Speaker 1: You can't think your way into intuition or inspiration or knowing,
Speaker 1: but if you make space, it arises. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf Y, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Susan Piever, who is
Speaker 1: here for the second time. She's a New York Times
Speaker 1: best selling author of nine books, including the award winning
Speaker 1: How Not to Be Afraid of Your Life and the
Speaker 1: Wisdom of a Broken Heart. Susan has been a practicing
Speaker 1: Buddhist since and graduated from a Buddhist seminary in two
Speaker 1: thousand four. Her work has been featured on The Oprah Show, Today, CNN,
Speaker 1: and in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Money,
Speaker 1: and others. Her new book is The Four Noble Truths
Speaker 1: of Love, Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships. Hi, Susan, Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. Hi, so glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes, we have had you on before. I
Speaker 1: don't remember which episode number it was, but it's been
Speaker 1: a while. But you have a new book out that
Speaker 1: we will explore in depth. But let's start like we
Speaker 1: always do with the parable. In the Parable, there's a
Speaker 1: grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. What is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, looks up at her grandfather and
Speaker 1: she says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you? In
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do well,
Speaker 1: Thank you, and I love that parable. And as you
Speaker 1: are saying it, I thought about it in a different
Speaker 1: way than I ever had before, which is I was
Speaker 1: thinking about the bad wolf and the I'm a long
Speaker 1: time Buddhist practitioner, as I think you know, and in
Speaker 1: certain schools of Buddhism, there's this idea that afflictive emotions
Speaker 1: have a positive flip side, And so I was thinking of,
Speaker 1: what is the flip side of hatred, ingredied, and anger,
Speaker 1: the three qualities you named, and what is the vulnerable
Speaker 1: part in those qualities, and how can we touch those
Speaker 1: vulnerable parts instead of running in fear from the bad wolf?
Speaker 1: Can we somehow uncover the goodness of the bad wolf
Speaker 1: in some way? I love that idea, and it makes
Speaker 1: me think of something that you say in the book
Speaker 1: that sort of caught my attention, and it was that
Speaker 1: underneath other emotions like anger or rage and fear and
Speaker 1: all that is sadness, and that sadness is a more
Speaker 1: tender emotion that we can work with. And what I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about that is that my experience
Speaker 1: seems to be that sadness is the emotion that is
Speaker 1: relatively easy for me to access, and that certainly I
Speaker 1: have had people say before that my depressive condition looks
Speaker 1: more like anger turned in word, And so I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of interested in what you think about about what
Speaker 1: I just said, because they're kind of different approaches to
Speaker 1: that thing, are a different way of looking at sadness
Speaker 1: versus anger. I think certain people have a tendency towards
Speaker 1: one or the other, or neither. You and I apparently
Speaker 1: both tend towards a depressive response to unhappiness. Some people
Speaker 1: respond with anger, that's just their their first response, and
Speaker 1: I think in both cases a similar emotion underlies the response,
Speaker 1: which is some kind of fear or some kind of
Speaker 1: being hurt. Because the truth is we're vulnerable, and we're
Speaker 1: fragile and we're sensitive, I think is a better word
Speaker 1: than fragile, and when something upsets us, we want to
Speaker 1: turn it into something we can work with as as
Speaker 1: opposed to just feeling the pain directly. And anger is
Speaker 1: something you can work with, is something you can turn
Speaker 1: on others, it's something that you can express. It obliterates everything, actually,
Speaker 1: and I just want to differentiate between depression and sadness.
Speaker 1: Because depression, I think does something similar as anger does.
Speaker 1: Anger turns it outward, and like you said, depression turns
Speaker 1: it inward, but it's also sort of calcifies it. I
Speaker 1: think of depression as a kind of calcified sadness. In
Speaker 1: both cases, anger and depression could be thought of. This
Speaker 1: is my experience. I'm not a therapist, but this is
Speaker 1: my observation as unfelt sadness, because sadness makes you feel
Speaker 1: so vulnerable. I once someone was interviewing Gloria Steinham the
Speaker 1: feminist icon. I think I mentioned this in the book
Speaker 1: even I'll never forget what she said when an interviewer
Speaker 1: asked her if she was depressed over the recent death
Speaker 1: of her husband They've only been married a few years,
Speaker 1: and she said, I'm paraphrasing, I'm not depressed, I'm sad.
Speaker 1: And the interviewers said, it's the difference, and she said,
Speaker 1: the most beautiful thing. When you're depressed, nothing has any meaning,
Speaker 1: and when you're sad, everything does. So when we turned
Speaker 1: towards sadness, we can enter the realm of reality, I
Speaker 1: think a little bit more directly than when we turn
Speaker 1: it into something else, whether it's anger or depression, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've always loved that quote, and I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: because my willingness to be sad. I think you're probably
Speaker 1: right is a more recent phenomenon in my life, and
Speaker 1: probably as I was younger, that wasn't something I was
Speaker 1: I was looking to do. I like that idea of calcification.
Speaker 1: That's a good word for what depression feels like. It's
Speaker 1: it's almost like this really tight calcification. I like that.
Speaker 1: But let's turn to your book, which is called The
Speaker 1: Four Noble Truths of Love, Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships.
