Speaker 1: If you're going to try to change your thoughts structures,
Speaker 1: you're actually working against a very powerful force. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the 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. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Scott Killoby, a noted
Speaker 1: author and international speaker on the subject of freedom through
Speaker 1: non dual recognition. He is the author of many books
Speaker 1: and has traveled the world extensively giving lectures, workshops, and
Speaker 1: incentives on spiritual awakening in the healing of addiction, anxiety, depression,
Speaker 1: and trauma. Scott is a California registered addiction specialist, interventionist,
Speaker 1: and case manager. He's the co founder for the Killabee
Speaker 1: Center for Recovery in Palm Springs, California, the first addiction, anxiety,
Speaker 1: depression and trauma incentive outpatient program to focus primarily on mindfulness.
Speaker 1: Scott is also the co owner of the Natural Rest House,
Speaker 1: a detox and residential center in Laquinta, California, as well
Speaker 1: as the CEO of My Life Recovery Centers, which offers
Speaker 1: the neltre x own implant, which is a groundbreaking medication
Speaker 1: that greatly reduces or eliminates cravings for opiates and alcohol
Speaker 1: for long periods of time. In this interview, Eric and
Speaker 1: Scott discuss many topics, including his book Living Realization, A simple,
Speaker 1: plain English Guide to non duality. If you're getting value
Speaker 1: out of the show, please go to one you Feed
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Speaker 1: will remain free and that the show is here for
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Speaker 1: can support is is If you're interested in the book
Speaker 1: that we're discussing on today's episode, go to one you
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Speaker 1: There will be links to all of the author's books
Speaker 1: and if you buy them through there, it's the same
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Speaker 1: and you can interact with other listeners of the show
Speaker 1: and get support in feeding your good Wolf. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for listening. And here's the interview with Scott Killoughby. Hi, Scott,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Your book is called Living Realization, A simple, plain English
Speaker 1: Guide to non Duality, and so we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: what non duality and awakening is and we'll probably talk
Speaker 1: about how it also applies to addiction, because that's something
Speaker 1: else that you spend a lot of time on. But
Speaker 1: let's start like we always do, with the parable. There's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. 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 grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his
Speaker 1: grand father and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says that the one you feed. So
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off by asking you what that
Speaker 1: parable means to you in your life and in the
Speaker 1: work that you do. So the work that I'm doing,
Speaker 1: when you when you say it's about non duality or awakening,
Speaker 1: that's true. And also I have a Killerbe Center for Recovery,
Speaker 1: which is a treatment center. And I guess, no matter
Speaker 1: where or how I do this work, um, I begin
Speaker 1: to see, or I've really seen throughout the years, that
Speaker 1: a lot of times we're feeding our egos. So this
Speaker 1: is just part of life, but we're feeding that part
Speaker 1: of us that feels incomplete and deficient, perhaps even scared, traumatized, addicted.
Speaker 1: So we don't know any better, and we think that
Speaker 1: by feeding it somehow maybe we'll find healing or will
Speaker 1: find freedom. But if you really look closely into your life,
Speaker 1: you don't really find it that way, and what you
Speaker 1: do is you just find sort of more ego. So, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if if my work fits squarely in
Speaker 1: the context of the parable, because it's really about non duality,
Speaker 1: sort of seeing beyond the good and the bad. However,
Speaker 1: I will say that the more we feed this ego
Speaker 1: part of ourselves, with its trauma and its deficiency stories
Speaker 1: and its addictions, more suffering there is, So I would say,
Speaker 1: don't feed that one. So in terms of what you feed,
Speaker 1: just don't feed that one. And then my work is
Speaker 1: about sort of really gently dismantling that false sense of self,
Speaker 1: so that so that it goes from being a hungry
Speaker 1: wolf as you as you say, to being no longer
Speaker 1: the master of your life, the runner of the show. Essentially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the parable is relatively dual, right, so let's define non
Speaker 1: duality for the listeners. When you say non dual awakening,
Speaker 1: what are you referring to, Well, it is not a
Speaker 1: greatly it really precise term, and I don't really use
Speaker 1: it very often. I do because the audience knows what
Speaker 1: the word means. But I'll give you as best I
Speaker 1: can is that we live in a world of duality
Speaker 1: of a sense of separation, a sense of opposites right wrong, good, bad,
Speaker 1: and also just really a feeling of sense of separation.
Speaker 1: I'm separate from you, You're separate from me. And in
Speaker 1: that feeling of separation there is suffering because that's where
Speaker 1: the ego sort of resides, in that sense of separation.
Speaker 1: So non duality is about essentially seen through the ego,
Speaker 1: seeing that it's an illusory thing, it's not really who
Speaker 1: we are. And as we see that, the sense of
Speaker 1: separation not only within ourselves, but the separation that we
Speaker 1: see in all of life is seen through, so that
Speaker 1: when you look out at life, you feel a sense
Speaker 1: of oneness and a sense of non separation or divisionless
Speaker 1: in life, and in that lies the possibility of really
Speaker 1: ending suffering. And because you're saying in regards to addiction
Speaker 1: or really in life in general, as long as we
Speaker 1: are attached to or believe in this idea of a
Speaker 1: separate self and by that we mean I am my
Speaker 1: own thing that is distinct from everything else, that regardless
Speaker 1: of the approaches that we take in life, we're going
Speaker 1: to be kind of the analogy I might use is
Speaker 1: we're gonna be trimming off the leaves of the problem
Speaker 1: versus kind of going after the root of the problem itself.
