourselves against an impossible ideal, we say, no,
Speaker 1: this impossible ideal is in the horizon. We're going in
Speaker 1: that direction. We're going that way, and and part of
Speaker 1: our path is these stumbles and falls, and and that's
Speaker 1: the way it is for us. And that's beautiful. That's
Speaker 1: really kind of mobile and wonderful that it's not a
Speaker 1: it's not a problem for us, right exactly. I think
Speaker 1: that's so good. I've been practicing Buddhism in various forms
Speaker 1: in different ways for a long time, but in the
Speaker 1: last nine months I've made a pretty strong commitment to Zen,
Speaker 1: and so I've been doing the Bodhi stot for vows,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're essentially in the short version, beans
Speaker 1: are numberless. I vowed to save them, and it's over
Speaker 1: the top. It's over of the top. And so it
Speaker 1: was really helpful for me to read this idea about
Speaker 1: ideals and that, you know, their imaginative goals, taking an
Speaker 1: imaginative world by imaginative beings, and you say, such vows
Speaker 1: point out a direction and inspire our feeling and action,
Speaker 1: but they don't pressure us. And that was really helpful
Speaker 1: for me because you know, I'm relatively new to sort
Speaker 1: of saying these vows continuously and really thinking about them,
Speaker 1: and and part of what comes up and me when
Speaker 1: I say them is like, well, for crying out loud,
Speaker 1: that's a tall order, you know, right right, Well, this
Speaker 1: is such an important point. This is such an important
Speaker 1: point because you know, I think it's so common for
Speaker 1: everyone to say I won't have a high aspiration because
Speaker 1: I know I can't live up to it. So let
Speaker 1: me have a much less inspiring sort of more than
Speaker 1: a low aspiration, because then maybe I could really achieve it.
Speaker 1: And that's a shame, you know, I think, because I
Speaker 1: think every human being really is awesome, especially under in
Speaker 1: the light of the sixth parameter, the sixth Body Sata
Speaker 1: practice of transcendent wisdom. You look at every human being
Speaker 1: and you see an awesome Buddha, even though inside that
Speaker 1: person might not feel it. The truth is, every human
Speaker 1: life is sacred and precious, and every human being is
Speaker 1: truly awesome. So I think every human being should recognize
Speaker 1: that part of themselves, and even though they know that
Speaker 1: they haven't realized their full potential, they should be aware
Speaker 1: that it's there every single day, with every thought and
Speaker 1: every feeling, however the debased it may seem. And yet,
Speaker 1: you know, perfectionism is such a disease really in a way.
Speaker 1: You know, it's sad. It makes us frightened of our
Speaker 1: own awesomeness, you know, because we then use it as
Speaker 1: a weapon against ourselves. Right, It's terrible. We use our
Speaker 1: own awesomeness as a weapon against ourselves, and we don't
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to become aware of it and celebrate it.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what the Body set the Path
Speaker 1: is all about, it saying, let's celebrate our the joy
Speaker 1: in the and the beauty of being human, and let's
Speaker 1: strive to be the best possible human being that could
Speaker 1: ever be imagined. And then let's have a good laugh
Speaker 1: really over how far we're not there, But let's keep going.
Speaker 1: Let's help each other to keep going on and on
Speaker 1: and on until someday, who knows when, how, or where
Speaker 1: or what we'll get there. I love all parts of that.
