Speaker 1: Admittedly, there's a significant part of me that's still of
Speaker 1: four or five year old little boy, which isn't uncommon
Speaker 1: for men. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Audio Shanty,
Speaker 1: and this is part two, So for those of you
Speaker 1: who heard last week's episode, this is the second half
Speaker 1: of the interview. He's an American born spiritual teacher devoted
Speaker 1: to serving the awakening of all beings, and his teachings
Speaker 1: are an open invitation to stop, inquire and recognize what
Speaker 1: is true in liberating at the core of all existence.
Speaker 1: Audio Shanty also runs the Omega Retreat, which Eric has
Speaker 1: taken part in frequently. We are back for part two
Speaker 1: of this two part series, so thank you. I'm going
Speaker 1: to change gears a little bit for a second before
Speaker 1: we go into how sometimes the seeking and the spiritual
Speaker 1: practice that's focused on results stands in the way of
Speaker 1: us finding what we're seeking. But I first have to
Speaker 1: start with in a recent conversation I heard you you
Speaker 1: described that part of your gratitude practice is that you
Speaker 1: make up silly songs that you sing to your wife.
Speaker 1: And so I'm wondering whether we're any chance of us
Speaker 1: getting a silly song. I know listeners everywhere like I
Speaker 1: want to hear one of these songs. You could probably
Speaker 1: release a record of them, is all I'm saying. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: a record that on one person is gonna listen to.
Speaker 1: I'm the reason I'm closing about eyes now. People can't
Speaker 1: see that, but I'm trying to rack my brain because
Speaker 1: it because they're just totally spontaneous for the most part,
Speaker 1: um I can't remember anything at the moment, but I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're really what they are eric Is. They're just
Speaker 1: they're like little moments where I'm just expressing gratitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like just how wonderful I think muth is and how
Speaker 1: mysterious because I've spent But we've been married twenty three
Speaker 1: years now, twenty three and a half years now, and
Speaker 1: I would say over those twenty three years, twenty three
Speaker 1: and a half years, our relationship has become more of
Speaker 1: a mystery to me rather than less. It's just more
Speaker 1: of a mystery the the depth of that connection and
Speaker 1: what that is and what's that based on. And because
Speaker 1: I had never I don't mean to blow it up
Speaker 1: into something more or less than it is, but I've
Speaker 1: never really seen seen it before. I'd never heard about it,
Speaker 1: I never read about it, still haven't to this day.
Speaker 1: I'm sure other people experience. But just there's just the
Speaker 1: way of a depth of connection that's that's just super
Speaker 1: super profound and more mysterious now to me after twenty
Speaker 1: three years than ever. And I grew up with my
Speaker 1: mom singing songs. She used to wake me up every
Speaker 1: morning singing songs to meum, and so I think I
Speaker 1: just sort of and they were often goofy and silly
Speaker 1: and fun and you know, and I think I just
Speaker 1: sort of picked that up. And you know, it's just
Speaker 1: sort of a way of being of expressing happiness and gratitude.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've often told that. Sometimes I'll ask her,
Speaker 1: I say, this must just be insufferable. I mean, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I can make up twenty songs in a day.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, really literally like or more, and
Speaker 1: they're just little, short, little things. But I think kind
Speaker 1: if I was on the receiving end of this, I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be cute for a while. But good lord,
Speaker 1: she just keeps assuring me that it's okay. So I
Speaker 1: kept years of it. You know when I read when
Speaker 1: I heard that, it just sort of made I just
Speaker 1: I smiled for a couple of hours about that. It's
Speaker 1: just such a such a genuine, just sort of fun.
Speaker 1: It's a way of playing. Yes, admittedly, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a significant part of me that's still four or five
Speaker 1: year a little way, which isn't uncommon for men. Women
Speaker 1: know that, you know, there's part there's a part of
Speaker 1: us that sort of doesn't grow up. But and sometimes
Speaker 1: that's not so good. But I think there's a part
Speaker 1: of it that can be just a sort of innocence,
Speaker 1: and it does feel I do when I'm singing those songs,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like I'm five years old. It
Speaker 1: comes from that same place. It's play and it's fun
Speaker 1: and and yet it's also serious because in the sense
Speaker 1: that they're all ways of saying I love you, and
Speaker 1: I just don't think that we can express that too
Speaker 1: often to one another, you know. You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think that playfulness is something that I have really
Speaker 1: in the last I think I had it a lot
Speaker 1: when I was younger, and then it kind of went away,
Speaker 1: and I've really over the last few years really started
Speaker 1: to think about, like how do I do how do
Speaker 1: I do that? How do I play and have fun
Speaker 1: that that you know, that isn't something that's serious and
Speaker 1: it's it's been I think it's a big part of
Speaker 1: for me, has been something I'm I'm continuing to try
Speaker 1: and work with and and you know, to lighten up.
Speaker 1: It's nice that you can start to rediscover that a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know. I think so much of it
Speaker 1: is just a a willingness for us human beings to
Speaker 1: just sort of be silly, silly and happy and just
Speaker 1: like let that, like kids do right. They just let
Speaker 1: it out and they're not that concerned about how someone's
Speaker 1: gonna see, what they're going to think about it, and
Speaker 1: how it's going to be received and all that and um.
Speaker 1: But you know, it seems to me that, like I said,
Speaker 1: people generally like you know, when you when you express
Speaker 1: appreciation or gratitude or love or or just the fact
Speaker 1: that you're having a wonderful time. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Um yeah, but I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it just comes from that sense of just a willingness
Speaker 1: to be to be silly and to be seen as silly.
Speaker 1: It was sort of big when my son was little
Speaker 1: Veggie Tales. Tales, they they've got a segment called Silly
Speaker 1: Songs with Larry Who's the Cucumber. If you ever want
Speaker 1: to have just a few minutes of silly fun, I
Speaker 1: would look up the Hairbrush song. Yeah, it's He's hister.