Speaker 1: Is that safe way to say it. That's a very
Speaker 1: safe way to say it. That's I've actually said that
Speaker 1: in one of my books. When you go after the root,
Speaker 1: you go after the very sense of the separate identity itself.
Speaker 1: The stuff that manifests out of that are all the
Speaker 1: branches with the leaves, as you say, And if you
Speaker 1: say sort of trying to work with the branches or
Speaker 1: beautify the tree or improve the tree, you're only gonna
Speaker 1: go so and bybe you're only gonna go through so
Speaker 1: deep into this real possibility of happiness and freedom in peace,
Speaker 1: because the egos really is suffering making this. And so
Speaker 1: if I can just say one other thing so that
Speaker 1: people don't believe what I'm saying, just listen to your
Speaker 1: mind throughout the course of one day. That's all you
Speaker 1: have to do is just listen to what it says.
Speaker 1: I mean, there may be some positive stuff in there,
Speaker 1: but what the mind tends to do is it tends
Speaker 1: to run old scripts, blaming, complaining, sort of over labeling
Speaker 1: every experience, and a host of other things like addictive
Speaker 1: compulsive thinking deficiency stories like I'm not good enough, she
Speaker 1: doesn't love me. So that mechanism obviously is the creature
Speaker 1: of suffering in us. So to see through that is
Speaker 1: to see through that sense of separation, that sense of
Speaker 1: false self. There is really a very profound piece on
Speaker 1: the other side of that that that the ego cannot know.
Speaker 1: So everything you just said, I think listeners of the
Speaker 1: show will resonate with and they'll say, yep, you know what.
Speaker 1: I do recognize that my thought patterns are part of
Speaker 1: my problem. I do recognize that I'm kind of trapped
Speaker 1: in this this brain. But where most people go with
Speaker 1: this is to the idea of what I need to
Speaker 1: do is I just need to become healthier in the
Speaker 1: way my brain works. I need to understand my thought
Speaker 1: patterns better, all that. But you're going to kind of
Speaker 1: a step beyond that, which is saying this you that
Speaker 1: you believe in isn't there in the way that you
Speaker 1: think it is, or that's not all that's there might
Speaker 1: be a different way of saying that. So you're kind
Speaker 1: of going to step beyond where even people who have
Speaker 1: identified like the way I think my negative thought patterns,
Speaker 1: my habitual compulsions, all that are a problem. Still they're
Speaker 1: mostly going, We'll let me work on that, versus believing
Speaker 1: that I'm not here at all. That's a good question.
Speaker 1: So in an ideal world, we could simply rearrange our
Speaker 1: thoughts make them more positive. And no, by all means,
Speaker 1: if someone can do that and truly do that and
Speaker 1: somehow be truly happy and at peace, we truly happy
Speaker 1: at pieces and by all means do that. But having
Speaker 1: worked with so many people through the years, a lot
Speaker 1: of people just cannot do that. And I think that
Speaker 1: the reason for that has to do with there's a
Speaker 1: basic sense of identity at the seat of our experience,
Speaker 1: which is what I call the deficiency story. It's a
Speaker 1: core story, a feeling of not being good enough, not
Speaker 1: being loved, not accepted, imperfect, something like that, unsafe and
Speaker 1: because it's it's like the lynchpin that holds our personality together.
Speaker 1: So if you're going to try to change your thoughts structures,
Speaker 1: you're actually working against a very powerful force. You're working
Speaker 1: against a mind that really, on some level is designed
Speaker 1: to suffer. You know, I was never able to do it,
Speaker 1: just from my own expense. I was never able to
Speaker 1: simply disbarranged by thoughts because this deep core story was
Speaker 1: really running the show. And that's what I've seen with
Speaker 1: a lot of people. But you know, this is not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you can make into a religion,
Speaker 1: and you can't say to people, don't try to change
Speaker 1: your thoughts or don't try to do this or that,
Speaker 1: because everybody will just do what they'll do. But everybody
Speaker 1: should know that there's this possibility of waking up out
Speaker 1: of this mind made sense of self, like that's what
Speaker 1: spiritual awake has been for thousands of years, and people
Speaker 1: just need to know in case that's the route they
Speaker 1: want to take. So what we're talking about here is
Speaker 1: really what the mystics of all the spiritual traditions have
Speaker 1: talked about, which is that you know, Buddhists might call
Speaker 1: it no self for non self, but it's this recognition
Speaker 1: that we are not who we think we are. And
Speaker 1: what I think is interesting about that is, and you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this is on one level,
Speaker 1: it seems incredibly obvious that yes, here, I am right,
Speaker 1: I am right here. So are we saying that I'm
Speaker 1: not right here? What are you saying that I am
Speaker 1: if I'm not the me that I'm used to thinking
Speaker 1: of myself in a conventional way as what am I?
Speaker 1: Or what are we? If one melices their thoughts throughout
Speaker 1: the course of the day, it's almost like, even though
Speaker 1: this is kind of a very rough way of saying it,
Speaker 1: it's almost like there's a screen in front of you
Speaker 1: that's producing or that's showing up as words and pictures.
Speaker 1: So their images and words like data. It's like a
Speaker 1: data stream. So this data stream we carry it around
Speaker 1: with us. We see this data coming across our screen
Speaker 1: the whole time. But the question is that what is
Speaker 1: aware of that screen? What is aware of those thoughts?