Speaker 1: I think the keeping a sense of humor about it
Speaker 1: is so important. I think the aspirational part of it,
Speaker 1: and the not being so hard on ourselves when we
Speaker 1: we don't live up to it. And I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I think that I know certainly times in life, as
Speaker 1: you mentioned that, I can see where I have dialed
Speaker 1: down what I thought was possible in order to shrink
Speaker 1: the gap between where I was and where I it
Speaker 1: I should be. So if I just dialed down where
Speaker 1: I think I could be or should be too much
Speaker 1: lower than that gap, isn't there so much? And I
Speaker 1: think in essence, sort of what we're saying is allow
Speaker 1: that gap to be there between where you are and
Speaker 1: what's totally possible, but allow it to be there in
Speaker 1: a way that we don't suffer over. Let's turn our
Speaker 1: attention to some of the six practices parameters or perfections
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call them. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: going to get through all of them, um, but let's
Speaker 1: turn our attention to a couple of them. And I
Speaker 1: think i'd like to start with joyful effort. That's a
Speaker 1: good one. I think the main thing that came up
Speaker 1: for me in reading that section, and I think would
Speaker 1: come up for listeners and hearing. Okay, the practice of
Speaker 1: joyful effort is what do I do when I don't
Speaker 1: feel joyful or I don't feel like I've got much
Speaker 1: energy to make effort? What is this practice calling for
Speaker 1: from me in those type of situations? Well, h I
Speaker 1: think it's in that chapter that I tell the famous
Speaker 1: Zen story of Master Ma. There's there's a Zen story
Speaker 1: called Master Ma is Sick and Master Ma was a
Speaker 1: was a a zen master who was fabled for his
Speaker 1: strength and vitality and energy and you know, ability to
Speaker 1: have lots of disciples and so on. But this story
Speaker 1: takes place when he's quite sick and bad, and probably
Speaker 1: even on his deathbed. He's definitely ill. And his attendant
Speaker 1: comes in and says, how are you today? And the
Speaker 1: answers sunface Buddha, moonface Buddha. You will learn that the
Speaker 1: sun face Buddha is a very bright and strong Buddha
Speaker 1: that lives for many many eons, and a moon face
Speaker 1: Buddha is a cool, quiet, soft Buddha that lives for
Speaker 1: a day and a night only. So what Master is
Speaker 1: saying is that whether I have you know, vitality and energy,
Speaker 1: or whether I am sick in my last illness, either way,
Speaker 1: I'm a Buddha. Either way, it's enlightened effort. So from
Speaker 1: the point of view of the practice of veria paramita
Speaker 1: or enthusiastic effort, we make the kind of effort that
Speaker 1: our body and spirit is able to make. So although
Speaker 1: the word enthusiastic effort sounds like it's, you know, vibrant
Speaker 1: and joyful, and what if you're not vibrant and joyful
Speaker 1: every minute when you're tired, the practice of uh enthusiastic
Speaker 1: effort is to take a rest. Enthusiastic effort makes you
Speaker 1: pay attention to the energy that you are given in
Speaker 1: this lifetime and to and to use it well. To
Speaker 1: know when it's time to rest, to know when you
Speaker 1: need exercise, to know when you need a break, to
Speaker 1: be able to take care of yourself appropriately, giving yourself
Speaker 1: as you can appropriate to the time and the place
Speaker 1: and the kind of energy that you have. So clearly,
Speaker 1: for example, a young person is going to have more
Speaker 1: energy than a really old person, right, there's no doubt
Speaker 1: about that. That's one of the characteristics of aging is
Speaker 1: that elderly people have less energy. You can't charge up
Speaker 1: a mountain when you're seventy five the way you could
Speaker 1: when you were twenty five. But the seventy five year
Speaker 1: old and the twenty five year old can practice equally
Speaker 1: joyful effort appropriate to their condition. So it's a matter
Speaker 1: of kind of attitude and spirit and also the wisdom
Speaker 1: to marshal your energies and now I know how to
Speaker 1: use them. When you know how to practice joyful effort,
Speaker 1: even if you literally are on your deathbed and you
Speaker 1: literally can't anymore speak, you can practice joyful effort to
Speaker 1: have a warm connection to everything around you, including those
Speaker 1: who are coming to visit you in these last hours.
Speaker 1: You can give them the great gift of your joyful
Speaker 1: effort even in that condition. So so it's a complicated
Speaker 1: and not complicated, but nuanced, I should say, a nuanced discussion.
Speaker 1: And it's something that you know, we study in ourselves,
Speaker 1: and we come to learn over time how to have
Speaker 1: joyful effort, how to practice that as a practice, as
Speaker 1: something that we've developed in our lifetime. Is there any
Speaker 1: practice you could give or suggest it is a way
Speaker 1: of trying to practice that. At the end of the
Speaker 1: chapter of the book, I give practices for each of
Speaker 1: the six perfections are paramitas or practices of Buddy Safa,
Speaker 1: and I give a number of practices for how to
Speaker 1: do joyful effort. Uh. For instance, all good practices for
Speaker 1: taking care of your body and mind, including your diet
Speaker 1: and your exercise and getting enough for rets. Those are
Speaker 1: practices for cultivating joyful effort. If you are given to
Speaker 1: negative states of mind, you would think I'm not supposed
Speaker 1: to have those negative states of mind. If I have
Speaker 1: those negative states of mind, it must be that I'm
Speaker 1: not practicing joyful effort. Not true. If you're conditioning in
Speaker 1: your lifetime is given to negative states of mind naturally
Speaker 1: arising within you. It's the studying of those negative states
Speaker 1: of mind, and it's the taking care of and the
Speaker 1: acknowledgement of those negative states of mind that constitute for
Speaker 1: you at that time the practice of joyful effort. So
Speaker 1: being aware of and embracing all states of mind is
Speaker 1: part of joyful effort. Wonderful. I think that's that's great.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to another of the parameters, and I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about patients. Yeah, that's another important one too,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yeah, it is. And there's something you said. Obviously,
Speaker 1: in an interview like this, we can cover one percent
Speaker 1: of all the great things that you say, so you know,
Speaker 1: knowing that we're gonna miss a lot of it. But
Speaker 1: you said a couple of things about patients. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: read what you said and just ask you to sort
Speaker 1: of elaborate, because I really loved both of them. Right.