Speaker 1: It's just they are silly songs. They are so fun.
Speaker 1: I'll put them on occasionally. It's just complete lighthearted silliness.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we need I think we really need
Speaker 1: that also now, like we really we always have, but
Speaker 1: I think we really need that because you know, our
Speaker 1: world is just so increasingly serious and for good reason, Like,
Speaker 1: I get it, we're dealing with some serious, serious challenges. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know we can if we lose touch with
Speaker 1: our innocence. Man, all of our seriousness in the world
Speaker 1: isn't going to serve us, save us from the from
Speaker 1: the wisdom we lose when we lose Actually, with that,
Speaker 1: you have that innocence. And we wrapped up part one
Speaker 1: by saying we were going to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about this sense of how our spiritual striving can get
Speaker 1: in the way. And you talk a lot about meditation,
Speaker 1: and you you teach meditation in a different way than
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of people do. And um,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna read something you wrote. You say, there's
Speaker 1: an unspoken, sometimes unacknowledged agenda that you carry into meditation,
Speaker 1: whether that be to get rid of certain feelings or
Speaker 1: to achieve other feelings, or to awaken right. And if
Speaker 1: you're not careful, that agenda will become your meditation. Meditation
Speaker 1: is the relinquishing of agenda. Yeah, it's nice and easy
Speaker 1: and simple to write that down. Yeah, to read it,
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, I'll I'll sit down and release agenda.
Speaker 1: And it's not usually quite that simple. It can be simple, um,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of it is comes back
Speaker 1: to like preconceived ideas of what a spiritual practice is.
Speaker 1: And I mean I know this because I did everything
Speaker 1: I teach people not to do. I have a PhD
Speaker 1: In seeking. I drove myself literally half crazy, seeking and
Speaker 1: striving and and I even having a respect for that
Speaker 1: because sometimes like that's all we can do, no matter
Speaker 1: what somebody says, As my teacher says, sometimes you just
Speaker 1: have your dance to dance, and you've got to dance
Speaker 1: it all the way out, um, which was her way
Speaker 1: of saying authenticity at the end of the day, rules
Speaker 1: like you've gotta be you gotta be authentic. So sometimes
Speaker 1: you're just seeking and you're wanting, and you're struggling and
Speaker 1: you're striving, and you hear that might not be the
Speaker 1: best way to go about it. But sometimes man, that
Speaker 1: just might be what you need to do. You just
Speaker 1: might need to burn that out of your system, Like
Speaker 1: that's what I did. I don't teach it because mostly
Speaker 1: it burns people out rather than burns it burns the
Speaker 1: the trait out of their system. Um. But to simplify
Speaker 1: in terms of spiritual depth, because there's a million reasons
Speaker 1: that people can meditate, especially in terms of awakening or
Speaker 1: enlightenment or something. I think meditation, for instance, is a
Speaker 1: way of engaging with the mystery of being, the mystery
Speaker 1: of being, Like, you sit down and before we even
Speaker 1: think about how do I do this? What am I
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing? Whereas my mind supposed to be
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, like the fur the moment
Speaker 1: that you sit down and you realize, like, I don't
Speaker 1: even know who I am that's sitting here all this
Speaker 1: at that moment, I can remember the moment I had
Speaker 1: that realization, right, I just I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: who's seeking. I don't know who's striving. I don't know
Speaker 1: who wants enlightenment. I don't know why I want it.
Speaker 1: I don't know the guy that's sitting on this darn
Speaker 1: cushion that's pushing so hard to make something happen. I
Speaker 1: don't even know what that is. And for some stroke
Speaker 1: of luck or fate or something that became hit me
Speaker 1: as a curiosity like, wow, I'm a mystery unto myself,
Speaker 1: and I can remember the first time I really realize that,
Speaker 1: and the first time I was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: who I am, and that became more interesting than trying
Speaker 1: to find out who I am. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: what's it like not to know? What is it really
Speaker 1: like right now not to know? I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to struggle to try to know, But what's it
Speaker 1: like to not know and to just sort of it's
Speaker 1: the first time I kind of just let myself sort
Speaker 1: of ease back into that felt sense of the mystery
Speaker 1: of being and not try to solve it or change
Speaker 1: it or but just explore it, Like, what is that like?
Speaker 1: What is my perience of being when I don't have
Speaker 1: any idea who and what I am? And I that's
Speaker 1: I didn't have teachings of who are you? And all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff like that wasn't part of the
Speaker 1: spiritual culture that I So I came to all that
Speaker 1: kind of by myself. Um. But so this is all
Speaker 1: a sort of a long way of saying I think
Speaker 1: spiritual practice can also be entered into as a way
Speaker 1: of of experientially connecting and exploring the mystery of being.
Speaker 1: And we start with the mystery of being right through
Speaker 1: the doorway of I don't know, I don't know who
Speaker 1: I am. I don't know what God is. I don't
Speaker 1: know what a white lightenment is, I don't know what
Speaker 1: awakening is. I don't know what life is. I don't
Speaker 1: know any of this stuff really, And can I just stop,
Speaker 1: like right in the middle of that. And if we
Speaker 1: can stop in the middle of that, just for a moment,
Speaker 1: we realize it's not so bad. Actually it's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: like and it doesn't mean we want to stay in
Speaker 1: a state of ignorance forever, but just the mystery of
Speaker 1: being is pretty amazing itself. Just like man, that is wild,
Speaker 1: but we're taught we just have to immediately solve it.
