Speaker 1: One of the things we say at the One You
Speaker 1: Feed a lot is that there's no shortcut to lasting happiness. Right,
Speaker 1: We've got to do the work to improve our lives,
Speaker 1: but this can be really challenging to do without some support.
Speaker 1: Our lives are busy, there's a lot of things clawing
Speaker 1: at our attention, and we might have ways of working
Speaker 1: with our thoughts, emotions and behaviors that are not very
Speaker 1: good for our well being. So if you'd like help
Speaker 1: working on any or all of those things, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of spots that have just opened up in
Speaker 1: my one on one coaching practice. You can book a
Speaker 1: free thirty minute call to talk with me, no pressure,
Speaker 1: and we get to know each other at One you
Speaker 1: Feed dot net slash coach. Rather than flail desperately for knowledge,
Speaker 1: why don't we just accept that One way of apprehending
Speaker 1: all of that is just to accept that there's so
Speaker 1: much we don't know and to become comfortable with it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, And yet for many of us. Our
Speaker 1: 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 Reverence A.
Speaker 1: Foo anneil Sing Morales, the executive director of Spiritual Directors
Speaker 1: International and an ordained Zen Buddhist priest. He's a practicing
Speaker 1: spiritual director and companion and motivational speaker. In a previous life,
Speaker 1: he was also an executive at Microsoft, where he successfully
Speaker 1: grew international groups and divisions and provided leadership to multicultural
Speaker 1: teams around the world. Hi, say Food, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to have
Speaker 1: you on. You are the executive director of Spiritual Directors
Speaker 1: International and have a wide background in a lot of areas,
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into really what spiritual direction
Speaker 1: is in general in a moment. But we're gonna start
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the parable. There is 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. One 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, and she looks up at her
Speaker 1: grandfather and she says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. Thank you for that wonderful parable. My response
Speaker 1: to it is, we have choices. We become our intentions. Right,
Speaker 1: If our intention is to model kindness compassion so that
Speaker 1: we can become kindness and compassion incarnet, you know, to
Speaker 1: become it, then we have to work at it, and
Speaker 1: we have to practice it, and we have to build
Speaker 1: on it. And if we choose, for a variety of
Speaker 1: reasons to go in the other direction, you know, it's
Speaker 1: usually childhood trauma or actually sometimes willful choices in a
Speaker 1: negative direction, then we become those negative intentions as well.
Speaker 1: So for me, it basically speaks too. We have choices
Speaker 1: in life, not as many as we think, but we
Speaker 1: have some choices in life, and the choice to be
Speaker 1: a good person, an ethical person, a responsible person is
Speaker 1: something that we choose, is something that we need to practice. Wonderful.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great starting place for us. I'd
Speaker 1: like to start with just the basics. You know, for
Speaker 1: people who are not familiar, what is spiritual direction or
Speaker 1: I know another term that is used a lot of
Speaker 1: spiritual companionship. So pick whichever of those terms you like
Speaker 1: and tell us for people who have no idea what
Speaker 1: that is, what spiritual direction is. So they're both great terms. I,
Speaker 1: as a Buddhist priest, use the term of spiritual companion
Speaker 1: which derives from one of the oldest recorded sutras in
Speaker 1: the Tripitaka, which is the polygon on the Sacred Text
Speaker 1: of Buddhism, where the Buddha says that to Ananda, who
Speaker 1: is his chief disciple, that spiritual friendship, companionship, camaraderie is
Speaker 1: the highest form of the spiritual life. It's basically the
Speaker 1: entirety of the of the spiritual life, and so that
Speaker 1: comes from the Buddhist tradition, but it comes also in Christianity,
Speaker 1: and it comes in Islam, and it comes in all
Speaker 1: of the world's major religions, and it has certain hallmarks
Speaker 1: that distinguish it. It's not just let's go have a
Speaker 1: beer and talk about God. It's actually something far more
Speaker 1: involved than that. It's based on deep listening. And deep
Speaker 1: listening is really kind of allowing the person that we
Speaker 1: companion to reveal to themselves, principally how they want to
Speaker 1: connect with the Great Beyond or God or the universe
Speaker 1: or Allah, however you might want to describe that. The
Speaker 1: spiritual direction relationship spiritual companies of relationship is one where
Speaker 1: that person is allowed to reveal to her or himself
Speaker 1: how they feel about these deeper issues of meaning and
Speaker 1: engagement must far beyond the confines of our daily lives.
Speaker 1: So there's various modalities, but it's deep listening is very
Speaker 1: contemplatively grounded so that we can practice not being reactive.