Speaker 1: One of them was all I've said about the practice
Speaker 1: of patients amounts to something quite simple, just keep going.
Speaker 1: And then the other is that the full perfection of
Speaker 1: the practice of patients can be affected with just this
Speaker 1: one practice be of benefit to others. So let's let's
Speaker 1: explore both those, this idea of just keep going and
Speaker 1: be of benefit to others, and how those relate to patients. Yes,
Speaker 1: well as far as uh, just keep going again, don't
Speaker 1: misunderstand that to mean, you know, I'm always rushing, I'm
Speaker 1: always running, I'm always pressing. It doesn't mean that. It
Speaker 1: means never imagine that you're off the path, never imagine,
Speaker 1: even in your deepest discouragement, that it is not a
Speaker 1: part of the ongoing spiritual development, that you are committed to.
Speaker 1: Everything in your life that will arise arises for a reason,
Speaker 1: and everything in your life that will arise is a
Speaker 1: part of your path. That's what just keep going is
Speaker 1: the recognition that that's the case. So whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you turn toward it. That's what patients, the practice of
Speaker 1: patients and Buddhism. It literally means that when something arises,
Speaker 1: instead of trying to run away or think about something else,
Speaker 1: or pick up some sort of a big stick and
Speaker 1: try to push it away or get rid of it
Speaker 1: or make it transform or disappear, you simply turn toward this.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that's arising. You turned toward it, You
Speaker 1: take a breath, you embrace it, you feel some gratitude
Speaker 1: for it, and you just keep going with the feeling.
Speaker 1: So you're not afraid of it. You're not denying it,
Speaker 1: pretending it's not there. You're not saying, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I have to fix this immediately, I can't bear it. No,
Speaker 1: you're facing it, you're embracing it, you're breathing into it,
Speaker 1: you're going forward with it. That's what just keep going
Speaker 1: means in the context of the practice of patient for parents.
Speaker 1: I love that idea of I was talking with the
Speaker 1: coaching client about this today, that so many of the
Speaker 1: things that we would look at as mistakes or failures
Speaker 1: or problems, actually not only are they learning experiences, they
Speaker 1: actually are the path itself. They are not only on it,
Speaker 1: they are it. Actually, that's exactly what what I'm saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the other one about always think of others in
Speaker 1: a way. That's a simple practice, so literally taking it literally,
Speaker 1: you could say, when I feel discouraged, when I feel
Speaker 1: a lack of inspiration or energy for my spiritual path,
Speaker 1: I'm going to identify that in myself and I will
Speaker 1: think of others. So I could even have a practice.
Speaker 1: Let's say they're a handful of people. Let's say that
Speaker 1: I have a high regard for these people. I love
Speaker 1: these people so much, you know, my family members or
Speaker 1: whoever it is. I love them so much, and they're
Speaker 1: so encouraging to me, and I really want to be
Speaker 1: alive for these people. So now that I'm feeling discouraged,
Speaker 1: I will intentionally speak of those people and think of
Speaker 1: some way that I can be a benefit to them.