Speaker 1: So we take ourselves to be that data those words
Speaker 1: and pictures come across the screen. We we often never
Speaker 1: question whether that's really us. So as we start to
Speaker 1: question that self, in other words, literally questioning whether these
Speaker 1: thoughts are actually me in a very skillful way, what
Speaker 1: you find is that there's something aware of the thoughts,
Speaker 1: and that's something is not itself a thought. It's the
Speaker 1: awareness that perceives. And so when that's recognized within us,
Speaker 1: that there's that this awareness or being nous that is
Speaker 1: not conceptual, that is alive that is awake and aware
Speaker 1: of the present moment. When that recognizes itself that awareness,
Speaker 1: that's essentially what we mean by spiritual. And so what
Speaker 1: we're saying is that if you look at your life
Speaker 1: and you you sort of start to constructor you know
Speaker 1: what am I? If we look at well, am I
Speaker 1: my thoughts? Well, I don't think I'm my thoughts because
Speaker 1: I can notice them, and I don't think I'm my body.
Speaker 1: That the one thing that has always been with us,
Speaker 1: the one thing that is always there no matter what,
Speaker 1: as you said, is this sense of I am this,
Speaker 1: being aware, this watching You know that that people call
Speaker 1: different things, but you're saying that's who we really are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's not conceptual, So it's not like you stumble
Speaker 1: upon it as like an intellectual insight. This has to
Speaker 1: be truly experienced. Even to say in an intellectual way,
Speaker 1: I am not my thoughts, I'm not my feelings doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily in the suffering or or let the suffering dye now,
Speaker 1: but really really starts to end the suffering is when experientially,
Speaker 1: in your actual experience, you feel and know yourself as
Speaker 1: that which is awakening away to the present moment, rather
Speaker 1: than yourself as these thoughts go to go. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: what you're saying is exactly right. I just want to
Speaker 1: say to your audience it has to be experienced, has
Speaker 1: to be a direct experience of that for any of
Speaker 1: this makes sense. Otherwise this will just simply be purely
Speaker 1: theoretical or food for thought. Right, And I would imagine
Speaker 1: a bunch of the listeners of this show have been
Speaker 1: exposed to this idea plenty of times. And to your point,
Speaker 1: if it's not experiential, it doesn't really do a whole lot.
Speaker 1: So your book Living Realization, you talk about there's a method.
Speaker 1: You say, this is the main invitation in the book,
Speaker 1: and so I'm just gonna read it and then maybe
Speaker 1: we can talk through those different parts of it, because
Speaker 1: this is you're saying, this is sort of a way
Speaker 1: towards experiencing this versus thinking about it. And you say,
Speaker 1: the main invitation this method is recognize awareness. Let all
Speaker 1: appearances be as they are and see that appearances are inseparable.
Speaker 1: So let's talk through those. Let's talk through the first
Speaker 1: piece of it, which is recognized awareness. What does that
Speaker 1: mean or how does somebody go about doing that? So
Speaker 1: there's some simple portals to that, of which are like
Speaker 1: weighs into it. And one is to simply in the
Speaker 1: in the midst of noticing that you're thinking, just noticing
Speaker 1: the current thought, literally just turning attention towards it, whether
Speaker 1: it be in the form of a set of words
Speaker 1: that you're hearing or a mental image, and the moment
Speaker 1: you turn towards it, you're actually observing in that moment
Speaker 1: from awareness. That's where the observing is coming from, because
Speaker 1: every thought that you observe just simply fades away while
Speaker 1: observing it. And as it fades away or a stream
Speaker 1: of thoughts fade away, then you stop for a moment
Speaker 1: and you feel into this experience of being the perceiver
Speaker 1: instead of being the thought. And so that's one way
Speaker 1: in is just to do that, and you have to
Speaker 1: kind of just really check it out for yourself. It's
Speaker 1: like a portal, and the more you do that, the
Speaker 1: more you're sort of waking up out of being the
Speaker 1: thought into being the awareness. There's several of them, but
Speaker 1: one is just taking deep breaths in to anchor you
Speaker 1: to the present moment, and as you're doing that, to
Speaker 1: really notice the breath coming in and now and what
Speaker 1: it does is just stops the mind for a second,
Speaker 1: and in stopping the mind, you get a sense of
Speaker 1: the feeling of the presence that's already here under the
Speaker 1: thoughts stream. And another one is just taking short moments,
Speaker 1: so it's like just for a few seconds, like three
Speaker 1: five seconds, just stop thinking and look around at the
Speaker 1: present moment without any labels. And so these are little portals.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that once you do it one time,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna simply wake up, right, maybe you're lucky,
Speaker 1: maybe it'll happen, but that's not not the usual path,
Speaker 1: and it has happened very rarely like that. But mostly
Speaker 1: what happens is it's it's a process of doing it
Speaker 1: over and over until it's like it's a it's a
Speaker 1: regular practice so often that you're just you're in the
Speaker 1: process of waking up to awareness and it just sort
Speaker 1: of begins to dawn on you in a way. So
Speaker 1: those are portals. There are other ones, but that's the
Speaker 1: first part. So mindfulness is a term that is used
Speaker 1: a lot. We've certainly used it on the show. We've
Speaker 1: had lots of people on and so what we're kind
Speaker 1: of talking about here, though, is so mindfulness. It at
Speaker 1: its first level is noticing what's happening, Right, I try
Speaker 1: and move away from the thought pattern to what's my
Speaker 1: actual experience? What am I seeing? What am I feeling?