Speaker 1: It's deeply respectful of the agency of the people that
Speaker 1: were with So those are some of the hallmarks of
Speaker 1: that relationship. I was trained as an interface spiritual director,
Speaker 1: so I have that training and certification, and one of
Speaker 1: the people that helped me in that training or I
Speaker 1: worked a lot with, was somebody I'm sure you're familiar with,
Speaker 1: John Maybury who has written extensively on spiritual direction, and
Speaker 1: he has an analogy that I like which he says
Speaker 1: that the role of the spiritual director is to be
Speaker 1: a couple's counselor between the person you're working with and
Speaker 1: the divine. Now, again, we can use lots of different terms.
Speaker 1: Between the divine. We could say to be a couple's
Speaker 1: counselor between a person and their truest reality, their their
Speaker 1: deepest nature. Again we can use the term. But I
Speaker 1: love that analogy because it sort of points it back
Speaker 1: to the goal is to facilitate a relationship between that
Speaker 1: person and deeper reality. Not that there's not a relationship
Speaker 1: between us and the people we companion, but the more
Speaker 1: important relationship is between the people we companion and their
Speaker 1: own essential nature or God. Yeah, I completely agree with that.
Speaker 1: I think that's our role of spiritual companion and spiritual
Speaker 1: directors is to be a mirror to those folks as
Speaker 1: they unfurrol for themselves, you know, this deeper relationship, this
Speaker 1: deeper meeting. I often describe it as it's not so
Speaker 1: much a journey of discovery for them, it's a journey
Speaker 1: of remembering, right, because we're all born with this innate
Speaker 1: ability to connect on a on the deepest level with
Speaker 1: our essence, and we're really talking about our universal lessons again,
Speaker 1: God allow whatever, however you want to describe it, and
Speaker 1: it's really allowing ourselves to remember and feel back into
Speaker 1: that most intimate. You know, we talked about the intimate infinite.
Speaker 1: You know, as a Zen practitioner yourself that that's probably
Speaker 1: a term you may have heard. It's developing intimacy with
Speaker 1: the infinite, and it's remembering that. And absolutely our role
Speaker 1: as spiritual to actors and spiritual companions is to walk
Speaker 1: alongside that person as they take increasing steps into that remembrance,
Speaker 1: into that greater awareness. Yeah, there's a quote I wanted
Speaker 1: to grab here real quick because as you said it,
Speaker 1: I thought about it, and you use that phrase the
Speaker 1: intimate infinite, which I love, which is a phrase that
Speaker 1: I think, at least I originally heard it from gen
Speaker 1: Joe Marinello, who is I think your Zen teacher and
Speaker 1: was a spiritual director for me at one point in
Speaker 1: my life. But I came across this quote today and
Speaker 1: it says, the practice of Zen is forgetting the self
Speaker 1: in the act of uniting with something. And I love
Speaker 1: this idea in so much of Zen around intimacy. It's
Speaker 1: the way that I have most connected with Zen, is
Speaker 1: this idea of becoming intimate with things by connecting to
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, I agree. It brings up that quote
Speaker 1: from Dogan. You know, to study the self is to
Speaker 1: forget the self, and I would add another line, to
Speaker 1: forget the self is to remember the self, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there is no self, ultimately, no individual, egoistic self, but
Speaker 1: there is this great splash of water that we're all
Speaker 1: a part of. It's ineffable, it's intuitively reachable. It's also
Speaker 1: intellectually reachable to some extent, although that can become an
Speaker 1: obstacle very quickly. The intellect. You know. I use the
Speaker 1: analogy of climbing up a mountain, right, and if you
Speaker 1: don't have training and you climb up a mountain, you
Speaker 1: could go off onto a path that's going to lead
Speaker 1: you to a ravine or to a place where you
Speaker 1: don't have enough oxygen. The spiritual companion is just kind
Speaker 1: of like a train mountain guide who walks alongside of
Speaker 1: you as you ascend the mountain. And of course what
Speaker 1: you're going to see when you get to the top
Speaker 1: of the mountain is what you're going to see, right,
Speaker 1: it's your view. It's this beautiful view, but it's your view.
Speaker 1: And even if I'm sitting next to you as your companion,
Speaker 1: what I see is different because of who I am.
Speaker 1: The spiritual directed relationship is very similar to that. It's
Speaker 1: just a trained mountain guide who escorts you and walks
Speaker 1: alongside of you. And of course the beautiful part of
Speaker 1: that is that if I'm your spiritual director spiritual companion,
Speaker 1: I get to see that view for myself too, right,
Speaker 1: So I get to walk through that door with you,
Speaker 1: even though we're both going to see very different things
Speaker 1: and we're going to react differently to them. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about spiritual direction in contrast to a couple of
Speaker 1: other roles that it's often confused with. You know, how
Speaker 1: is the spiritual director different than my pastor, my priest,
Speaker 1: my reverend. You're in the zen tradition, you have a
Speaker 1: zend teacher. How is the spiritual director different than those roles.