Speaker 1: And as most listeners know, the Buddha expounded four noble
Speaker 1: truths about life, and you have reinterpreted those two relationships,
Speaker 1: and so I thought, why don't we just start with
Speaker 1: talking about what those four noble truths are. The four
Speaker 1: Noble Truths of Love, just as you suggest, are based
Speaker 1: on the Buddhist Buddha's very first teachings upon attaining enlightenment.
Speaker 1: He taught four things, and the entire Buddhist path is
Speaker 1: based on these four things. And at one point in
Speaker 1: my marriage, we had hit a really bad period. And
Speaker 1: anybody who's been in a relationship knows what this is like.
Speaker 1: Everything seems okay, and then suddenly you can't get along.
Speaker 1: And we were in one of those phases where whatever
Speaker 1: one did, the other one took offense and we couldn't
Speaker 1: tell why. We argued about the silliest things. We couldn't
Speaker 1: get along, and this went on for months. One day
Speaker 1: I was sitting at my dad. I was crying because
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. I had thought we
Speaker 1: loved each other, and I thought I still did, but
Speaker 1: it seemed that there was nothing but coldness between us.
Speaker 1: So I was crying, and I had this thought, upon wondering,
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to begin. I had this
Speaker 1: thought that said, begin at the beginning, at the beginning
Speaker 1: of foreign noble truths. And as a Buddhist practitioner like
Speaker 1: I say, that meant something to me, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what, because what do the foreign noble truths have
Speaker 1: to do with my relationship? So I sat and thought
Speaker 1: about it, and this is what I came up with.
Speaker 1: The First noble truth of love is that relationships are uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: They just are. If you've never met the person you're
Speaker 1: about to go on a blind date, it's uncomfortable. What
Speaker 1: if they don't like me, or what if they do
Speaker 1: like me? Or what if I repeat all my old
Speaker 1: relationship patterns, and you know, I even met the person
Speaker 1: and it's already very uncomfortable. And if you fall in love,
Speaker 1: I mean that's heavenly, literally heavenly, but it's also oddly
Speaker 1: uncomfortable because it's so intense, and every moment is so fraught,
Speaker 1: and every look and every word could have some extraordinary
Speaker 1: kind of meaning, and you can spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time wondering what that expression meant and worrying that this
Speaker 1: is just going to disappear, and then if you're in
Speaker 1: a long term relationship, it just so happens. Nobody really
Speaker 1: told me this that there's a lot of irritation. People
Speaker 1: have habits, People do things that trigger you, and they
Speaker 1: do them over and over again, and you just sort
Speaker 1: of live with this sense of it's just hard to
Speaker 1: live with another person, even if it's you know, there's
Speaker 1: certainly matters of degree, but it's just it's hard. So
Speaker 1: that that's the first noble truths. Relationships are uncomfortable. I
Speaker 1: want to ask you a question here about this because
Speaker 1: this is a point that I am struggling with in
Speaker 1: my own life. And it's it's this I get the
Speaker 1: general idea that we should resistance causes us a great
Speaker 1: yeel of trouble. Right now, I am somebody that that
Speaker 1: wrestles with being irritated, particularly by sounds and things that
Speaker 1: are around me, and I I have this happen semi
Speaker 1: often where I will find myself very irritated, and then
Speaker 1: I find myself thinking I should not be irritated, and
Speaker 1: I do this. I go back and forth between these
Speaker 1: two things. One is that I try and go just
Speaker 1: allow the sound to be whatever it is, just let
Speaker 1: it be right. So I'm trying to decrease my resistance
Speaker 1: there and just let it go right. So that's one approach,
Speaker 1: and then I sometimes that works and often it doesn't,
Speaker 1: and then I go, Okay, what I'm going to try
Speaker 1: and do then is just let my irritation be. And
Speaker 1: I never know which of those is more effective, and
Speaker 1: maybe the answer is the one that works at that moment.
Speaker 1: But I'm just kind of curious on your thoughts because
Speaker 1: that's a dilemma that shows up often in when you're
Speaker 1: when you're talking about not resisting what's happening. So I
Speaker 1: guess just your thoughts on that yeah, and I share that.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'm auditorially very sense citive, And if
Speaker 1: two people start talking to me at once, I actually
Speaker 1: feel temper flare. They're not doing anything wrong, but it
Speaker 1: does something to my nervous system that is uncomfortable. So
Speaker 1: I would say my approach and is if you get irritated,
Speaker 1: it does not help to become irritated by the fact
Speaker 1: that you're irritated. You're just still irritated. You just change
Speaker 1: the object. So I would say be irritated. But the
Speaker 1: key here is without the story of the irritation, because
Speaker 1: it's the story that actually causes more pain and suffering
Speaker 1: then the original the presenting issue. So feel the irritation,
Speaker 1: like what does it feel like in your body? That's
Speaker 1: where most people feel it, like their chest gets tight
Speaker 1: or there they feel their shoulders hunch. Some people feel
Speaker 1: it in the environment, like the actual environment feels different,
Speaker 1: it feels combative or dark or whatever. It might be.