Speaker 1: What's what's happening? And then this is at least as
Speaker 1: I'm understanding it is sort of The next step is
Speaker 1: to move away from the contents of awareness, which are
Speaker 1: those things objects in awareness, to what is the thing
Speaker 1: that is noticing those various objects that aligned with your
Speaker 1: teaching it truly is. I mean, some people consider mindfulness
Speaker 1: and awareness essentially the same thing. It's some people do
Speaker 1: make a distinction, and I don't think the distinction makes
Speaker 1: a lot of the difference. But the way that you
Speaker 1: just explained it is both mindfulness and awareness. So it's
Speaker 1: becoming aware of the thought that which you're identified with
Speaker 1: at first, and then by just gently observing it, the
Speaker 1: thought starts to uncook from awareness a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then you start to get a sense of being this
Speaker 1: presence rather than being the thought. Yeah, and the more
Speaker 1: that you do that in your life, more that shift,
Speaker 1: that awakening starts to happen. And here's the rest of
Speaker 1: the interview with Scott Killoby. The second part of your
Speaker 1: invitation is to let all appearances be as they are.
Speaker 1: So let's first talk about what our appearances. What do
Speaker 1: you mean? So appearance is really one way. It says
Speaker 1: it's anything that appears, but it's really the book focuses
Speaker 1: on thoughts, which are in the form of words and
Speaker 1: pictures that appeared to awareness in the mind, so sweet,
Speaker 1: and then feelings and sensations. So here's the thing about
Speaker 1: we humans is that when we have a thought or
Speaker 1: a feeling we don't like, on some level, we're almost
Speaker 1: automatically resisting it, trying to get to go away, trying
Speaker 1: to whatever. And in that movement of trying to resist
Speaker 1: it or distract ourselves from it, we actually strengthen it because,
Speaker 1: as they say, you know, whenever you resist, persist. So
Speaker 1: letting everything be as it is is it's like a
Speaker 1: RESTful allowing of whatever you're witnessing. So if you see
Speaker 1: a thought arising, you simply notice the thought and you
Speaker 1: allow it exactly as it is as you're noticing it.
Speaker 1: Or if a feeling comes in the body, you bring
Speaker 1: attention to that feeling really gently and just allow it
Speaker 1: to be as it is. But it also includes if
Speaker 1: the resistance does arise. So if you're having a feeling
Speaker 1: and you're also like, I don't want to feel, this
Speaker 1: is becoming aware of that movement of resistance, and that
Speaker 1: even allowing that to be as it is really allowing
Speaker 1: everything to be as it is, whether you like a
Speaker 1: feeling or you don't like a feeling, or it's uncomfortable
Speaker 1: or comfortable, or whether you're resisting it or not. It's
Speaker 1: just to allow all those movement and in the larger scheme,
Speaker 1: it simply means to allow everything to be as it is,
Speaker 1: which means all of life as appearing right now, including
Speaker 1: any negative feeling thoughts, but also colors, shapes, sounds, just
Speaker 1: letting them everything come and go freely to awareness. And
Speaker 1: in that coming and going where everything is just coming
Speaker 1: and going freely to awareness, there's a kind of a
Speaker 1: deeper peace and surrender than you know, that way that
Speaker 1: you can't know through the mind, but right through thinking, right,
Speaker 1: and even short of having a spiritual awakening, right, we'll, we'll,
Speaker 1: we'll say this moment of of this tremendous waking up.
Speaker 1: My experience has been that every time I can stop
Speaker 1: resisting what's happening, my life is better, right, But that
Speaker 1: my I think it's we had shin Zen Young on
Speaker 1: the show, and I think he's got an equation that
Speaker 1: says something like, um, suffering equals pain times resistance, right,
Speaker 1: So whatever things are happening in my life, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got this natural pain, you know, my finger hurts, right,
Speaker 1: multiply that by resistance, and that's how much I'm suffering.
Speaker 1: And I just find that to be to be so true.
Speaker 1: And I think this ties to addiction because you've mentioned
Speaker 1: you have a treatment center, and addiction is kind of,
Speaker 1: at least for me, it was the ultimate in not
Speaker 1: letting things be. It was like, I so strongly can't
Speaker 1: bear whatever this experience is that I'm willing to pretty
Speaker 1: much destroy my life to make it go away. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the extreme version. Yes, it is. It really
Speaker 1: is the extreme version. It certainly applies to everybody that's
Speaker 1: practicing up, everybody, but those with addition. I mean, the
Speaker 1: life of addiction too, is like usually when I'm using something,
Speaker 1: it's like you say, it's like I don't want to
Speaker 1: feel something. It could be an old trauma coming up,
Speaker 1: It could be an emotional wound, it could be just
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just piste off at somebody or something or
Speaker 1: on board, so that yes, you said it so well.