Speaker 1: There's some similarities, which is why I think people get
Speaker 1: easily confused with that. The spiritual director, as we were
Speaker 1: just discussing, it usually happens on a one to one basis,
Speaker 1: although it can happen one too many. So that's one
Speaker 1: key distinction. Right the pastor's up there and ministering two
Speaker 1: hundreds of people are dozens of people, and it's one
Speaker 1: too many. So that intimacy that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: there's one of the hallmarks of a good spiritual direction
Speaker 1: relationship is that it gives you a maximum amount of attention, focus, mindfulness,
Speaker 1: mindful attention to you, and deep listening. You know, we're
Speaker 1: kind of like cushion, if you will, a qushion for
Speaker 1: others to sit on so that they can more easily
Speaker 1: navigate their way into an exploration of the unknown and
Speaker 1: exploration of the beyond or God. So that's one key difference.
Speaker 1: Pastors tend to minister too many folks. Spiritual directors tend
Speaker 1: to be one on one. But it is part to
Speaker 1: this all intimacy conversation, which is as much easier to
Speaker 1: achieve intimacy safety comfort and trust, you know, one to
Speaker 1: one relationship than it usually is in a group setting.
Speaker 1: Not that there's not beauty in community and great comfort
Speaker 1: and support, but that has some complicating factors as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's often also a difference in hierarchy or
Speaker 1: authority or power in some priest reverend to congregation situation
Speaker 1: that the teachers in exalted position, they are often above
Speaker 1: or in some ways. Again that's not ideal, but it
Speaker 1: it often has that connotation where I think in spiritual direction,
Speaker 1: particularly when you use the word spiritual companionship, that's not
Speaker 1: really what we're aiming for. Yeah, I think that's a
Speaker 1: very good analysis. In my role as a priest, I'm
Speaker 1: holding a container, right, I'm holding the container of Zen
Speaker 1: with all of its rituals and practices and meditation and
Speaker 1: Buddhas and you know, all all of that. In my
Speaker 1: role as a spiritual companion, you're holding your container as
Speaker 1: you develop it, and my job is to support you,
Speaker 1: not to say use my container. You know, that's something
Speaker 1: that good spiritual rights to spiritual companions never do. It's
Speaker 1: just it's not a question of my container, it's your container.
Speaker 1: It's your emerging awareness of how you want to frame
Speaker 1: your spirituality how you want to grow within it. That's
Speaker 1: a good distinction. Ericon, I agree with that. It's the
Speaker 1: difference between holding a container for others as opposed to
Speaker 1: helping someone create or live into their own. So what
Speaker 1: sort of thing happens in a spiritual direction session? I mean,
Speaker 1: I know there's lots of different approaches, but there's some
Speaker 1: general guidelines. What do you usually see happen in a
Speaker 1: spiritual direction session? As far as like you know, by happen,
Speaker 1: I don't mean like what's the outcome, I mean sort
Speaker 1: of like what actually goes on during a spiritual direction session.
Speaker 1: I think it's different with every individual, right, because we
Speaker 1: all have different approaches to it. So we start with
Speaker 1: the premise that that we're in this relationship together because
Speaker 1: you are coming to me to help assist you with
Speaker 1: your exploration of the divine or God or the universe.
Speaker 1: So it starts with that, and then it's kind of
Speaker 1: like Freud or Young right from a psychological standpoint, anything
Speaker 1: you say, as unrelated as you think it is, is
Speaker 1: actually your entry point into this exploration, even if you're
Speaker 1: not consciously aware of it immediately. So usually people talk
Speaker 1: about their experiences with established religions, because most people have
Speaker 1: had some. Actually in all the generations, that's more often
Speaker 1: true than in younger generations. I have a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids and they don't go to church, and they have
Speaker 1: never gone to church, but in some sense of spirituality,
Speaker 1: it starts with that, which immediately then you know these
Speaker 1: issues you were talking about, hierarchy and authority and who
Speaker 1: gets to determine what? Then you know, I heard so
Speaker 1: and so say this, and what about that? And then
Speaker 1: we unpack those things. And actually at my job as
Speaker 1: a spiritual director and spiritual companion is just to support
Speaker 1: that person as they unpack. And so you go from
Speaker 1: kind of circling around the issue very quickly to oh,
Speaker 1: here's really what I want to address today. And this
Speaker 1: is not me as the spiritual director, as the person
Speaker 1: that I'm with who says I figured it out, this
Speaker 1: is what I believe about this, or this is what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about or questioning if they don't really know
Speaker 1: yet where they are the circle. And then we get
Speaker 1: pretty granular or pretty quickly as people realize what they
Speaker 1: want to explore. So it looks a lot in some
Speaker 1: ways than like a therapy session there's two people sitting
Speaker 1: in a room talking about something for usually about an hour.
Speaker 1: Again there's variation. So that's one model of it. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of spiritual directors also bring in other
Speaker 1: tools though, beyond just talking. Yeah, so contemplation, that's right.