Speaker 1: Placed your attention on that. And when a story tries
Speaker 1: to arise, it's as well if only people would be quieter,
Speaker 1: or I shouldn't be irritated. Those are all thoughts. Just
Speaker 1: put those aside to turn towards the felt sense of
Speaker 1: the irritation that tends to be more expeditious and also
Speaker 1: kinder to yourself, that part that doesn't involve any condemnation
Speaker 1: or you know, self improvement. You just feel it and
Speaker 1: eventually it dissipates. Yeah, I think that's really good advice.
Speaker 1: It's funny. That is the one emotion I've I've just
Speaker 1: recognized this very recently, but it is the one emotion
Speaker 1: that I am absolutely the most uncomfortable with because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, sadness is sadness even anger, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not one of my most comfortable But usually if I'm angry,
Speaker 1: there's a reasonable, at least in my own brain, a reason, right,
Speaker 1: I could say like, well, this person is doing X
Speaker 1: or Y and this causes that. But with irritation, it's
Speaker 1: just this, like you said, the person isn't doing any thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're doing absolutely nothing wrong, and I'm seething,
Speaker 1: you know, and it and it's so it's the one
Speaker 1: that I am uncomfortable with because it feels completely unjustified
Speaker 1: to me. And I guess, you know, I get that
Speaker 1: my emotions have to be justified. Is that the root
Speaker 1: of part of that problem. I've just I really, in
Speaker 1: the last week or two, have noticed this. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever been able to put it quite together
Speaker 1: what happens to me in those situations, and how much
Speaker 1: worse I might be making it by the storyline, which
Speaker 1: is this is not okay. Well, I have something that
Speaker 1: I want to suggest, and this is my theory based
Speaker 1: on nothing, which should be the title of my next book.
Speaker 1: I think could be the title of all my books.
Speaker 1: But my theory based on nothing is that the irritation
Speaker 1: that you feel and that I feel. It's not the
Speaker 1: same as being angry at someone for ignoring you or
Speaker 1: hurting you or doing something that you think is wrong.
Speaker 1: It comes from a different part of the organism. There's
Speaker 1: a psychological and emotional hurt of someone doing something upsetting
Speaker 1: to you. That's not the case here. I feel like
Speaker 1: this is a limbic system response in your nervous system
Speaker 1: just fires and then you attach a story to it.
Speaker 1: But I think sound and you're I mean, look what
Speaker 1: we're doing right now. Your life, so much of it,
Speaker 1: I imagine, revolves around sound, and there's a threat. I
Speaker 1: think your olympic system perceives a threat, and so when
Speaker 1: I get irritated like that. I try to think. Not
Speaker 1: of course, I think, well I shouldn't be irritated, or
Speaker 1: why can't I be a nicer person? But I also
Speaker 1: try to think, well, something some although it does not
Speaker 1: make any sense, and there is nothing threatening me right now,
Speaker 1: some part of me perceives a threat. So can I
Speaker 1: turn towards that part and just go, everything's okay, sweetie,
Speaker 1: let's just relax. You read about like highly sensitive people,
Speaker 1: and that's the one thing like when I read about
Speaker 1: highly sensitive people, I went that one is me right
Speaker 1: there when they say that like that, incidental noises just
Speaker 1: I really do have a very difficult time. I feel
Speaker 1: like there's a TV on in one room in another room,
Speaker 1: or somebody's talking, or I just when there's multiple sounds
Speaker 1: coming at me, I get, like you said, I almost
Speaker 1: just quickly get angry. Yeah. I think we had just
Speaker 1: finished the first noble truth of relationships and we're about
Speaker 1: to hit the second. Yes. Yes, relationships are uncomfortable, as
Speaker 1: the first noble truth because they never stabilize. That's something
Speaker 1: else no one ever tells you. And the second noble
Speaker 1: truth is that thinking they should be comfortable and stable
Speaker 1: is actually what causes them to be uncomfortable and unstable,
Speaker 1: in other words, instability and change. That's that's a part
Speaker 1: of life. There's no feeling that is solid. Love and
Speaker 1: connection are always pulsing in and out of existence. They
Speaker 1: don't it's not solid, So okay, we have to live
Speaker 1: with that, we have to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: deal with that. But then we think, well, there's a
Speaker 1: problem here that we have to fix. And when we
Speaker 1: fix this problem, either something small like you're always late,
Speaker 1: please be on time, which may not be that small
Speaker 1: for some people, or something really big like I don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't seem to have much romance in our life,
Speaker 1: or I don't know, whatever you would want to call it,
Speaker 1: and if we could solve that problem, everything would be okay.
Speaker 1: And that's not true. We should all try to solve
Speaker 1: our problems, and we're not just say to the status
Speaker 1: quo with things that are upsetting. But the idea that
Speaker 1: if we solve this we will be happy is I
Speaker 1: think the root of the most difficult discomfort. I just
Speaker 1: want to read something you wrote because I think it
Speaker 1: says this very eloquently. But we're always trying to get
Speaker 1: rid of the problems in our relationships. This is only human. However,
Speaker 1: expecting that upon doing so, you will finally be happy
Speaker 1: can cause a lot of confusion. Thinking that a relationship
Speaker 1: will finally come to rest in a peaceful place is
Speaker 1: actually what makes it uncomfortable. When that expectation is softened,
Speaker 1: an enormous space opens up. Yeah, an enormous space opens
Speaker 1: up is the thing, because we stop holding each other
Speaker 1: sort of hostage. I think two something some idea about
Speaker 1: the way things should be, and turned towards each other,
Speaker 1: which is the third novel truth of love, That meeting
Speaker 1: the discomfort and instability together is love. So instead of like, okay,
Speaker 1: you need to perfect this, you need to change that.