Speaker 1: So maybe I should call my cousin or my friend,
Speaker 1: or maybe I noticed that there they they're sick. I'm aware.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just see how they're doing, or maybe I'll
Speaker 1: send them an email or a card, or maybe I'll
Speaker 1: just sit here for a moment and remember there are
Speaker 1: positive qualities. They're so inspiring to me. In other words,
Speaker 1: as a as an intentional practice, you you think of others,
Speaker 1: and you think of others in a positive light, and
Speaker 1: you think of ways that you could be a benefit
Speaker 1: to them. And that's a way of turning your negativity around,
Speaker 1: not denying it or trying to escape from it, but
Speaker 1: just taking that same energy and turning it around. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love I love that that just that phrase be
Speaker 1: of benefit to others. And in the book, it's part
Speaker 1: of a paragraph where it's like, if this happens, be
Speaker 1: benefit to others, if that happens to be a but
Speaker 1: I love it. It reminds me a little bit of
Speaker 1: my twelve step practice back when I was more involved
Speaker 1: in that, and you know, it was like when all
Speaker 1: else fails helping other alcoholic It's an analogy about the
Speaker 1: craziness of favoring one's own suffering over the suffering of others.
Speaker 1: Chanty Drive, in his text called Guide to the Body
Speaker 1: Stuffs his way of Life, presents often the most hilarious
Speaker 1: and counterintuitive arguments, which when you read them, make perfect sense.
Speaker 1: And it strikes you as amazing that, you know, the
Speaker 1: way that we look usually look at things and seems
Speaker 1: so that seems so reasonable, is actually unreasonable. And this
Speaker 1: is a case in point. He says, to most people,
Speaker 1: it's perfectly obvious that you're concerned about your own suffering
Speaker 1: more than you're concerned about the suffering of others, because
Speaker 1: it's you're suffering, you know, while other people suffer, and yes,
Speaker 1: you care about them, But when you suffer, then it's
Speaker 1: really important and you you're suffering, really draws your attention
Speaker 1: and takes up your whole effort. And this seems to
Speaker 1: be perfectly reasonable to us, right. I mean, if I'm
Speaker 1: if I'm sick, I drop everything I'm doing and I
Speaker 1: tend to myself and I forget about everybody else because
Speaker 1: I'm sick. But Chanty Davis says that actually This is
Speaker 1: totally irrational. It's totally irrational to favor yourself over others,
Speaker 1: because think about it, you have suffering. Let's put your
Speaker 1: suffering in a pile over here standing next to you,
Speaker 1: and other people have suffering. So let's put in a
Speaker 1: pile the suffering of every other human being on the
Speaker 1: planet Earth. And let's for good measures, throwing the suffering
Speaker 1: of every animal and insect and anybody else who might
Speaker 1: have suffering. Let's put that in a pile. Now, which
Speaker 1: pile of suffering is larger, your own pathetic, little pile
Speaker 1: of suffering or this gigantic, overwhelming pile of suffering on
Speaker 1: the other side. So why would you be so concerned
Speaker 1: about this little pile of suffering when the other pile
Speaker 1: of suffering requires so much more regard and so much
Speaker 1: more attention. Especially, he says, the truth is that the
Speaker 1: more you pay attention to your own little pile of suffering,
Speaker 1: the more miserable you are, and the more you pay
Speaker 1: attention to the suffering of others, the happier you are.
Speaker 1: So why in the world do we all think it
Speaker 1: makes sense for us to be so obsessed with our
Speaker 1: own suffering? Which that obsession is only bringing us more
Speaker 1: and more misery, and yet we think it makes sense
Speaker 1: for us to do that. That's his argument, and and
Speaker 1: it really is to me quite wonderful and very funny
Speaker 1: and completely true. Another idea I've heard in strains this
Speaker 1: idea of sympathetic joy, like if you can feel joy, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and boy, there's a whole lot more of it
Speaker 1: out there in the world than there isn't necessarily in
Speaker 1: our own lives, and can we partake in that? I
Speaker 1: just think it's a great argument. It makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Yeah. I was talking to a friend the
Speaker 1: other day who's elderly, says, Oh, when I go to
Speaker 1: the park and I see all the young people running
Speaker 1: by with their young bodies, I feel so envious. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, why why might feel envious? I mean,
Speaker 1: in the moment when you're seeing someone running by and
Speaker 1: that person's young, healthy body is occupying your consciousness, Well,
Speaker 1: in that moment, you know that is you. Why don't
Speaker 1: you take delight in that? Why don't you look around
Speaker 1: on the streets for all the people that are happy
Speaker 1: and take that happiness for your own. Why don't you
Speaker 1: extend your happiness all around you instead of you know,
Speaker 1: bemoaning the problems that you might be having with your
Speaker 1: aging body. That you have those problems too, And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that you should deny them or ignore them,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, why should you limit yourself to them
Speaker 1: and say that that's you and the rest of the
Speaker 1: world isn't you. Yeah, I love that idea. Another one
Speaker 1: of those things. It's probably a little bit easier to
Speaker 1: say than do, but a practice that's worth doing. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's something you cultivate. You know, you really you do,
Speaker 1: you work at it, make an effort to do it
Speaker 1: over and over again. And as I think I say
Speaker 1: in the book, people think of meditation practice, you know,
Speaker 1: the practice of silence, sitting, and breathing that people know
Speaker 1: about so much now, people think of that practice as
Speaker 1: being a standalone practice that has a benefit. What is
Speaker 1: seldom mentioned is the fact that if you have a
Speaker 1: meditation practice that's a regular practice for you and part
Speaker 1: of your life's routine, it makes the myriad other practices
Speaker 1: like this one much more possible for you because you
Speaker 1: have a kind of pliability of mind and purchase on
Speaker 1: your own mind that gives you the ability to do
Speaker 1: many many other practices. So that why meditation practice is
Speaker 1: so valuable not only for its own sake, but for
Speaker 1: the capacity it gives you to do so many other practices.