Speaker 1: I mean there's a talk therapy element to it, which
Speaker 1: is we talk about these things, and contemplative practices are
Speaker 1: a big part of it too, which is that a
Speaker 1: lot of what triggers us in terms of our relationship
Speaker 1: with God, just to use one metaphor, the relationship with
Speaker 1: the vine, relationship with the universe is what I'm indicating,
Speaker 1: triggers things within us, and lessening our reactivity through contemplative
Speaker 1: practices is a great tool. So moments of silence, moments
Speaker 1: of mutual contemplation kind of our interspersed with the talk
Speaker 1: therapy component, or music or you know, it can be
Speaker 1: in any number of things that people bring in in
Speaker 1: the Zen tradition. In Rinsey Zen, we act these things
Speaker 1: out through quan study, these quans where you actually have
Speaker 1: to present your understanding. If we are coming to a
Speaker 1: spiritual rctor, we present our understanding and that person mirrors
Speaker 1: back to us what they see and then we go, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, let me think about that. Let's take a
Speaker 1: few minutes in silence. And so the contemplative part of
Speaker 1: spiritual direction is very important, whether you do it through
Speaker 1: prayer or meditation or dancing or whatever it is in
Speaker 1: the session and especially outside the session, in anticipation of
Speaker 1: the session and prepare for it our other modalities that
Speaker 1: I think are part of it as well. So in
Speaker 1: some sense, spiritual direction and spiritual companionship leads us into
Speaker 1: an exploration of the unknown and the unknowable. And that's
Speaker 1: a really difficult place for most people to find themselves in. Right.
Speaker 1: We like certainty in our lives. We like things that
Speaker 1: we can hold on to. We like things that give
Speaker 1: us feelings of safety and certainty. And this particular practice,
Speaker 1: spiritual direction, actually invites us into unknown and unknowable spaces.
Speaker 1: And it's really an invitation to become comfortable with change,
Speaker 1: to become comfortable with uncertainty, to become intimate with things
Speaker 1: that normally trigger us into a defensive posture. Right, most
Speaker 1: people don't want that uncertainty in their lives. They're looking
Speaker 1: for Please tell me how to live my life. Please
Speaker 1: tell me how I should model my relationship with the
Speaker 1: divine and really what this exploration leads is in a
Speaker 1: completely opposite direction. That's one of the things that I
Speaker 1: went through my training that was so interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got years of background as a coach. You know,
Speaker 1: as a coach there are some similarities between coaching and
Speaker 1: spiritual direction, but there is also a place in spiritual
Speaker 1: direction where we more want to let the person find
Speaker 1: their way into their own thing now, and a good
Speaker 1: coach will do the same thing, ask questions and lead
Speaker 1: people around to their own conclusions. But there's also a
Speaker 1: point where it's like, well, here's what I think you
Speaker 1: might want to do. And I'm not saying there's never
Speaker 1: a role for that in spiritual direction, but that emphasis
Speaker 1: on the unknown and the relaxing into uncertainty, relaxing into silence,
Speaker 1: relaxing into that is a key part of the dynamic.
Speaker 1: You know, it can be a beautiful thing, right, I
Speaker 1: mean most people are fearful of it, are scared of it,
Speaker 1: and for good reason. Right, You're basically plunging into the
Speaker 1: abyss with no safety net, right, no arness, nothing to
Speaker 1: hold you up. We're talking about faith now, right, and
Speaker 1: that means lots of different things to different people, But
Speaker 1: in practice of spiritual direction of the spiritual companionship is
Speaker 1: really becoming comfortable with kind of floating out in space
Speaker 1: on your own and being okay with that. And if
Speaker 1: we become comfortable habitually by developing habits around it, where
Speaker 1: we become very familiar with floating in space. And I'm
Speaker 1: using this as a metaphor of floating in space alone.
Speaker 1: And then you know, things like life and death are
Speaker 1: greatest fear is you know we're going to die, and
Speaker 1: what's going to happen when we die? Everything is over
Speaker 1: and our relationships are over, those start to dissipate. So
Speaker 1: that's a beautiful outcome of living into questions rather than
Speaker 1: looking for answers. I would say, yeah, there's that famous
Speaker 1: real Ud quote about learning to live the questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had some shorthand for spiritual Actually would be just that,
Speaker 1: learning to live into the question, learning to be comfortable
Speaker 1: in a question in space and comfortable with it. That's
Speaker 1: our ultimate space. Anyway. You know, we were these fragments,
Speaker 1: these specs of dust, in an seemingly infinite universe that
Speaker 1: we are only just beginning to understand. In many ways.