Speaker 1: I need to work on this. Okay, that's cool, All
Speaker 1: that's fine. I know. I'm not trying to say that
Speaker 1: that's there's anything wrong with that. But when things happen
Speaker 1: in a relationship that caused pain, instead of looking at
Speaker 1: each other like what did you do to cause this?
Speaker 1: Or what did I do to cause this, to turn
Speaker 1: away from each other and look at the problem itself,
Speaker 1: look at the sort of weather front that you are
Speaker 1: in currently, and to see it together. Oh look, now,
Speaker 1: we don't like each other. Now we really do. Now
Speaker 1: I like you, but you don't seem to like me.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying all of those are equally good, because
Speaker 1: they're not. But to look at the cycling and be
Speaker 1: on the ride together, I would say that is loving,
Speaker 1: a loving thing to do. Yeah, And I want to
Speaker 1: read something else that you say about that, because I
Speaker 1: think that one is so they're all powerful, but that
Speaker 1: one really resonates with me. Um to that idea, and
Speaker 1: you say, what if instead of looking at each other accusingly,
Speaker 1: you shifted your gaze to the conflict itself together. What
Speaker 1: if instead of telling the other how they need to
Speaker 1: change so that this will never happen again, you could
Speaker 1: look at the problem as a kind of third entity
Speaker 1: that somehow landed in your house and is sitting on
Speaker 1: the couch next to you. And I do think that
Speaker 1: can be so transformative. Another way to say that, in
Speaker 1: a slightly different way, is that like you guys are
Speaker 1: now on the same team and it's you as a
Speaker 1: team against the problem, or you know, looking at the
Speaker 1: problem right, and just that metaphor of like, okay, we're
Speaker 1: back on the same team. Um, I've just found that
Speaker 1: one to be really very helpful myself, and it's also
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that I've seen really transform a
Speaker 1: lot of other people. So I just wanted to read
Speaker 1: that because I just think it's such a powerful thing.
Speaker 1: That's awesome, and I love the way you said it.
Speaker 1: We're on the same team. That's exactly the spirit of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so free. It doesn't mean that you don't have
Speaker 1: the problem, doesn't mean that doesn't hurt. It just means
Speaker 1: that you're on the same team, just like you say. So.
Speaker 1: The fourth noble truth is that there's a way to
Speaker 1: do all of this. The Buddhist force noble truth is
Speaker 1: called the eightfold path, right view, right intention, and so on.
Speaker 1: What I made up because I want everyone to know
Speaker 1: I made this up. This is These teachings are in
Speaker 1: no sutra or contra. These are my interpretation, so they
Speaker 1: must be vetted very carefully. The fourth noble truth of
Speaker 1: love is that there's a threefold path, and it is
Speaker 1: based on the sort of qualities that one cultivates in
Speaker 1: a sitting meditation practice. And it's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I think meditation and love are such natural allies.
Speaker 1: So the three sort of steps on, well, how do
Speaker 1: you actually do these things, and that sounds like a
Speaker 1: good idea. How do you do it? The first step
Speaker 1: is called precision, like you have to create use some
Speaker 1: sense of precision to create a foundation for your relationship,
Speaker 1: for your meditation practice. In meditation practice, the precision is
Speaker 1: that you focus on your breath or whatever your object is,
Speaker 1: but in most cases it's the breath, and that that
Speaker 1: establishes the foundation for your meditation. If you're not trying
Speaker 1: to place attention on the breath, and of course it's
Speaker 1: strays and cool, you bring it back, you're not meditating,
Speaker 1: you're doing something else. So what is the corollary in
Speaker 1: a relationship that if you're not doing those things, even
Speaker 1: though you may be in the same house together, you're
Speaker 1: not having a relationship. The precision here is two have
Speaker 1: good manners. I know that they sound kind of superficial,
Speaker 1: but I don't mean no which work to use. I
Speaker 1: mean be cognizant of the other person's presence, think of them,
Speaker 1: develop some awareness of them, and then some idea about
Speaker 1: what might be helpful to them, Loving to them, kind
Speaker 1: to them, or that you don't want to do those
Speaker 1: things because you're mad at them, but at least you
Speaker 1: still have the awareness. Good manners are a very profound
Speaker 1: gesture of compassion, I think. And then also, of course,
Speaker 1: precision involves honesty. It doesn't mean blurting what you think
Speaker 1: whenever you think it. Skillful honesty means knowing the truth
Speaker 1: yourself and then knowing when you don't know it and
Speaker 1: so shutting up or I'm not trying to make something up.
Speaker 1: So if you can't have good manners, meaning thoughtfulness and
Speaker 1: you can't be honest, I don't think you can have
Speaker 1: a relationship. You can have something else, but I don't
Speaker 1: think you can have a relationship. Yeah. I was really
Speaker 1: struck by that in the book about good manners, because
Speaker 1: I've often felt like good manners are really important, but
Speaker 1: I've never been able to articulate it. Like and again
Speaker 1: we're not talking about which fork to use, but you
Speaker 1: said the ground level of good manners maybe among the
Speaker 1: most important of the qualities a person can have that
Speaker 1: make a successful relationship. True good manners are far from superficial.