Speaker 1: Addiction is just the absolute resistance to what I'm actually
Speaker 1: feeling and thinking and given moment. So if someone who's
Speaker 1: suffering from addiction takes up this practice of a allowing
Speaker 1: things to be, and then when they resist to allow
Speaker 1: the resistance, you can see naturally how that's going to
Speaker 1: have an impact, a great impact on the addiction. But
Speaker 1: just but it takes time because our systems are hardwired
Speaker 1: to want to resist, and so you have to It's
Speaker 1: almost like learning to relate are becoming. It's not really
Speaker 1: learning in the way the mind learns, but through experience
Speaker 1: you come to relate differently to the arisings in your life,
Speaker 1: the thoughts and motions and sensations. Yeah. So the first
Speaker 1: two steps so far are pretty straightforward, right, recognize awareness
Speaker 1: and then let everything be as it is. I think
Speaker 1: that even intellectually you can look at that and practice
Speaker 1: that in life gets better. It's really this last step
Speaker 1: to me that is what goes into the non dual
Speaker 1: or into the spiritual awakening. And it's really the step
Speaker 1: for me that's beyond conception in a way. And it's
Speaker 1: that see that all appearances are inseparable. So this is
Speaker 1: the experience of the oneness or the unity. So the
Speaker 1: first two you can do and still be very clearly
Speaker 1: feel like a separate being. So what is this last
Speaker 1: step that appearances are inseparable, because is that where the
Speaker 1: sense of myself as I understand myself to be falls away. Yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: the main sense of the separate object is the self.
Speaker 1: So as you inquire into the self and you start
Speaker 1: to see that it's not what you thought it was.
Speaker 1: It's merely a collection of ideas where its pictures, then
Speaker 1: it starts to be seen through and you're actually looking
Speaker 1: from awareness, and then you can see the sense of
Speaker 1: the separate self is just not there, and that that's
Speaker 1: after the practice of this. But then so the other
Speaker 1: thing is, though, is to see the inseparability everywhere. So
Speaker 1: even when you're looking at a thought from awareness, the
Speaker 1: thought starts to seem inseparable from the awareness of the awareness.
Speaker 1: There's no dividing line between the awareness and the thought
Speaker 1: that appears. This sort of just it's like the thought
Speaker 1: is immediately appearing seamlessly to awareness or the sound of
Speaker 1: my voice right now, if you listen from awareness, not
Speaker 1: from thinking. It's appearing immediately to your awareness. Is like,
Speaker 1: there's not a separation between the sound of my voice
Speaker 1: and the hearing of the voice. It's so just immediately there,
Speaker 1: and everything is like that colors and the more that
Speaker 1: you rest as awareness and look, it's like the whole
Speaker 1: moment is appearing in separably to that which is which
Speaker 1: is perceiving it right now. It's so immediate. And then
Speaker 1: I would just say to go deeper. Is that when
Speaker 1: you go deeper into this experience of awakening, the conceptual
Speaker 1: structure of life itself in your mind begins to quiet,
Speaker 1: and you start to see life in the moment as
Speaker 1: sort of just a seamless reality. Because it's the thoughts
Speaker 1: that divide things up. So if I say, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a cup, this is a cabinet, that's a toothbrush.
Speaker 1: In the very using of the thought to label something,
Speaker 1: I've labeled it in a way that makes it feel
Speaker 1: separate from everything around it and from me. But as
Speaker 1: the mind starts to quiet, and as you recognize this
Speaker 1: awareness and the conceptual structure is just sort of broken
Speaker 1: down and quieter, then you look around and there's a
Speaker 1: sense that it's all almost like it's all just one
Speaker 1: thing appearing in different expressions, you know, And and there's
Speaker 1: there's a seamlessness of life, like there's just like you
Speaker 1: can't it's actually a felt thing. You can't feel life
Speaker 1: as being suffered anymore. Once the mind kind of quiet,
Speaker 1: and this is the experiential part that has to be
Speaker 1: experienced for it to have any real meaning. And that
Speaker 1: experience happens my understanding, it's not something you can make happen, right,
Speaker 1: But but the path, such as there is one, is
Speaker 1: through this resting and awareness and then just letting things
Speaker 1: be as they are. And you know, listeners of the
Speaker 1: show might be like we all of a sudden, we've
Speaker 1: had like three guests that we're talking about this, like
Speaker 1: why why is Eric putting me through all this? And
Speaker 1: and the reason is, and I haven't really shared it
Speaker 1: till now. And I went on a seven day retreat
Speaker 1: with another teacher who was a guest on the show,
Speaker 1: Audio Shanti, and I had one of these experiences. It
Speaker 1: lasted about five hours or so, but it was, you know,
Speaker 1: there aren't really words for it. It was that kind
Speaker 1: of what you said that like it was very clear
Speaker 1: in those moments that everything was one thing, that things
Speaker 1: weren't in separate. Wasn't that like things look differently. It
Speaker 1: was just a deep knowing. And so that's kind of
Speaker 1: why I am, you know, spending a little bit more
Speaker 1: time on this topic in our episodes and and guests recently,
Speaker 1: because it's just something I'm very After having that experience,
Speaker 1: I am even more interested than I may have previously
Speaker 1: been in it because now I'm like, oh, okay, well
Speaker 1: that is real, Like that's that actually can happen. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm having to watch for all the
Speaker 1: seeking the recurrence of that experience and you know, the
Speaker 1: chasing of it and and all of that. But it
Speaker 1: certainly opened my eyes to like, oh, I have now
Speaker 1: an experience at what is everything that these people are
Speaker 1: talking about actually is, at least in my case, was true.
Speaker 1: And not only is it a true realization that could happen,
Speaker 1: but once you have had a taste of that, you
Speaker 1: can't not be drawn to it because it's so powerfully different.