Speaker 1: So rather than flail desperately for knowledge, why don't we
Speaker 1: just accept that one way of apprehending all of that
Speaker 1: is just to accept that there's so much we don't
Speaker 1: know and to become comfortable with it. Yep, that's another
Speaker 1: very Zen idea. Right not knowing is most intimate. Let's
Speaker 1: change directions just a little bit here. I want to
Speaker 1: see if you could help us do a little translation.
Speaker 1: And what I mean by translation is that you have
Speaker 1: a pretty wide spiritual background. You've got shamanic education, You've
Speaker 1: been as Zen priest for a long time. I believe
Speaker 1: you have some degrees in Ristian theology. And what I
Speaker 1: thought might be fun and interesting to do would be
Speaker 1: to have you take some Christian ideas and present them
Speaker 1: in more broad spiritual terms. The reason this came to
Speaker 1: me is I've listened to a couple of the conversations
Speaker 1: that you've had in the past. I've heard you jump
Speaker 1: between these ideas very quickly. I've heard you'd be like, well,
Speaker 1: in Christianity would say da and and then we might
Speaker 1: do da da da. And I know we have a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners who come from a Christian background, and
Speaker 1: that's not really where they're at anymore. But I also
Speaker 1: know that those people love when they can hear their
Speaker 1: faith described in ways that feel less rigid and more
Speaker 1: open to them and really connect the faith of maybe
Speaker 1: their childhood or younger years too, maybe more of their
Speaker 1: mature spiritual understanding now. And so I thought, maybe you
Speaker 1: could just translate a couple of key Christian ideas and
Speaker 1: talk about how they look in a nun. I don't
Speaker 1: even know if not denominational is the right word, because
Speaker 1: that tends to be sort of within Christian But you
Speaker 1: get the gist of what I'm trying to ask, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. So what do you think might be a
Speaker 1: couple of terms we could play with here? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean the easiest and the most complicated at the same time.
Speaker 1: Is this notion of God the Holy Spirit. There's lots
Speaker 1: of other archetypes that are built in their Jesus and Mary,
Speaker 1: even Joseph. So take your pick. Let's start with the
Speaker 1: big one. Let's just swing for the fences with God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think for me, and and thank you
Speaker 1: for referencing my background. My father is from India and Hindu.
Speaker 1: My mother is from Spain and from a very Roman
Speaker 1: Catholic family and I degrees are in comparative religions, and
Speaker 1: I've been done that for a long time. I think
Speaker 1: what I look for is what I think probably a
Speaker 1: lot of the people that you're referencing are looking for,
Speaker 1: is authenticity. What is the authenticity behind this form? Right?
Speaker 1: So I always say I wear these robes that in
Speaker 1: our training and training it's like, you know, someday we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to burn the rose before they become the
Speaker 1: weight that ties us down and prevents us from proceeding
Speaker 1: any further. And so what is this essence that all
Speaker 1: the world's great religious is pointing to? And I would
Speaker 1: say it's a mystical essence. It's a transcendent, imminent essence. Right,
Speaker 1: It's what the Holy Spirit calls us to. It's what
Speaker 1: the mystery of God calls us to. It's this exploration
Speaker 1: into the unknown that we were talking about earlier. That
Speaker 1: is my sense of the pool that connects us all.
Speaker 1: It's the essential mystery. And mystery is probably the wrong
Speaker 1: term because it is noble intuitively, emotively, it's it's hard
Speaker 1: to get a handle on intellectually, but it is something
Speaker 1: that we can experience very very viscerally and and truthfully,
Speaker 1: if you will, that concept of God as expansive and loving.
Speaker 1: That's the word we can talk about a little more
Speaker 1: if you want, and how to reach into that Beyond
Speaker 1: the structures, as I said, of these rogues are various
Speaker 1: theologies or institutions that kind of can have the potential
Speaker 1: to pull us away from that essence rather than bring
Speaker 1: us closer to it, which should be their intention. Is
Speaker 1: what I look for when I speak about mystical Christianity.
Speaker 1: The message of Jesus is that transcendent core. And when
Speaker 1: you're using the term mystical, are you using it in
Speaker 1: the sense of largely being a direct experience of Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a direct experience And in fact that's probably enough
Speaker 1: set right there, right, it's this this, right, just even
Speaker 1: that word, this, this essence that we are always a
Speaker 1: part of and will always be a part of, even
Speaker 1: when we are no longer in these bodies. Right then,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about reincarnation of you know, but there's
Speaker 1: lots of terms that people can give to it, or
Speaker 1: the afterlife or heaven however, has been described theologically for
Speaker 1: hundreds thousands of years. You can even look at it
Speaker 1: from a scientific perspective, right, it's energy that continues, it's
Speaker 1: energy that remains imminent always. We are always a part
Speaker 1: of it in these bodies and out of these bodies
Speaker 1: that source that essence. I can't remember who I was
Speaker 1: talking recently about the energy that causes the trees to grow,
Speaker 1: that causes you know, the caterpillar to turn into a butterfly.