Speaker 1: You know. It goes into that either or thinking either
Speaker 1: I'm confused or I'm clear, I'm awake or I'm asleep,
Speaker 1: or I'm this or I'm that, and there's this. But
Speaker 1: our life has lived in the middle ground those those
Speaker 1: two polar opposites, those are just sort of conceptual. The
Speaker 1: rest is where it's at. And I think spirituality is
Speaker 1: an experiential encounter with the unknown, and yes that within
Speaker 1: that there is an innate draw to come to a
Speaker 1: deeper state of clarity or awakening or whatever we want
Speaker 1: to call that. But we actually come to that most
Speaker 1: efficiently by just diving into the mystery of being rather
Speaker 1: than trying to solve it. It's kind of like meditation.
Speaker 1: I remember I did a meditation with a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and I said, so, we're gonna sit down and just
Speaker 1: imagine that you had no idea of what meditation was,
Speaker 1: none at all, and you're gonna sit here and we're
Speaker 1: all going to meditate. But you don't know what meditation is,
Speaker 1: and you don't know how to go about it, and
Speaker 1: you don't know how to do it. And everyone just
Speaker 1: looked at me, like, you've got to be kidding, Just
Speaker 1: try it, And so we'd sit down and be quiet,
Speaker 1: and I said, so, imagine you don't even know what
Speaker 1: it is to meditate, and therefore you don't know how
Speaker 1: to go about doing it. You don't know the first
Speaker 1: thing about it. Just imagine that. But imagine you were
Speaker 1: to enter into this that simply. And I said, just
Speaker 1: sit with that for a moment, and immediately you can
Speaker 1: feel in the whole room what's happening. In the whole
Speaker 1: room is meditation is happening. All of a sudden, everything
Speaker 1: goes quiet because nobody knows what they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: doing what meditation is supposed to be. What the right
Speaker 1: state they're trying to achieve is how they're going about that.
Speaker 1: We suspended all that and then so then the mind
Speaker 1: is in a state of openness and receptivity. It's not
Speaker 1: asserting or denying anything. And that's actually meditation. You know,
Speaker 1: because I grew up dyslexic. It's sort of a dyslexic
Speaker 1: upside down backwards way of coming to meditation, do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? And and it's it's amazing that
Speaker 1: It's not that I would suggest people do that all
Speaker 1: the time, but who knows, maybe it would be a
Speaker 1: good idea of it. But it's just sort of a
Speaker 1: it was sort of a way of trying to show
Speaker 1: people that meditation is when we enter into the mystery
Speaker 1: of being and what does that mean? Like here, okay,
Speaker 1: here's what it means. Here's how we do it. The
Speaker 1: mystery means you don't know how to do it and
Speaker 1: you don't know what it is. Now just stop with that.
Speaker 1: And then in retrospect then it's like, did you notice
Speaker 1: that your mind is really quiet? Yeah? Did you notice
Speaker 1: how stable and grounded and common? Yeah, that's meditation, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do it again, That's the
Speaker 1: whole point, right, you know when I have followed you know,
Speaker 1: you're you've got the book True Meditation, and I mean
Speaker 1: you basically talk about meditation is about listening and letting
Speaker 1: go of agenda and just being. And what I found
Speaker 1: is sometimes that is remarkably profound. Sometimes it is and
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like, how is this any different than what
Speaker 1: happens all day long in my brain? Right? I just
Speaker 1: sit there and I'm like, just just feels like what
Speaker 1: it feels like to be in the world, like do
Speaker 1: do do do? Do? Do do do do so so
Speaker 1: on a on a slightly more practical level. Right, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit gonna sit down, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: basically allow everything to be exactly the way it is.
Speaker 1: And the way it is is runaway train. And I
Speaker 1: know that you know and and and you know I've
Speaker 1: got all these quotes here from you that I pulled
Speaker 1: from the book, and this idea of like, well, if
Speaker 1: you don't think thoughts are a problem, they're not a problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah right. So that but that thinking runs pretty deep,
Speaker 1: It runs very deep, especially in spiritual yeah right, And
Speaker 1: so what would you recommend for Okay, sometimes I sit
Speaker 1: down and I experience and I try and do nothing right,
Speaker 1: which is essentially at a to strip it down is
Speaker 1: sort of what we're talking about. Anytime you actually achieve
Speaker 1: totally doing nothing, you're in the deepest state of meditation possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when I've and I have had some mind blowing
Speaker 1: experiences when I somehow managed to a lot, get to
Speaker 1: a point where I just let completely go and boom. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so the profoundness is is personally you know, has
Speaker 1: been deeply and transformative for me. Um, I get where
Speaker 1: you're going there. So so I'm gonna go and retreat. Right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna go and retreat, and I'm gonna sit there
Speaker 1: for six hours a day or so, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you some specific guidance about meditation beyond what
Speaker 1: I've given so far, because basically what we've been doing
Speaker 1: here is a sort of I think of it as
Speaker 1: setting the foundation of meditation. This isn't all of it, right,
Speaker 1: If it was just like you don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: you don't know how to do it, you don't know
Speaker 1: why you're doing Okay, kid, go at it. Have a
Speaker 1: good time. Yeah, most people are going to spin their
Speaker 1: wheels and get nowhere and think about yesterday's breakfast and whatever.