Speaker 1: They're a sign that you're really paying attention to the
Speaker 1: other person and showing evidence of that in the way
Speaker 1: you act and speak. And I just I love that
Speaker 1: because like I said, I've always had this feeling about
Speaker 1: like that's really important, but I could never really articulate it.
Speaker 1: I think it's hugely important, and it's great that you
Speaker 1: have that sensitivity to good manners because honestly, I think
Speaker 1: of all the qualities you can bring to a relationship
Speaker 1: to make it successful. You know, you might say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: self knowledge or compassion or good sense of human or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but honestly, I think good manners is
Speaker 1: the most important thing. It's certainly one of those things that, um,
Speaker 1: if you don't have it may not you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, ranking things in importance, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly a baseline qualification for it to work. It seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like one of those foundational skills. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And again we're not talking about the fork, as we
Speaker 1: both said. We were talking earlier before this, and I
Speaker 1: told you I ever broken foot, and it's it's not
Speaker 1: a big deal. But at the same time, you can't
Speaker 1: do very much because you can't walk and your hands
Speaker 1: are engaged in moving your body on crutches or in
Speaker 1: a scooter or whatever, so I can't really cook food.
Speaker 1: It's really irritating. Um, so when my husband thinks of
Speaker 1: that when he's coming home and plans something, knowing that
Speaker 1: I have this, I cannot prepare the food because I
Speaker 1: work at home, So I often do that anyway that
Speaker 1: to me is and then make some plan for that
Speaker 1: because I just find that to be so loving. And
Speaker 1: so that's what I mean by good manners. Thinking of
Speaker 1: the other person and making some accommodation, some space for
Speaker 1: them in your actions and your words. I think it's
Speaker 1: really loving. So the second piece here is called openness.
Speaker 1: And in your meditation practice, if you have one, you
Speaker 1: sit and you place your attention on your breath, and
Speaker 1: then that's it. You don't try to do anything else.
Speaker 1: You just allow yourself to be as you are. You
Speaker 1: open to yourself when you're speedy, when you're relaxed, when
Speaker 1: you're boring, when you're violent, you know in your mind
Speaker 1: you've experienced all of that. You make room for yourself
Speaker 1: in this very un American way of just being with
Speaker 1: yourself as you are, and in a relationship that translates
Speaker 1: to something quite shocking. I was quite surprised to find
Speaker 1: this Eric that, oh there's another person here. This relationship
Speaker 1: isn't just about me. But openness here means considering the
Speaker 1: other person as having at least equal importance to yourself
Speaker 1: in the relationship. And it's easy for people that are
Speaker 1: very self sacrificing to think that means they should be
Speaker 1: more self sacrificing. I really don't mean that you should
Speaker 1: put yourself second. I do not mean that at all.
Speaker 1: I just mean to see, oh, we both are important here.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean so me too. I'm important and so
Speaker 1: are you. And having that willingness to look at the
Speaker 1: other person not as a device that you have somehow
Speaker 1: are trying to craft in the name of your own happiness,
Speaker 1: but as a as a being who you're sharing space with,
Speaker 1: sharing life, with feelings, with a date with to open
Speaker 1: to them as they are. Of course, that is a
Speaker 1: very loving thing to do. And the third piece is
Speaker 1: called going beyond, which is evoked in a meditation practice
Speaker 1: when you notice you're absorbed in thought, which is fine,
Speaker 1: it's not a big deal. You're not trying to stop
Speaker 1: thinking when you're meditating. Yeah, you get absorbed in thought.
Speaker 1: You see the notice that some kind of light goes off,
Speaker 1: and you notice that and you let go. You let go,
Speaker 1: and when you let go, there's a space, and you
Speaker 1: come back. You come back to your breath in meditation practice,
Speaker 1: and you are constantly putting down conventional thought to return
Speaker 1: to a felt experience of the present moment, which is
Speaker 1: called the spiritual path, and it deepens every time you
Speaker 1: let go of thought to come back to the present.
Speaker 1: Something deepens in a relationship. We look at everything that
Speaker 1: happens to us as we often put it in a
Speaker 1: plus or minus column. Good things are good, bad things
Speaker 1: are but agreed, totally agreed. But it so happens that
Speaker 1: every thing that happens, the good, the bad, and the
Speaker 1: in between can be used I've discovered to deepen. Not romance,
Speaker 1: which always has an end I'm sorry, may come back,
Speaker 1: but it'll end again. But intimacy, which has no end.
Speaker 1: There is no way that you can be we know
Speaker 1: each other now completely. Intimacy can always go deeper. You
Speaker 1: can always reveal more, you can always discover more. And
Speaker 1: I find that to be very inspiring and heartening because
Speaker 1: I can commit to that. I can't commit to love
Speaker 1: because sometimes I feel it and sometimes I don't. But
Speaker 1: I can commit to intimacy that makes me. That is
Speaker 1: a vow that I can honor. So that's the third
Speaker 1: quality of going beyond conventional ideas of love to deepen intimacy.