Speaker 1: This energy that flows through everything, and this intelligence that
Speaker 1: flows through everything. And I would say even more, this
Speaker 1: love that flows through everything. As you were saying, yes,
Speaker 1: I have degrees in comparative religions and theology and philosophy
Speaker 1: and all of this, and after years and years of studying,
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence that amazon priest, which is a
Speaker 1: reaction if you will, do a lot of that, right,
Speaker 1: because I know that love permeates the universe, and if
Speaker 1: you ask me to explain it to you, I mean
Speaker 1: I could spend hours and hours trying to explain it
Speaker 1: to you, but it's something that you can feel. Right.
Speaker 1: So a lot of Christians, in my experience, have a
Speaker 1: deep and intimate connection with Jesus because of the love
Speaker 1: that he represents, or God because of the love that
Speaker 1: God represents, and it is so profound and so deep
Speaker 1: and so meaningful. It's hard to explain, but it's there.
Speaker 1: And as a Buddhist I can say the same thing
Speaker 1: as Sain Buddhists, I can say, I have a profound
Speaker 1: connection with the love in the universe, which kind of
Speaker 1: dictates how I live my life. Which is what you
Speaker 1: want all great spiritual disciplines to do, is to help
Speaker 1: you find that purpose, that meaning, because if we're not
Speaker 1: here to love one another, but what are we doing here? Right?
Speaker 1: What's the greater purpose of us all being here? And
Speaker 1: so I really believe in that, and I think that
Speaker 1: all of the world. So will they just point to
Speaker 1: that essence, the essence of love? What about Jesus? What's
Speaker 1: a way of broadening the concept of Jesus? You sort
Speaker 1: of alluded to it there a little bit. Is there
Speaker 1: any more you want to add to that? Beyond just love?
Speaker 1: I think Jesus is an invitation, and that's how I've
Speaker 1: always taken him. Although you know it's him, it's her,
Speaker 1: it's beyond both of those, something much greater than just
Speaker 1: one gender. But it's an invitation, and it's an invitation
Speaker 1: that is not just let's you know, frolic through a
Speaker 1: field of daffodils and feel good. Right. I mean there's
Speaker 1: pain and suffering there, and that's part of the difficulties
Speaker 1: that we have to overcome, and we all experienced them
Speaker 1: in our lives. There's no getting away from it. Right.
Speaker 1: We're going to experience loss and suffering and heartbreak, and
Speaker 1: that's part of the journey. That's an essential part of
Speaker 1: the journey into this love, and it's what gives love
Speaker 1: meaning because love transcends. And I think that Jesus is
Speaker 1: such a powerful figure in representing that combination of suffering,
Speaker 1: pain and heartbreak and loss and at the same time,
Speaker 1: in the same breath, the redemptory promise and invitation of love,
Speaker 1: of transcending love. That's why I find him such a
Speaker 1: powerful and such a meaningful figure. The stories of Jesus,
Speaker 1: the ideas of Jesus are really beautiful. It sometimes feels
Speaker 1: like such a shame that in a lot of cases
Speaker 1: it feels like that message has been co opted. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people who are outside of the
Speaker 1: Christian tradition who look in and they see the outward
Speaker 1: manifestations of what some Christians in America have become, and
Speaker 1: that becomes a way of sort of condemning the whole idea.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the life of Jesus such
Speaker 1: as it was written about the person that's described the
Speaker 1: things that he has to say, it's a beautiful and
Speaker 1: powerful and compassionate and strong. It's kind of amazing. It's
Speaker 1: very moving. You know. I've been lucky enough where I
Speaker 1: can say things like Jesus has touched my heart, and
Speaker 1: I'm outside of the tradition now and in many ways,
Speaker 1: and I'm inside the tradition even more than ever at
Speaker 1: the same time, in the sense of outside of the
Speaker 1: institutions and inside the heart of his message is much
Speaker 1: as I possibly can because of its promise and its invitation.
Speaker 1: But not just the promise in the invitation, but if
Speaker 1: we walk the path of the heart, whether it's as
Speaker 1: through Christianity, as Christians outside of an institution, or you know,
Speaker 1: as a Buddhist or as a person that has no religion,
Speaker 1: the spiritual but not religious person, shall we say that
Speaker 1: that will lead us to a much deeper understanding of
Speaker 1: our purpose in this life. What's the word spiritual mean
Speaker 1: to you? We're talking about being a spiritual director, of
Speaker 1: spiritual companion you're the director of Spiritual Directors International. But
Speaker 1: that term, you know, I've got a program we lead
Speaker 1: called Spiritual Habits. Right, this term gets thrown around a ton,
Speaker 1: and I'm always curious what it means to individuals. What
Speaker 1: does it mean to you individually? Thank you for that question.