Speaker 1: So so far what we've done is sort of I'm
Speaker 1: trying to sort of set sort of a good attitude
Speaker 1: to to start with meditation, right, it's sort of an
Speaker 1: orientation and feeling cognitive orientation. Okay, So once you get
Speaker 1: that background, then you get down to the nitty gritty like, okay,
Speaker 1: but that's great, but maybe I need a little more
Speaker 1: help than that. So sometimes, like you said, that can
Speaker 1: be just that can be mind blowingly revelatory. And some
Speaker 1: days you're just endlessly thinking about silly and stupid things, right,
Speaker 1: not even and not the fun kind, right, not the
Speaker 1: fun kind. Yeah, it's not not not silly songs with
Speaker 1: Larry or audio. Maybe maybe maybe even some really painful things, right,
Speaker 1: really really painful things. So okay, so then this is
Speaker 1: kind of we're embraced. I think meditation is a sort
Speaker 1: of ultimately saying we're embracing a paradox. And that's not
Speaker 1: easy for a human being to do, to really embrace
Speaker 1: a sort of paradox. As. Yeah, the foundation is letting
Speaker 1: it everything be as it is trying not to control things,
Speaker 1: trying to let go all those things that kind of
Speaker 1: egos kind of can't do. They try, it's a sere
Speaker 1: that that they find it really hard to do. So
Speaker 1: then okay, then you can introduce a little bit of
Speaker 1: technique to start to give some orientation on top of
Speaker 1: that foundation. The reason I emphasize the foundation is because
Speaker 1: often it's like upside down, it's all technique, all trying
Speaker 1: to do it right, all trying to you know, as
Speaker 1: if it was some sort of mathematical equation, you're so
Speaker 1: SuperFect or something. But but then we kind of come
Speaker 1: into something more that that's more balanced, and then I'll
Speaker 1: go like, Okay, how do I do this? Though, like
Speaker 1: you said, some days it works for me, and some
Speaker 1: days it's just I'm just in a sort of state
Speaker 1: of mental or maybe even emotional chaos. Okay, Well, start
Speaker 1: by listening to the quiet spaces inside. There's noise. Okay,
Speaker 1: let the noise be the noise, leave it alone. In
Speaker 1: other words, stop trying to control the noise. That's kind
Speaker 1: of revolutionary. Okay, I've stopped trying to control my mind,
Speaker 1: but it's still all over the place. Okay, so we've
Speaker 1: just allowed to laid the foundation to whatever sense possible.
Speaker 1: Let go of trying to control your mind. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: but there's and then there's another step. Okay. Now, see
Speaker 1: if when you're not trying to control your mind, then
Speaker 1: you can start to hear the quiet spaces inside that
Speaker 1: your mind is actually happening. Every thought is happening within
Speaker 1: a space of quietness. If you're focused on trying to
Speaker 1: get your mind to stop, you'll never notice that your
Speaker 1: mind is a rising in quietness. So start to notice
Speaker 1: the quietness. Okay, then someone might raise their hand. Well,
Speaker 1: that sounds really good on you, but I can't really
Speaker 1: do that. I keep getting taken away like every half
Speaker 1: second by my mind. Okay, then we'll add just a
Speaker 1: little bit more structure. Right, So we're going to add
Speaker 1: a little more structure. Okay, maybe give your mind something
Speaker 1: to do, or your attention something to do other than
Speaker 1: focusing on on thoughts. And also maybe something that's more
Speaker 1: concrete then listening to the quiet inside, because maybe that's
Speaker 1: too tough on a given day, that's just not working
Speaker 1: for you. Okay, how about feeling feeling your breath into
Speaker 1: your in your belly, Just feel it and just make
Speaker 1: that the rest your attention on your breath. Just that, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I can rest my attention on my thoughts, or
Speaker 1: I can rest my attention on my breath. Okay, and
Speaker 1: then someone will raise your hand. That was great? Are you?
Speaker 1: We just did a thirty minute meditation of resting my
Speaker 1: attention on the breath and the quiet spaces inside, and
Speaker 1: yet I got lost in my mind about five times
Speaker 1: in thirty minutes. Right, what do I do? Okay? Okay,
Speaker 1: So every time you get lost, kindly, kindly, kindly, gently,
Speaker 1: just encourage your mind your attention back to your breath,
Speaker 1: or brack to the quiet spaces or listening. Just come
Speaker 1: into a state of listening. But I still get lost
Speaker 1: a hundred times. All right, you get lost. But the
Speaker 1: important thing is when you're lost, there's going to be
Speaker 1: a moment when you recognize your lost in your mind.
Speaker 1: That moment is super significant because you didn't get you
Speaker 1: don't all of a sudden go, my god, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about yesterday's breakfast from any It just occurs. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not something you did. You just realized I was
Speaker 1: risk I was thinking about yesterday's breakfast at that moment.
Speaker 1: This is incredibly important. For meditators, because right here is
Speaker 1: where most meditators make a critical mistake. They get upset,
Speaker 1: they get disappointed, They may be judge themselves like God,
Speaker 1: I'm doing nothing but getting lost, and and they get
Speaker 1: sort of judgment toll. When you do that, you're literally
Speaker 1: conditioning your brain that every time you become a bit
Speaker 1: more conscious, every time you come out of your narrative
Speaker 1: for a moment, you're just you're just gonna judge yourself.
Speaker 1: So you're conditioning yourself every time I come out of
Speaker 1: my narrative. It's a negative experience. It's a negative, critical
Speaker 1: upset experience. Are you conditioning yourself to come out in
Speaker 1: your narrative very often? If someone's gonna like yell at
Speaker 1: you and brate you every time you get lost in
Speaker 1: your mind, how often are you gonna You're setting yourself
Speaker 1: up to stay lost. So that's why I often put
Speaker 1: a lot of emphasis is on Yeah, it can be frustrating,
Speaker 1: you know, for a while if you get lost in
Speaker 1: your mind over and over and over and over. But
Speaker 1: each of those moments two bring the attention back in
Speaker 1: the most benign way possible. You are you are going
Speaker 1: to be exercising your humility, right, because you're going to
Speaker 1: be You're going to enco ounter failure over and over
Speaker 1: and over, and you're going to see your relationship with failure, right,
Speaker 1: And so meditation that's it also connects with life because
Speaker 1: in the part of life is failure, but only over
Speaker 1: and over, not exclusively fortunately right. So it's so meditation
Speaker 1: starts to show us our relationship with failure, things not
Speaker 1: going the way we want when they want them to go. Otherwise, Okay,
Speaker 1: how are you going to be with that? You're gonna
Speaker 1: get all upset, You're going to judge yourself and shame yourself.