Speaker 1: But I want to make a very important caveat here
Speaker 1: just for my own sake, for doably, which is to say,
Speaker 1: this does not include problems that are beyond the pale,
Speaker 1: which includes things like abuse and addiction. And it was
Speaker 1: really careful in the book, and I really don't want
Speaker 1: anyone to think that, oh, I should tolerate any form
Speaker 1: of discomfort because that will make me good at love.
Speaker 1: There are certain things that are not included because not
Speaker 1: only can you not control them, but the person themselves
Speaker 1: probably has no say over them. So addiction and abuse emotional, physical,
Speaker 1: not included in this picture of love. No. I think
Speaker 1: that's really important to point out, and it brings up
Speaker 1: sort of a bigger question around approaching relationships in this manner.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a bigger question that just comes
Speaker 1: to how we approach life in general. Right, And I'm
Speaker 1: sure listeners are tired of me touting how important the
Speaker 1: serenity prayer is, right, But in a relationship, it's that
Speaker 1: idea of like, what do I want to allow and
Speaker 1: deepen into and allowed to be the way it is,
Speaker 1: and in what circumstances does something need to be changed,
Speaker 1: whether that be the relationship as a whole, like I
Speaker 1: should not be here, or all gradations of that right
Speaker 1: and that and that wisdom to know those two things
Speaker 1: can be I think it's the thing that drives a
Speaker 1: lot of people crazy in a relationship or a particularly
Speaker 1: people that are in a challenging relationship. Is that constant
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what should I do here? And
Speaker 1: near the end of the book you have some questions
Speaker 1: from listeners, and in one of them you quote your
Speaker 1: mother when it comes to making decisions, that the big
Speaker 1: decisions make themselves. And you know I mentioned you before.
Speaker 1: I had been in a difficult marriage, and what I
Speaker 1: realized was, I think I knew this isn't the right thing, right,
Speaker 1: But I was always in this spot of sort of
Speaker 1: evaluating that. And the only way I could stay sane
Speaker 1: at points because I would look at and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to go. So what I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: is be here for this period of time. I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick three months, right, and if no new information,
Speaker 1: you know, new information comes in that changes things, but
Speaker 1: in general, for this period of three months. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to pick this question up eight times a day,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna let that question sit and I'll
Speaker 1: revisit it again. And that was so helpful to me
Speaker 1: because that constant trying to figure it out. And that's
Speaker 1: part of what you're getting at with the four Noble truths. Right,
Speaker 1: relationships never stabilize the thing us thinking that we should
Speaker 1: And so for me, thinking I should know the answer
Speaker 1: to some of these questions and relationships which are incredibly difficult,
Speaker 1: thinking I should know the answer was a cause of
Speaker 1: great pain to me. And relaxing into Okay, I'm here
Speaker 1: now and i'm gonna I'm gonna be here for this
Speaker 1: period of time was was ultimately really helpful to me.
Speaker 1: That sounds so smart and so kind to yourself and
Speaker 1: to your to your situation. You sort of gave yourself
Speaker 1: some space because I totally get what you're saying, and
Speaker 1: it is so I must have and so painful, and
Speaker 1: it's so difficult when you're in a situation where it
Speaker 1: just doesn't feel right and you don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: That everything that happens you put in the pro or
Speaker 1: con column. You stop seeing the subtleties of your world
Speaker 1: and you just see stay or go. But inspiration and knowing,
Speaker 1: knowingness and interestinct come from space. They come when you
Speaker 1: make space. You can't think your way into intuition or
Speaker 1: inspiration or knowing, but if you make space, it arises,
Speaker 1: and you're very smart. Idea to just say, well for
Speaker 1: three months, I'm not going to pick up the question
Speaker 1: creates that space. So that that's an awesome story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing that you mentioned in the book, and
Speaker 1: I want to go back to kind of what you
Speaker 1: said before I sort of took us on a slight tangent,
Speaker 1: which was that intimacy is something that can always go deeper.
Speaker 1: And I love that idea that there's no end to
Speaker 1: that that you know, love is this thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of times we think about romance, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: I want to read something that you wrote about passion,
Speaker 1: because I think this is really great. Passion between two
Speaker 1: people will constantly arise, abide, and dissolve. Though this is
Speaker 1: a very difficult thing to navigate, I don't think it
Speaker 1: is a problem. Wishing that you were in a different
Speaker 1: arc of the cycle, however, can be When I read that,
Speaker 1: I was really, really struck by it, because again going
Speaker 1: back to your noble truths, all this stuff is always changing,
Speaker 1: and that's not a problem unless I'm only a with
Speaker 1: a little part of the whole experience and I'm determined
Speaker 1: that that's the part that has to stick around or
Speaker 1: there's a problem, right. And of course, you know, different
Speaker 1: parts of the cycle feel better than other parts of
Speaker 1: the cycle. And if you're upset because you're in a
Speaker 1: part that you don't like, I don't think that's a
Speaker 1: problem either. But I don't think you should deny that
Speaker 1: or it's I don't think it's wrong to feel sad
Speaker 1: or upset or lonely or or whatever you might feel.