Speaker 1: I don't know the words, but it's so very different
Speaker 1: than the ego state. Even though you write things look
Speaker 1: the same, and since you know there's a brown and
Speaker 1: there's a blue and all that, but it's experientially a
Speaker 1: very different way of relating to life, you know. And
Speaker 1: we're talking about the end of suffering, you know. And
Speaker 1: so when you were in that state for five hours,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming there wasn't a lot of suffering. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: my overwhelming reaction was thank God, that's over. Like it
Speaker 1: was just this the deepest relief of like it goes
Speaker 1: beyond words, but that was one of them. Was just
Speaker 1: this deep relief that like, okay, like that is over,
Speaker 1: that idea of Eric as I thought he was, or
Speaker 1: this thing that I need to prop up and and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and so it continues to some degree afterwards,
Speaker 1: but it's much more now back into being a knowledge
Speaker 1: a thought based thing than experiential at the current time. Right,
Speaker 1: So you have to you kind of have what they'd
Speaker 1: sometimes call a glimpse or pick experience, but it changes
Speaker 1: you forever because it's not like you can forget that
Speaker 1: and just say, well, I'm not gonna I'm not going
Speaker 1: to look into that anymore. Because that and that's the
Speaker 1: really the beautiful thing about it is once we taste
Speaker 1: or you know, dip into it, it's like there's a
Speaker 1: natural pool or impulse to kind of awaken into it
Speaker 1: because you know, because you really start to see just
Speaker 1: how much sufferings of the ego state after that, Um,
Speaker 1: if you hadn't seen it before, and so that's a
Speaker 1: great thing. It will it'll keep pulling you into that
Speaker 1: and if you have the right skillfulness, you know you
Speaker 1: you will eventually abide in that. Yep, I'm optimistic, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, but again I'm watching for because at the
Speaker 1: core of this, and you stress this in the book
Speaker 1: over and over right, is that this isn't about having
Speaker 1: a particular experience, that this is about letting everything be
Speaker 1: as it is. And so there's that like paradox of
Speaker 1: like okay, well I want more of that. But the
Speaker 1: seeking stands right directly in the way of the realization,
Speaker 1: at least it seems to me. Yeah, you could say
Speaker 1: seeking is resistance because what it's saying seeking forward movement
Speaker 1: instead of a relaxing and allowing of what's happening here. Now,
Speaker 1: it's a natural impulse to see, but there's there's resistance
Speaker 1: built into it. So part of the skillfulness I think
Speaker 1: for people is recognizing that the seeking energy is there
Speaker 1: and then resting has that awareness and starting to just
Speaker 1: allow all the seeking energy to just sort of wind
Speaker 1: itself down because what you found, I think in that
Speaker 1: moment is you've found present. You found this, this this
Speaker 1: life here now, and the seeking energy is telling a lot.
Speaker 1: It's saying you're gonna find this in the future right here.
Speaker 1: That's why it's here. You have to be skillful with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this question has been We've had guests on the show.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this for a long time. We had
Speaker 1: a guest on who studies Chinese religions and you know,
Speaker 1: the title of the book is trying not to try right.
Speaker 1: And we've had you know, zen teachers on who are
Speaker 1: talking about the same thing, like, well, if everything is
Speaker 1: perfect the way it is, why do I need to meditate?
Speaker 1: And that's you know, the other question that's at the
Speaker 1: heart of this show for me has always been like
Speaker 1: it feels inborn to me, this desire to move forward,
Speaker 1: this growth, this you know, ambition is the wrong word,
Speaker 1: but it can be considered. You know, ambition is maybe
Speaker 1: a perverse form of it, but that's there. So how
Speaker 1: do you have that and at the exact same moment
Speaker 1: let it you know, be perfectly content and grateful with
Speaker 1: with where you are. And I think it's just one
Speaker 1: of those paradox is that we try and find our
Speaker 1: way through. Yeah, And I think that the first part
Speaker 1: of the path is is to sort of see through
Speaker 1: the ego, because the ego is the thing that's pushing
Speaker 1: hard towards the future. But as you sort of see
Speaker 1: through it and then you know you can continue too loud.
Speaker 1: It's seeking to quiet down. There's also this other thing
Speaker 1: which takes over, which is the life has a movement.
Speaker 1: But if the ego is no longer, if you no
Speaker 1: longer living in the ego state, the movement is a
Speaker 1: different movement. It's a flow, and there can still be
Speaker 1: creating and running a business or doing a podcast or
Speaker 1: being an artist and even excelling in those things. So
Speaker 1: there is this becoming aspect to awakening. Even after you awaken,
Speaker 1: it's not just simply that we necessarily sit on a
Speaker 1: park bench or on a meditation mat and just I
Speaker 1: mean we can for a while. But there's a movement.
Speaker 1: But I think but before that is recognized, before that
Speaker 1: present awareness is really recognized and there's a stability in it,
Speaker 1: then the ego is running the show, and the ego
Speaker 1: is all about becoming and movement towards future. And that's
Speaker 1: that's why the awakening eludes the ego because it's main goals.
Speaker 1: Do that. Let's talk about the sense of I am right,
Speaker 1: because at least for me for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've studied Buddhism for a long time, and I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that this idea of non self for no self
Speaker 1: was the part for me that I was least interested
Speaker 1: in for a long time because I'd read all the
Speaker 1: other stuff and all that all makes sense, like resistance
Speaker 1: and you know, okay, not being so attached to my
Speaker 1: thoughts and clinging and that all made sense. But I
Speaker 1: looked at this other partner when that makes no sense
Speaker 1: because I have such a clear experience of here I am,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's not at least for me.
Speaker 1: What I what I've been learning is that that sense
Speaker 1: of here I am is absolutely real. Um that I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to make that go away? Is that your understanding?