Speaker 1: How what you're going to be? And then you can
Speaker 1: maybe you can start to turn that little piece of
Speaker 1: conditioning around where you go, Oh lucky am I? Somehow
Speaker 1: I came out of my being lost in my narrative.
Speaker 1: M cheez, Thanks Universe for gifting me with not being lost,
Speaker 1: the coming out of my little dream there, because I
Speaker 1: could have been in a dream forever and a lot
Speaker 1: of people are they never get out of it seemingly
Speaker 1: for a minute. Ye, and there you are, you popped
Speaker 1: out of it. What are you going to do about that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I often think of it like and it was someone
Speaker 1: else who said, like, if you can celebrate that moment
Speaker 1: because you woke up that moment of like I was
Speaker 1: off wondering wait, instead of oh, I was off wondering
Speaker 1: what's wrong with me? It's like that moment you woke
Speaker 1: up right, you know, and it's almost you can if
Speaker 1: you can invert that from oh darn it, I did
Speaker 1: it again to oh good, I caught myself right. Talk
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Speaker 1: free thirty day trial. Thanks. I'm sure that this was
Speaker 1: said in the twenty years that I studied meditation about
Speaker 1: how important it was to come back kindly. I think
Speaker 1: I needed almost even beyond like come back non judgmentally.
Speaker 1: I think I needed almost like no, celebrate that moment,
Speaker 1: sure if you're the next step. My nature of judging
Speaker 1: myself for wandering off was so strong. There was a
Speaker 1: time many years ago when I would when that phenomena
Speaker 1: would happen, and each time I would realize I had
Speaker 1: been lost in my mind. I would just say thank
Speaker 1: you inside, just that little moment of gratitude, like thank you, gee,
Speaker 1: I came out of this. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: I came out of it, but I came out of it. Jeez.
Speaker 1: Whatever it is that helped me come out of it,
Speaker 1: thank you. And you know, sometimes that feels authentic and
Speaker 1: real and sometimes it feels phony, you know, but okay,
Speaker 1: sometimes it feels phony, but you're turning around a conditioned
Speaker 1: pattern and that's the important thing. So I think I
Speaker 1: really like the way you emphasize. Sometimes you almost have
Speaker 1: to go a little over the top and the appreciation
Speaker 1: part because you're you're is turning around a pattern, right,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think it's useful. I like to
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff also in a bigger sense, Like
Speaker 1: I said, when that happens, you are encountering your relationship
Speaker 1: with failure, and that's not just a meditative thing. That's
Speaker 1: a life thing, Like it's not. It's a pretty good
Speaker 1: idea to start to bring some intention to your relationship
Speaker 1: with that because that's going to be really impactful on
Speaker 1: your life. And then meditation isn't just about meditating. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like man I am encountering life attitudes, and I'm
Speaker 1: encountering them such the way that I can start to
Speaker 1: turn those attitudes around in a way that can actually
Speaker 1: work for me rather than hinder me at every turn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you had a line that I really liked. You said
Speaker 1: you could boil all of spirituality down to the art
Speaker 1: and practice of listening to nothing. And then this next
Speaker 1: part I loved, and trusting in the difficulty. I love
Speaker 1: that idea of trusting in the difficulty. Like, it's okay,
Speaker 1: And that's I think that's what you're speaking to here.
Speaker 1: It's your relationship to failure, it's your relationship to difficulty.
Speaker 1: It's okay. Yeah, because there's a part of we're talking
Speaker 1: about meditation a lot, but since we are, there's limitations
Speaker 1: to this idea. But meditation is this very intimate act, right,
Speaker 1: But if you looked at meditation almost more like practicing
Speaker 1: an instrument. Like you know, when you start to learn
Speaker 1: an instrument, you're screwing up right and left. It's not
Speaker 1: a pretty thing, right, You're making mistakes over and over,
Speaker 1: and you're having to do these really redundant exercises and
Speaker 1: basically you are reconditioning yourself right, your your fingers or
Speaker 1: your breath or you know, all sorts of things. And
Speaker 1: but since there's an instrument between you and your efforts there,
Speaker 1: it's it's a little less intimate than when you're meditating.
Speaker 1: There's no instrument. You are the instrument. So it's easy
Speaker 1: or to kind of get more self critical, right, But
Speaker 1: if you saw it almost like I'm learning how to
Speaker 1: play this thing, and it's called my mind and my attention,
Speaker 1: and you know, just like I would learn how to
Speaker 1: play a trumpet or a guitar or something, and it's
Speaker 1: really important. The patterns that I'm setting now are significant.
Speaker 1: They're really important. They're more important than an instrument, because
Speaker 1: you know, at least at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you can put your trumpet down or your gud car down,
Speaker 1: but you can't put your mind down, unfortunately sometimes. So
Speaker 1: I just like to mention this because I think the
Speaker 1: more we start to look at meditation is sort of
Speaker 1: this metaphor for life, and that it shows us our
Speaker 1: attitude towards all sorts of things in life, towards success,
Speaker 1: towards failure, towards disappointment, towards the heart opening. If people
Speaker 1: can have these extraordinary heart openings, and for one person
Speaker 1: that's reval a tory and beautiful, and for someone else
Speaker 1: that's scary and frightening, and it reminds them of all
Speaker 1: the ways that intimacy can hurt them. And however that unfolds,
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, this isn't just about meditation. This is
Speaker 1: about your life. This is about intimate encounters that you're
Speaker 1: going to have in life and what your relationship is
Speaker 1: when you feel open and vulnerable, and it's important to
Speaker 1: see how your system relates to that and realize that
Speaker 1: those are changeable. It's not set in stone. You know
Speaker 1: that maybe you get a little frightened or you feel
Speaker 1: a little insecure when your heart opens, but sometimes something
Speaker 1: like meditation can be a safe place in which you
Speaker 1: can experiment with changing your relationship with that. You know, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: it feels a little weird when my heart opens. It
Speaker 1: feels lovely and I feel more connected, but there's this
Speaker 1: sort of strange, ominous danger sort of signal I'm I'm
Speaker 1: getting And it's like, okay, well, meditation is a pretty
Speaker 1: safe thing. Can you just experience a little bit of
Speaker 1: that anxiety or fear you have with openness and vulnerability. Um,
Speaker 1: after all, you're sitting in a cushion in a room.