Speaker 1: I mean for me, obviously, it's words or words. Right.
Speaker 1: As a Zen practitioner yourself, you can probably appreciate this.
Speaker 1: Let's be careful and not get stuck on the words,
Speaker 1: because otherwise we're going to be spending our wheels for
Speaker 1: a lifetime. Actually not just for the length of this interview,
Speaker 1: but spiritual for me means an attempt, an invitation, desire
Speaker 1: to commune with essence. We were just talking about mysticism
Speaker 1: and the mystical experience to some degree, and Jesus and
Speaker 1: his example, and we could talk about Muhammad and Buddha
Speaker 1: and so many other spiritual beings living and dead, and
Speaker 1: it's really an invitation to depth and intimacy. It's basically
Speaker 1: actually a requirement. It basically says, if you want to
Speaker 1: reach these deep waters, you have to immerse yourself. So
Speaker 1: when I say spirit it's an invitation to a journey,
Speaker 1: an exploration of the unknown, a walk through fields of
Speaker 1: suffering and despair on the road to a rediscovery or
Speaker 1: remembering of the ultimate love and beauty in the universe.
Speaker 1: That's what spirit means to me. But I've invested, you know,
Speaker 1: forty years on that journey. For me, it means depth
Speaker 1: and immersion. I love that depth and immersion. A shorthand
Speaker 1: I often like is connection to what matters, because I
Speaker 1: think different things matter to different people, but when we
Speaker 1: are connected to what matters for me, that often feels
Speaker 1: like what I may mean for We've talked about my
Speaker 1: zen background a little bit, got sober at twenty four
Speaker 1: from heroin addiction, so I have a recovery background, and
Speaker 1: you know, A talks a lot about connection to a
Speaker 1: higher power, connection to God. And I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time wrestling with that idea because I didn't really
Speaker 1: believe in a interventionist god. I didn't believe there was
Speaker 1: a God who was coming in and arranging my life
Speaker 1: in a certain way. And I finally just sort of
Speaker 1: over time hit on for me that it was connection
Speaker 1: to whatever it is that matters to me. That's beautifully sad.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna change directions again here, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about music. You are a classical guitar player.
Speaker 1: I have heard some of your music. You and I
Speaker 1: are similar. You guys put out a podcast and the
Speaker 1: music in the podcast is you playing guitar. And our
Speaker 1: podcast that comes out there are two music breaks per
Speaker 1: episode and intro music and that music is all created
Speaker 1: by myself and my producer Chris. Now, you are a
Speaker 1: beautiful classical guitar player. I cannot play as well as you,
Speaker 1: but I want to talk about the role of music
Speaker 1: in your spiritual journey and the role of how music
Speaker 1: helps you maybe into that invitation to depth and intimacy.
Speaker 1: You know, my first really meaningful spiritual experience, as we're
Speaker 1: using that term, was I was living in Brussels. I
Speaker 1: was grew up in Brussels before coming to the States,
Speaker 1: and I went to school uh College cur which is
Speaker 1: the Holy Heart School, which was associated with the Basilic
Speaker 1: in Brussels. Mozilic is one of the just in the world,
Speaker 1: and with the stained glass windows and ornaments and those
Speaker 1: sorts of things, and I remember being six and walking
Speaker 1: into that Basilia and having a sense of the awe
Speaker 1: and the majesty of God. If you will. Right, and
Speaker 1: this little kid walking into this huge basilic and obviously
Speaker 1: I was spiritually inclined even then, and I was so moved.