Speaker 1: Is that not trying to say like, oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: here or nothing is here. There is something that is here,
Speaker 1: It's just that that something isn't what we think it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you don't want to go around saying I
Speaker 1: don't exist or there's nothing here, um, especially if it's
Speaker 1: just an intellectual insight, because it's not gonna take you
Speaker 1: very deep. But this is why I dismantled this whole
Speaker 1: stuff in the living realization. But I trying to break
Speaker 1: it down just to figure out what this I, you know,
Speaker 1: to show people what I mean by identity, you got
Speaker 1: to first see that, yeah, there's a sense of I
Speaker 1: am here. You get that sense of here that can
Speaker 1: actually be a portal to the awakening. But what happens
Speaker 1: on top of that as a layer again is this
Speaker 1: time bound, thought based self. So it's all the we're
Speaker 1: identified with thoughts of past future and they're actually appearing
Speaker 1: right before you you can see. So that awareness is
Speaker 1: sort of fixated on those thoughts for a sense of self.
Speaker 1: So that's what the ego is largely. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: emotional sensation too that we're identified with, but it's simply
Speaker 1: seeing that Okay, yeah, those thoughts are appearing, but they're
Speaker 1: not who I am. What I am is what's looking
Speaker 1: at them, and there's still the sense of I am
Speaker 1: in that awareness there's a sense of I am, but
Speaker 1: it's not I am this thought or I am that story,
Speaker 1: or I am you know. And that's where the conceptual
Speaker 1: part is where we really get hooked up and the
Speaker 1: ego part. So a question for you because this is
Speaker 1: something that I read and I still have like there's
Speaker 1: this part of me that's like I don't understand and
Speaker 1: I think I read it in your books somewhere that
Speaker 1: this idea that this awareness, so okay, here I am.
Speaker 1: I'm aware, right, there's this awareness, but that it's not
Speaker 1: located anywhere. And it still seems to me though that
Speaker 1: there is a location in some way, because I'm able
Speaker 1: to feel a pain inside my body that you're not
Speaker 1: able to experience, or um, you know, you are able
Speaker 1: to look out your window and see something with your
Speaker 1: awareness that I am not seen. So is this something
Speaker 1: that can even be put into words that you can explain.
Speaker 1: It's really not. It's more like a felt sense. But
Speaker 1: one way I talk about the non locatable awareness is
Speaker 1: that often people when they're first doing this practice, I'll
Speaker 1: say to them, can you imagine that awareness is located
Speaker 1: from behind you, like the back of your head or
Speaker 1: your body, and that it's emanating forward or radiating forward.
Speaker 1: So that's a good starting thing because then it's like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a location for it. It's it's in the back
Speaker 1: of my body and mind. And that could help them
Speaker 1: to the witness the thoughts and the feelings and see
Speaker 1: them coming and going and seeing that Okay, it's a
Speaker 1: temporary thought. I'm not a temporary thought. I'm not this
Speaker 1: temporary thought that. But then I have them go deeper
Speaker 1: and say, now, go back to that sense of that
Speaker 1: where you located awareness behind you, and see if you
Speaker 1: can actually see the source of awareness. Where does it begin?
Speaker 1: And as they go deeper into that, they recognize, well,
Speaker 1: every time I think I've found the source of awareness,
Speaker 1: like its location or something, what I actually have is
Speaker 1: another arising. I'm experiencing a sensation, and that sensation is
Speaker 1: an awareness or I'm having an idea that I'm the witness,
Speaker 1: and that idea is actually happen aware. It's not the
Speaker 1: source of awareness. So it's like trying to find the
Speaker 1: source of awareness, you can't find it, and then there's
Speaker 1: a sense then as you can't find it, that there's
Speaker 1: this ever expanding the sense of almost like boundaryless sense
Speaker 1: of of an awakening where it's like you can't there's
Speaker 1: no way your mind can even I mean, your mind
Speaker 1: can try to think about it, but in your direct
Speaker 1: experience you can't find a location or a beginning or
Speaker 1: an end to it. And I think that's more of
Speaker 1: just like a felt sense. I think I could, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole thing about what's in my awareness being different
Speaker 1: your awareness. I think this just confuses people, so I
Speaker 1: tend to stay away from I just you know, I
Speaker 1: talked about it the way I just said. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: so a lot of non dual teachers, yourself included Audio Shanti,
Speaker 1: lots of other folks. Is this part of the path.
Speaker 1: Is this idea of inquiry or self inquiry? Um, talk
Speaker 1: to me a little bit about what that looks like
Speaker 1: in the work that you do. There's lots of different
Speaker 1: forms of self inquiry. The inquiries that we have are
Speaker 1: called living inquiries, and the main one of that is
Speaker 1: called the unfindable inquiry. And it came from my time
Speaker 1: with great good teacher of mine who sort of taught
Speaker 1: me the unfindability of what's called the Bodiamka Buddhists. One
Speaker 1: of the Boa Buddhist school. So what I did is
Speaker 1: I translated that form of inquiry to sort of plain English,
Speaker 1: and it's actually in part of this book that you mentioned.
Speaker 1: Let me just give you a real quick explanation of it.