Speaker 1: Probably nothing's going to happen to you, right, right, But anyway,
Speaker 1: it's just the way I think making these connections to
Speaker 1: life is really important. Otherwise our spiritual practices, whether the
Speaker 1: meditation or anything else, remain this limited thing that's sort
Speaker 1: of my little spiritual life. I think it's important to say,
Speaker 1: whatever practice I'm doing in spirituality, how does this connect
Speaker 1: with my everyday world? And if it doesn't connect, I
Speaker 1: got to re examine it because it needs to connect, right,
Speaker 1: And that sort of takes us back to kind of
Speaker 1: where we started with this idea of you know, the
Speaker 1: this you know important question, what's really important? How do
Speaker 1: I take some deeper realization Asian or deeper thing, and
Speaker 1: how do I embody that right into my life? That's
Speaker 1: that becomes the thing, isn't it. Because we have these
Speaker 1: revelatory moments and they can remain private, closeted, little moments
Speaker 1: of revelation that can be transformative and beautiful, or we
Speaker 1: can even see that as an end like oh I
Speaker 1: had the experience that's written in the book, Okay, great,
Speaker 1: I accomplish something right, or we can also see that
Speaker 1: as a sort of new beginning, Like, Okay, that experience
Speaker 1: is a nice, pleasant experience of freedom and well being
Speaker 1: and release and all sorts of things. But what does
Speaker 1: that show me? From that perspective? What's meaningful and valuable?
Speaker 1: From a revelatory perspective? What's valuable in life is greed,
Speaker 1: hatred and getting everything I can get? Valuable is love connectedness,
Speaker 1: like what becomes what becomes valuable and what becomes meaningful?
Speaker 1: And I think that's what we often don't ask ourselves
Speaker 1: because we're so focused on the experience. And for a while,
Speaker 1: that's fine, but we fail often to see that that
Speaker 1: from that experience, an awakened perspective values different things in
Speaker 1: life than our condition mind values. It has a different
Speaker 1: life orientation then our egos have. And just to start
Speaker 1: to go, what is that? What is that? And what
Speaker 1: would it mean for me to act on that? On
Speaker 1: those values that come from my own revelation today? Because
Speaker 1: I like to bring this back to something's very pragmatic.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you had a state of interconnectedness and
Speaker 1: all things that was revelatory in something about you may
Speaker 1: never be the same, right, Okay, But what does interconnectedness.
Speaker 1: Mean when you come home and you're just strung out
Speaker 1: and tired from a long, hard day's work and you
Speaker 1: had a lot of challenges, and your four year old
Speaker 1: kid comes jumping on your lap and want your sole attention,
Speaker 1: and you're just exhausted and you'd really like to just
Speaker 1: have a you know, those those moments to yourself and Okay,
Speaker 1: what is that from the perspective of your your own
Speaker 1: spiritual insight, what is it value? At that moment about
Speaker 1: that four year old it's wants your attention? What becomes important? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're tired and you're wrung out, and you'll need to
Speaker 1: take care of yourself and get some rest, But at
Speaker 1: that moment, what is it value? I think if we
Speaker 1: miss that those kind of questions, there can be this
Speaker 1: lack of connection between our own more revelatory experiences of
Speaker 1: being and our actual human experience of being. It feels
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Speaker 1: of your choosing. Thank you, you said earlier servants of truth? Right,
Speaker 1: How do I be true to and serve what I
Speaker 1: have realized? Right? Instead of again and again and again.