Speaker 1: And what triggered it? I mean, the enormity of the
Speaker 1: building contributed to it. But there was a choir singing
Speaker 1: Grigorian chance, you know, these beautiful harmonies and choruses. This
Speaker 1: choir was producing these sounds that were just so moving
Speaker 1: and so powerful, and they transmit music helps transport us
Speaker 1: to those places. It helps kind of grease the wheels,
Speaker 1: if you will. Maybe that's a poor analogy, but it
Speaker 1: helps take us there. And it can be Greek in chance,
Speaker 1: it could be Beethove, and it could be you know,
Speaker 1: a classical guitar of various kinds. For me, it can
Speaker 1: often be chanting, chanting Buddhist sutras, and there's a power there.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful way to enter that space. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: find it one of the most important and powerful ways
Speaker 1: for me to connect with something more. I was trying
Speaker 1: to think of my first musical experiences that felt transcendent,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, was it like it's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: like Billy Joel glass Houses record, or certainly Wasn't Wasn't
Speaker 1: a beautiful cathedral in Europe. Um that represents my suburban
Speaker 1: American upbringing. But I don't think the experience is any
Speaker 1: of the less profound for it. It's funny because my
Speaker 1: second thought was thinking about listening to Quiet Riot in
Speaker 1: middle schools, Like, I don't think that that doesn't qualify
Speaker 1: we're in this quality. We're gonna just qualify Quiet Riot
Speaker 1: banging our head. But yeah, music is a really powerful
Speaker 1: and beautiful, beautiful thing that I think is an essential
Speaker 1: part of the spiritual journey and for me been an
Speaker 1: essential part of all my connection practices. You know, there's
Speaker 1: so many different musical entry points, right, I mean you
Speaker 1: were talking about quite Riot, and maybe or maybe not,
Speaker 1: I played Flamenco guitar and I play classical. But I've
Speaker 1: also been a huge fan of Jimmi Hendrix, for you know,
Speaker 1: forty six years a teenager, and some of that music
Speaker 1: will take you wonderful places. And so it's great because
Speaker 1: there's musical style to suit just about everybody. Right, That's
Speaker 1: the beauty of that form is there's so many different
Speaker 1: entry points. Yeah, I also find music underestimated as a
Speaker 1: contemplative tool and What I mean by that is a
Speaker 1: lot of times, like meditation, right, we say, okay, well
Speaker 1: just sit and pay attention to your breath, but the
Speaker 1: breath is kind of boring. It grows more interesting over time.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what's making this come to my
Speaker 1: mind right now, but I'm just kind of going with
Speaker 1: what comes up. Is that sometimes you can take, particularly
Speaker 1: a piece of classical music, and just choose, like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna fall all the one instrument and be curious with
Speaker 1: your depth of meditation experience. You're being a zend priest
Speaker 1: if you agree. But it appears to me that it
Speaker 1: trains a similar mental process of one pointed attention, but
Speaker 1: it feels often like an easier entry point. I couldn't
Speaker 1: agree with you more. If you're listening to Beethoven, something
Speaker 1: with highly elaborate orchestration, and you've been listening to it
Speaker 1: for a lifetime, and yet you enter into that space
Speaker 1: and you listen for a particular line, as you were saying,
Speaker 1: that you haven't really focused on before. You're still hearing
Speaker 1: the totality of this symphony, let's say, but you're hearing
Speaker 1: it through a different entry point, and it's giving you
Speaker 1: a different appreciation. It's like, oh, I never heard it
Speaker 1: that way before, right, even though I might have heard
Speaker 1: it a thousand times in some cases literally thousands of
Speaker 1: times possibly, and yet you listen to it on occasion
Speaker 1: two thousand and one and you hear something that you've
Speaker 1: never heard before because you were listening deep listening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have a favorite song to play on classical guitar?
Speaker 1: I love Vantisco, who's the Spanish composer from the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: and he has a piece called Lagrima, which is tear
Speaker 1: tear drop, and it's one of those that I've been
Speaker 1: playing for forty years, and every time I played in
Speaker 1: how do you spell lagrima lagrima l A g R?
Speaker 1: I M A all right, I'm gonna look it up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm look it up. I think you'll enjoy it. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that as I looked at your bio,
Speaker 1: it said you had an experiential shamanic education, and I
Speaker 1: would love to hear a little bit more about that. First,
Speaker 1: explain what a shamanic education is for people who don't understand,
Speaker 1: and then just share a little bit of your experience
Speaker 1: with it and maybe how it informs your spiritual life today.
Speaker 1: So I've been a spiritual adventurer for you know. It
Speaker 1: really kind of started when I was seventeen as a
Speaker 1: fresh went in college. So I was exploring spirituality through
Speaker 1: lots of different entry points and including various rituals and
Speaker 1: practices that are, let's say, I'm conventional, that bring you
Speaker 1: in deep into those spaces that we've been discussing for
Speaker 1: the last hour. So I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: playing with those rituals and those approaches, both from a
Speaker 1: Pindu and indigenous spirituality practices, lots of times in cemeteries
Speaker 1: and fields, in various different states of consciousness, in different
Speaker 1: states of awareness. That can be dangerous because, as you
Speaker 1: were talking about, addiction can lead you down that path
Speaker 1: if you're not careful, but can also offered you a
Speaker 1: hint or a promise or an invitation to a practice
Speaker 1: and reveals something that is so deep and so profound,
Speaker 1: and it just confirms what we've been saying, which is
Speaker 1: there are so many different ways of approaching the universe,
Speaker 1: of approaching this intimate infinite or God or Jesus or Buddha,
Speaker 1: however you want to describe it. And these practices basically
Speaker 1: reveal the immensity of that invitation. Excellent, well safely, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time to come on.
Speaker 1: It has been such a pleasure to talk with you.
Speaker 1: Will have links in the show notes to your organization,
Speaker 1: s d I World, but I appreciate this conversation and
Speaker 1: a chance to get to know you. Thank you so much, Eric.
Speaker 1: I've likewise it's it's been a pleasure to to start
Speaker 1: to get to know you, and I look forward to
Speaker 1: to perhaps more accountains in the future. Thank you. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
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