Speaker 1: I agree, And I think that's an important piece to
Speaker 1: add on though, because I think meditation is where the
Speaker 1: spiritual practice begin and ends for a lot of people. Right.
Speaker 1: And while meditation is I agree and very important, practice
Speaker 1: has been very important in my life, and I do
Speaker 1: agree it sort of trickles out into all other areas.
Speaker 1: It's you know, the part that I've been particularly interested
Speaker 1: in over the last six months is how do I
Speaker 1: infuse some of the ideas I get in meditation or
Speaker 1: reading or different places and infuse them into the other
Speaker 1: twenty some hours of my day, you know, really weave
Speaker 1: those things in and and so those are all spiritual
Speaker 1: practices too. Yes, that's right. In a way, all the
Speaker 1: wonderful scientific work that's been done to show the virtues
Speaker 1: of meditation for psychological and physical culture gives the false
Speaker 1: impression that meditation is like a medication, you know, take
Speaker 1: take one of these and then you'll feel better. Um,
Speaker 1: when in fact, meditation is can really be seen and
Speaker 1: maybe more profitably seen as a lynch pin in a
Speaker 1: whole culture, a whole way of living, a whole way
Speaker 1: of looking at life, a whole way of being in
Speaker 1: your life, all of which transforms your life. And the
Speaker 1: and the meditation is only on the foundation. We have
Speaker 1: to build a house too. I think that was the
Speaker 1: place I was going to go to kind of wrap
Speaker 1: us up as we near the end. Here is that
Speaker 1: in the Buddhist path, there's an idea of you talk
Speaker 1: about the idea of a tripod that has three legs,
Speaker 1: and those three legs are ethical, conduct, meditation, and understanding,
Speaker 1: and so that this path really has all three of those,
Speaker 1: and like any tripod, right that there's got to be
Speaker 1: some degree of equalness between those three, or you've got
Speaker 1: a pretty crappy tripod, right, exactly right, So we balance
Speaker 1: the three, that's right. So at the conduct, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's fairly straightforward. That's also one of the
Speaker 1: practices and parameters that we talk about. And then the
Speaker 1: other one is understanding, which is one that you talk
Speaker 1: about also. And I'm not even in the two or
Speaker 1: three minutes we have left going to try and wait
Speaker 1: into understanding, because it goes, it goes pretty deep. But
Speaker 1: the idea of not self about emptiness. You know, I
Speaker 1: think your book does a great job of really sort
Speaker 1: of going into some of those concepts of emptiness. Um,
Speaker 1: you and I are going to wrap up here because
Speaker 1: we are out of time, but we're gonna do a
Speaker 1: brief conversation in the post show a little bit more
Speaker 1: about meditation. I'd like to I'd like to explore an
Speaker 1: idea that formal meditation is not just a tool, but
Speaker 1: it's actually a devotional practice. Do Dogent says that, And
Speaker 1: I'd like to explore that a little bit more. So
Speaker 1: you and I'll do that in the post show conversation. Listeners,
Speaker 1: you can get access to that and lots of other
Speaker 1: extras as well as the joy of supporting the show
Speaker 1: by becoming a member. You can go to one you
Speaker 1: Feed dot net slash support. Do that. Norman, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to come on the show.
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed talking with you. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: It's a real pleasure of thanks. If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation
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