Speaker 1: The great and flawed spiritual master True Trumpa wrote a
Speaker 1: book called spiritual Materialism, right, and then it kind of
Speaker 1: comes down to that if we keep viewing spirituality as
Speaker 1: sort of collecting more and greater and grander experiences, it
Speaker 1: can become a form of spiritual materialism. To start out
Speaker 1: by wanting revelation in a deeper sense of connectedness or
Speaker 1: awakening as an experience. Fine, that's part of how the
Speaker 1: impulse moves. But it's tricky, you know, because as you
Speaker 1: I'm sure experienced, you know, some of these revelatory experiences
Speaker 1: are they're about the most pleasant things you can experience,
Speaker 1: which makes them about the most highly addictive experiences. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as a former heroin act, I'm familiar with chasing
Speaker 1: the high, right, It's an interesting relationship. I imagine that's
Speaker 1: where even though you probably wouldn't want to recreate the
Speaker 1: road you took to get the wisdom, but that may
Speaker 1: be the place where where your past experience, as hard
Speaker 1: one as it was, was, man, just chasing the high
Speaker 1: isn't a way to a great, happy successful life. Addiction
Speaker 1: can teach us that. But you know, those people that
Speaker 1: aren't haven't been addicted to substances. We can fool ourselves
Speaker 1: into thinking we're not addicts, and there you are just
Speaker 1: endlessly chasing the next spiritual experience, but hopefully higher and
Speaker 1: higher and higher. And it's like, what is the difference
Speaker 1: between you then and a heroin addict? And is there
Speaker 1: that big a difference? Like maybe not, And so that's
Speaker 1: the balance, of course. It's like, we have these pleasant
Speaker 1: we have these experiences, the revelatory, their life changing, and
Speaker 1: if we simply views them as experiences, then we can
Speaker 1: become sort of addicted to having those, which again circles
Speaker 1: this kind of back to. At least for me, the
Speaker 1: way out of a lot of that was to what
Speaker 1: am I in service to? That? Right if if what
Speaker 1: I'm in service to and what I'm focused on and
Speaker 1: I spend all my attention is me and how I feel.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the big revelation in me when
Speaker 1: I got sober, when I read and it was in
Speaker 1: the I remember it was in the a a big book,
Speaker 1: and it basically said selfishness, self centeredness is the root
Speaker 1: of our problem, right And and there can be a
Speaker 1: there can be a judgment to that that can rub
Speaker 1: the wrong way. But when I really but as a statement,
Speaker 1: it's very true, it's right right. And when I realized
Speaker 1: like that was it. The whole thing was all oriented
Speaker 1: towards how am I feeling? And that when I realized
Speaker 1: that the surest way out of that for me was
Speaker 1: to start to really try and care about others. What
Speaker 1: am I serving. It's a paradigm that has helped me
Speaker 1: with things like spiritual practice and retreat and all that
Speaker 1: is how like this experience I'm going, Because of course
Speaker 1: I want the experience of peacefulness and all that, But
Speaker 1: but how will that perhaps allow me to come back
Speaker 1: out of that and serve better and be better able
Speaker 1: to help the people I try? Like you know, I
Speaker 1: think both those things are going on at the same time.
Speaker 1: It's a reciprocal thing, isn't it. You dive into the
Speaker 1: well of being so that you can re emerge with
Speaker 1: something deeper and more beautiful to offer. And I think
Speaker 1: that gets to your point, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: really important point, especially in modern day spirituality where just
Speaker 1: for a lot of people it's sort of been cut
Speaker 1: off from its its traditional roots. And part of that
Speaker 1: is like really great, right, it's it's it's it's freed
Speaker 1: itself from the bonds of you know, religious dogmatism, and
Speaker 1: so okay, that's really good. But there's a whole there's
Speaker 1: another I to that too, right, Some of those, almost
Speaker 1: all those traditions that I knew of, they all have
Speaker 1: to have a heavy element of service, which yeat, can
Speaker 1: become laden with judgment and shame and or trying to
Speaker 1: be a saint or all that kind of stuff. It
Speaker 1: can be. But if you just take the service part,
Speaker 1: like no mistake that all these traditions realized, there is
Speaker 1: something extremely important about service, right about serving serving that
Speaker 1: which we that which we love. And I think so,
Speaker 1: I think the important the importance of that is no um,
Speaker 1: no greater for an addict and no less for somebody
Speaker 1: that doesn't think they're an addict. Like that's what gets
Speaker 1: us out of the of the loop of having our
Speaker 1: life endlessly oriented towards the next experience. That's why I've
Speaker 1: said at the beginning when we were talking, that it's
Speaker 1: more important to have ourselves orient it around something like
Speaker 1: meaning than some than mere happiness. Because of course, like
Speaker 1: I say meaning, then the way I'm using it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean like necessarily something you can philosophically state to your
Speaker 1: friends very coherently. It's not a something like that, but
Speaker 1: meaning like when you're in service and it's coming from
Speaker 1: a true place in you, that's a meaningful experience, right,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, your life feels like to me,
Speaker 1: meaning means is those those moments when you feel like
Speaker 1: things have lined up, you're at the right place, at
Speaker 1: the right time, doing the right thing. And so often
Speaker 1: when we're in real service, those things all line up.
Speaker 1: We feel like we're in the right place, at the
Speaker 1: right time, doing the right thing. It just feels like that,
Speaker 1: And um, I think that's the element that modern spirituality
Speaker 1: needs to sort of have re reinvigorated, but without the shame,
Speaker 1: the blame and all that kind of stuff that can
Speaker 1: come as the old baggage. But um, I think that's
Speaker 1: otherwise what are we doing. We're just chasing experiences right right.
Speaker 1: It's a self it's a self centered, narcissistic pursuit unless
Speaker 1: it has some sense of the welfare of all beings,
Speaker 1: you know, And how can we not have a sense
Speaker 1: of that when we were when we really experience the
Speaker 1: unity of existence. Yes, right, right, And that is the
Speaker 1: perspective that when you know, when I've had that perspective,
Speaker 1: like really the connection and the true unity, it's astounding
Speaker 1: how natural. Yeah, the idea of of caring about and
Speaker 1: taking care of and serving others, it feels almost inevitable.
Speaker 1: It just flows out of you, doesn't Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: and then there's other times where it's you know, so
Speaker 1: it's a little a little you know, a little harder role,
Speaker 1: so to speak. I've had a lot of people mentioning
Speaker 1: that they usually mentioned in forms of a sort of
Speaker 1: question when I teach on like what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: and they'll they'll say, but Aji, I've had these moments,
Speaker 1: these times, you know, often in the wake of some
Speaker 1: big insight or awakening where like what you're talking about
Speaker 1: just happened and it was spontaneous and I didn't have
Speaker 1: to exercise intension or bring thought to it. It just
Speaker 1: was like it was like breathing, and like, and what
Speaker 1: you're saying is sort of bringing like this intention and
Speaker 1: it seems more heavy handed and da you know all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. You're not saying that to me,
Speaker 1: But it just brought this to mind, and I'm saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. When you're in a really open, clear space,
Speaker 1: it tends to be very spontaneous and you don't you
Speaker 1: don't really have to exercise much intention. It's just it is.