Speaker 1: But I think this actually relates to what we were
Speaker 1: just talking about, too, because I love that you chose
Speaker 1: that quote, because it's sort of saying relax. You can
Speaker 1: relax with what is, and in so doing a space
Speaker 1: will open up and then something interesting can happen. But
Speaker 1: when we're constantly driving toward an outcome or you know,
Speaker 1: sort of pounding an agenda, that space is gone, and
Speaker 1: so it's very limiting. Yeah, the quote that has come
Speaker 1: up in so many of the recent interviews, um, just
Speaker 1: because it just seems so relevant all the time right
Speaker 1: now is the I think it's Shins and Young who
Speaker 1: said it, But it's a variation on something that you know,
Speaker 1: thousands of people have said, which is that suffering equals
Speaker 1: pain times resistance. And when you were talking about you know,
Speaker 1: there are parts of that cycle that are more pleasant
Speaker 1: than other parts. Right, So there's a pleasant part and
Speaker 1: there's a less pleasant part. The less pleasant part is
Speaker 1: less pleasant, but it really starts to become suffering when
Speaker 1: I resisted. In Buddhism. There are many ways to talk
Speaker 1: about suffering, and one way is just ordinary suffering that
Speaker 1: is unavoidable where human beings we have losses, we have
Speaker 1: disappointments that you cannot avoid those things. But then there's
Speaker 1: something called the suffering of suffering, which is what you
Speaker 1: add on to it by the way you react to
Speaker 1: it or the way you think about it. So ordinary
Speaker 1: suffering hearts unavoidable. But the part that we add onto
Speaker 1: it of making up stories about it or strategies for
Speaker 1: never having it never happen again and pondering it, and
Speaker 1: that is a kind of suffering that is optional. Makes
Speaker 1: me think of um. We interviewed someone named Tony Bernhard,
Speaker 1: and she's a Buddhist teacher who's dealt with chronic illness
Speaker 1: her whole life, and she talks about physical pain and
Speaker 1: she says, there's really three components to it. There's the
Speaker 1: sensation itself, right, then there is what I'm telling myself
Speaker 1: about the sensation, and then there's what I'm telling myself
Speaker 1: about what it means, and that two of those three
Speaker 1: you can work with. You can't affect the sensation, but
Speaker 1: two of the three types of things that would happen
Speaker 1: there that we consider to be suffering can be worked with.
Speaker 1: And that same sort of analogy applies to everything I
Speaker 1: think on the show. We've tended to say that's the
Speaker 1: difference between pain is unavoidable, it's what happens in life,
Speaker 1: and then suffering is that that ster layer, whereas in
Speaker 1: your case you're calling it suffering, and then you know
Speaker 1: suffering and suffering and it's it's about the same thing.
Speaker 1: And this leads me to something that you wrote that
Speaker 1: I really wanted to talk about because I'm not a
Speaker 1: Buddhist teacher, but Buddhist ideas have influenced me me very
Speaker 1: very deeply. And one of the things that people will
Speaker 1: say about Buddhism is that, you know, they'll hear the
Speaker 1: word non attachment or detachment and they will say, well,
Speaker 1: that's a cold thing, like what is life if you're
Speaker 1: not attached? You know, what kind of life is that?
Speaker 1: To just be sort of about everything. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you elaborate on what you wrote here, but I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna write what you wrote because I think it's
Speaker 1: a great place to start. And I never am able
Speaker 1: to answer this with people, well, which is why I
Speaker 1: grabbed me. I was like, oh, I should remember that,
Speaker 1: but um, non attachment does not mean you do not
Speaker 1: feel the joy and suffering of being human. Rather, it
Speaker 1: means to recognize that everything, every experience, moment, idea, emotion,
Speaker 1: and form will arise abide, and all non attachment is
Speaker 1: about staying on the ride, no matter what exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I said that, so just of course mean to sound
Speaker 1: that way. But I know exactly what you mean because
Speaker 1: I hear that to people wondering, saying, oh, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: be so attached when people get you know, when someone
Speaker 1: gets upset about something which really pisces me off. Um,
Speaker 1: And we think that non attachment means sort of converting
Speaker 1: everything into an equal tone like a mid range, or
Speaker 1: not getting upset by upsetting things. And actually non attachment
Speaker 1: means the opposite. It means feeling everything fully, directly on
Speaker 1: the spot, and then moving on when with it, not
Speaker 1: not too soon and not too late. But it means
Speaker 1: opening and feeling everything fully. It means the opposite of
Speaker 1: what most people think. This is my interpretation, which is
Speaker 1: a kind of reserve. It means going way towards what
Speaker 1: you're experiencing, not being reserved about it. And I have
Speaker 1: to say I also noticed that people that tout non
Speaker 1: attachment as an important strategy and marker of spiritual progress
Speaker 1: are very attached to their ideas. It's about non attachment.
Speaker 1: So it's impossible to be attached to the idea of
Speaker 1: non attachment. And you know that's a misstep. I'm guilty
Speaker 1: as charged on that when it points in my life.
Speaker 1: You know, like you know, your reaction is too much,
Speaker 1: You should be more. I like that idea. Everything should
Speaker 1: be the same tone. A spiritual teacher I really admire
Speaker 1: says it in the way of you know, this is
Speaker 1: not freedom from things, this is freedom to experience them.