Speaker 1: It's just like breathing, because it's natural. And what happens
Speaker 1: when it doesn't feel quite that natural? Right? Uh? And
Speaker 1: so what a lot of the people have had those experiences, Um,
Speaker 1: what they will communicate what they want is they're hoping
Speaker 1: to have an experience that's big enough and complete enough
Speaker 1: and total enough, so all this will happen without any
Speaker 1: intention forever. Amen. And hey, man, if you can come
Speaker 1: to that, good for you, Like great, okay, but that's
Speaker 1: not a very reasonable thing to shoot at. That's not
Speaker 1: a very good ultimate aim. Like if that's what ends
Speaker 1: up happening, great, And I think the more we are
Speaker 1: residing in the truth of our being, it does happen
Speaker 1: more naturally, more spontaneously, with less or little or sometimes
Speaker 1: no intention at all. And but if that's all we
Speaker 1: shoot for, I think we're not actually taking responsibility for
Speaker 1: what we've realized. That's another sort of old fashioned idea.
Speaker 1: What does it what would it mean to actually take
Speaker 1: responsibility for my own revelations if those show me connectedness,
Speaker 1: what would it mean for me to step up to
Speaker 1: the plate and take responsibility for my own experience of
Speaker 1: connectedness and unity whether I feel it or I don't,
Speaker 1: Because then you're outside of the realm of the addict again, right,
Speaker 1: it's not whether I feel it or not. It's I'm
Speaker 1: acting on what I've seen and what I know to
Speaker 1: be true, and I'm taking the responsibility to step up
Speaker 1: and do that. And when it happens spontaneously, great, But
Speaker 1: when it doesn't, that doesn't mean that you're simply left
Speaker 1: trying to chase the experience. It leans no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. You don't have to wait for the experience.
Speaker 1: You can step up like right now. And and sometimes
Speaker 1: if you're quote unquote lucky, the stepping up, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the it's the saying I you know, listeners have
Speaker 1: got to be tired of, which is sometimes you can't
Speaker 1: think your way into right action. You have to act
Speaker 1: your way into right thinking. That's a great way to
Speaker 1: put that. Sometimes stepping up into service right then brings
Speaker 1: that's right. It opens the door. It opens the door
Speaker 1: for the feeling to follow that sometimes right as it
Speaker 1: does something, but yeah, right, when we're engaged in right action,
Speaker 1: that it always it will it whether we're suffused with
Speaker 1: this sense of well being, but underneath it, I think
Speaker 1: when we're really engaged in right action, there's something about
Speaker 1: it that feels right, right and connected and aligned. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you're completely suffused without experience, and sometimes it's a
Speaker 1: little less obvious, but it does feel aligned. We talked
Speaker 1: about my girlfriend's mom and you know, the Alzheimer's, and
Speaker 1: that's we often reflect on, like we're living according to
Speaker 1: our values and that there's something underneath that feels right.
Speaker 1: It's a deeper kind of rightness. The surface feels like
Speaker 1: oh my, you know, like, but the deeper is like okay.
Speaker 1: And as somebody who has lived outside of my values
Speaker 1: plenty of times, I know that that you know, you
Speaker 1: can live outside your value and things on the surface
Speaker 1: field good, but if you look a little deeper, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, this is kind of the inverse of that,
Speaker 1: that is, I'm so glad you you mentioned that too,
Speaker 1: And I think you know your girlfriend and you're dealing
Speaker 1: with her mother's illness is a great, great example, like
Speaker 1: it's not easy every day. It's probably not even easy
Speaker 1: most hours of the day, and yet you're doing it
Speaker 1: because I like the word you use, because it aligns
Speaker 1: with your values, right, with the values that are inherent
Speaker 1: in your own in your own depth. And there's something
Speaker 1: about that that even when it's not easy, it feels
Speaker 1: it feels right. And that's kind of what I'm oriented
Speaker 1: trying to get when I talk about meaning. Right, it's
Speaker 1: hard to define what that is, but you know it
Speaker 1: when you when you experience it, And I think that's
Speaker 1: that's certainly something more noble to aim at. Then how
Speaker 1: do I feel at every moment, like, well, yeah, but
Speaker 1: maybe maybe maybe your girlfriend's mother, you know, she has Alzheimer's,
Speaker 1: and hey, maybe I don't feel good at this moment.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's really challenging for this moment. But fortunately you
Speaker 1: have something in your back pocket, right, you have what's
Speaker 1: what's true and right for you, yea, whether you feel
Speaker 1: great about it or you don't feel great about it.
Speaker 1: And I think at the end of the day, like,
Speaker 1: you get to the end of that day, and that
Speaker 1: day has meaning and it has value, and you know it.
Speaker 1: Nobody has to tell you you've you've done the right thing,
Speaker 1: because you feel it even if you fall in the bed,
Speaker 1: you know, completely exhausted, and you know, well, you've been
Speaker 1: a parent, you know that probably with raising children too,
Speaker 1: as my mom said, yeah, raising kids, and she loved
Speaker 1: being a mother, and she says, it's not a picnic
Speaker 1: every day, right, some days it's it's super super, super difficult.
Speaker 1: But since there's a higher calling, there's a higher sense
Speaker 1: of well being too. Yep, right, there's something that transcends feeling. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think that is a perfect place for us to
Speaker 1: wrap up. So thank you so much again for agreeing
Speaker 1: to come on for yet another time and spend so
Speaker 1: much time with us. It's been my pleasure. Nice to
Speaker 1: check with you, Eric, Nice to be with you again too.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 1: consider making a donation to The One You Feed pot
Speaker 1: cast head over to one you Feed dot net slash support.
Speaker 1: The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank
Speaker 1: our sponsors for supporting the show.