Speaker 1: So it's not freedom from experience it's freedom to have
Speaker 1: experience fully to go into it, you know, And I
Speaker 1: just love that's a slight twist on like one word,
Speaker 1: but it really gets to kind of what we're we're
Speaker 1: talking about, which is that a spiritual practice done right,
Speaker 1: at least for me, means that I can experience life.
Speaker 1: I don't have to hide. And so I I just
Speaker 1: was really struck by the way you worded non attachment
Speaker 1: and that idea of that. We think making everything an
Speaker 1: even tone is what non attachment is. So um, it
Speaker 1: was a good thing to have to to be able
Speaker 1: to answer people because that is the most confounding question
Speaker 1: I get. And that's almost always the criticism of Buddhism
Speaker 1: that I hear from people. It's it's that one, you know,
Speaker 1: it's about not feeling like, what's life if you don't
Speaker 1: feel anything? Yeah, well, good luck with that. It's also
Speaker 1: it's very misplaced, but I understand, I understand how it's
Speaker 1: easy to interpret it that way. But when you say
Speaker 1: a spiritual path done right, and the first thing that
Speaker 1: I thought of was a spiritual path done right in
Speaker 1: the Buddhist view as I understand it, which is limited
Speaker 1: is your life. There's no difference between the spiritual path
Speaker 1: and your life. Your life is the spiritual path. So
Speaker 1: ideas about non attachment and detachment and some notion that
Speaker 1: you should become somewhat inhuman is the opposite of the
Speaker 1: Buddhist teachings, which says fully human, fully here. My friend
Speaker 1: Michael Carroll, a wonderful teacher and writer, says in meditation,
Speaker 1: we're not trying to get anywhere, which of course is
Speaker 1: sometimes hard to swallow because we have an agenda for
Speaker 1: our meditation practice. But no, he says, we're not trying
Speaker 1: to get anywhere, and this I think is true of
Speaker 1: the entire path. We're trying to be somewhere. That is
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful thing that he said. And non attachment
Speaker 1: means non attachment to everything except for where you are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that being. You know, it's not about trying
Speaker 1: to go somewhere, it's about trying to be somewhere. That's
Speaker 1: really resonates and I think, you know, my meditation practice
Speaker 1: has really transformed and it continues to transform the more
Speaker 1: that I learned to do this, which is to really
Speaker 1: let it be. And the the challenge with that is
Speaker 1: it's very counterintuitive. On one level, because what I do
Speaker 1: most of the days, I just let my mind be
Speaker 1: and it runs all over creation and all kinds of
Speaker 1: bad patterns. I mean, just like doing absolutely nothing right
Speaker 1: isn't exactly what works, you know, for for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. So I think when we go into meditation,
Speaker 1: we get this sense like, Okay, now the job is
Speaker 1: to kind of pin this thing down and get it
Speaker 1: into this space. And I've really been working with learning
Speaker 1: how do you do both those things? How do you like?
Speaker 1: And I love the precision and the openness, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you have the precision of staying with that
Speaker 1: thing and the openness that allows everything else to happen
Speaker 1: around it? And it's it really has deepened my meditation
Speaker 1: practice and my appreciation for what we're really trying to do.
Speaker 1: And I read meditation books for a lot of years,
Speaker 1: and I know people were saying this. I am not
Speaker 1: saying that this was like not written. I just didn't
Speaker 1: hear it for a long time. Right, I know what
Speaker 1: you mean, You know what you mean. Chuggyam Trump Tibetan
Speaker 1: meditation master who brought the Shambala teachings the lineage that
Speaker 1: I practiced in. I was just reading rereading an incredible
Speaker 1: book that he wrote called Cutting through Spiritual Materialism, which
Speaker 1: is actually the very first book I ever read when
Speaker 1: I started meditating, and actually have it right here so
Speaker 1: I can read you this one sentence quote. Meditation is
Speaker 1: not a question of forcing the mind back to some
Speaker 1: particular object, but of bringing it back down from the
Speaker 1: dream world into reality. Oh that was a microdrop moment
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, we're not trying to get somewhere. We're
Speaker 1: not trying to even be good at meditating, because who cares.
Speaker 1: If you're the world's best follower of the breath, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. We're trying to be good at being here,
Speaker 1: coming down from the dream world into reality, which is
Speaker 1: fierce and beautiful and horrifying and confounding and joyous. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's a great line. So we are at the end
Speaker 1: of our time here. You and I are going to
Speaker 1: go have a little bit more of a post show
Speaker 1: conversation that is available to our Patreon supporters, so if
Speaker 1: you're interested, folks, check that out. And I think what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about is the I'm never going
Speaker 1: to say this right, uh. The psychoanalyst Karen Horney, the
Speaker 1: Hornevian directional theory. So I've actually pronounced horn I, which
Speaker 1: saves us the embarrassment of saying horny parents horn I
Speaker 1: and the Hornevian directional theory, which I love talking about,
Speaker 1: so forward to that. Yeah, I mean I read it.
Speaker 1: I was like, how have I never heard this before?
Speaker 1: Because it it is really a powerful thing. So we're
Speaker 1: going to do that in the post show conversation. But Susan,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking the time to come back
Speaker 1: on and writing an other wonderful book. Oh thank you.
Speaker 1: It's always such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for allowing me to do so. Okay bye.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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