Speaker 1: So what you have to do first is you have
Speaker 1: to find a target. You have to find something that
Speaker 1: you're looking for. And usually people start with the self,
Speaker 1: but I tell them to name that self, so they
Speaker 1: might say, well, I'm the one who's not good enough,
Speaker 1: or I'm the victim, or I'm the failing artist. So
Speaker 1: then I said, okay, that's your target. So if that's
Speaker 1: really who you are, you ought to be able to
Speaker 1: find that self something where you you actually land on
Speaker 1: something you go, yes, that's it. So then I take
Speaker 1: them through a process of actually looking for it. So
Speaker 1: let's say an image comes up. They're looking for the
Speaker 1: failed artist and an image comes up of a painting
Speaker 1: that got rejected by by someone. Um, I say, look
Speaker 1: at the painting in your mind's eye, it's a picture
Speaker 1: of the painting. And I'll say, is that you the
Speaker 1: failed artist? And and the way I say it is,
Speaker 1: don't intellectualize this. If you feel anything in your body,
Speaker 1: just say yes, because it's the feeling or the sensations
Speaker 1: that are stuck to these thoughts that make the thoughts
Speaker 1: feel true, and I can say more about that later.
Speaker 1: So I have them answer from the body. So I say, okay,
Speaker 1: you gave me a yes. Just let that picture of
Speaker 1: the painting be there a second, just keep observing it,
Speaker 1: observing it from awareness. And then what happens is the
Speaker 1: picture starts to fade, and as it does, I have
Speaker 1: them come down and feel just that sensation or emotion
Speaker 1: that was there previously connected to that thought. And as
Speaker 1: they rest with it, I say, okay, is this feeling
Speaker 1: from awareness? Is this feeling by itself the failed artist?
Speaker 1: And then sometimes they'll say no, because it's just a feeling,
Speaker 1: it's not a failed artist a feeling. But sometimes they'll
Speaker 1: say yes. And when they say yes, what they're really
Speaker 1: saying is, um as me if to me a facilitator,
Speaker 1: is there's still some thoughts connected to that feeling. So
Speaker 1: let's say I'll ask a question that gets them to
Speaker 1: find out what thoughts connected to it. So let's say, okay,
Speaker 1: in twelfth grade, I got ridiculed by the art teacher. Okay,
Speaker 1: put up that image, and now let's just look at that.
Speaker 1: Is that image by itself you the actual failed artist?
Speaker 1: And again, if they feel something with it is a yes,
Speaker 1: and if they don't, it's a no. As you keep
Speaker 1: going through these various things that you think are you,
Speaker 1: you find out that none of them, by themselves are you,
Speaker 1: and that you can't find the failed arts. It's just
Speaker 1: not there, not in the way that you thought. And
Speaker 1: in that there's a release from suffering, because the suffering
Speaker 1: came from the belief I'm a failed artist. And so
Speaker 1: inquiry in this case is just a very direct inquiry
Speaker 1: into what my experiences. And it's done in a pretty
Speaker 1: structured way. You know, I've heard of self inquiry for
Speaker 1: years and had no idea what that even really meant
Speaker 1: until I, you know, start digging a little bit further
Speaker 1: into and went, oh, okay, it's a very structured inquiry.
Speaker 1: It's a very formal process of like, okay, do this,
Speaker 1: and then this and then and again, trying to be
Speaker 1: at the level underneath our basic conceptual thought. Right. It's
Speaker 1: it's it takes skill and practice, that's right, And and
Speaker 1: every inquiry is different. The inquiry that I just did
Speaker 1: is different than a self inquiry that you might see
Speaker 1: it in a different tradition, in particular one in our work. Excellent. Well, Scott,
Speaker 1: I could probably talk about this for the next two hours,
Speaker 1: but we are near the end of the wrapping up,
Speaker 1: so I want to talk about one last thing and
Speaker 1: then we will wrap it up, which is that you
Speaker 1: talk about that, even post awakening, that people can still
Speaker 1: have blockages of different sorts or other things to work through.
Speaker 1: So what's the relationship of Okay, I've seen through that
Speaker 1: this ego and self isn't what I think it is, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not separate from everything around me, and yet there's
Speaker 1: still this deeper level or another level of maybe sufferings
Speaker 1: the wrong word, but of of some sort of blockage.
Speaker 1: You're still clinging to things. Help me understand what that
Speaker 1: looks like and how you move through that piece. So
Speaker 1: when you're first having an awakening, you can only awake
Speaker 1: out of what's really conscious in your experience. There's some
Speaker 1: stuff that's sort of unconscious, And to demystify that word,
Speaker 1: I simply mean it's just something that you don't see,
Speaker 1: that's part of your identity that but you can't see it.
Speaker 1: So one really good example is like trauma. If you
Speaker 1: experienced emotional psychological trauma as a child, um you may
Speaker 1: have buried that and repressed that feeling or that story
Speaker 1: or those images somewhere in the cells of your body
Speaker 1: almost it feels like, or in the some deeply buried emotion.
Speaker 1: So when you awaken, you have a sense that okay,
Speaker 1: I've seen through this ego, But yet you find yourself
Speaker 1: like in fight flight freeze mode under certain situations, and
Speaker 1: it's a largely somatic experience, and you have to sometimes
Speaker 1: then go down into the body and go deeper into
Speaker 1: the unconscious to really free yourself from that blockings. And
Speaker 1: that's just one example, but it's like what I found
Speaker 1: is that even within awakening sweets, some things are just
Speaker 1: very persistent. And one thing is obviously, like I said, trauma,
Speaker 1: it's pretty persistent. Shame and addiction can also be pretty
Speaker 1: persistent if they're not worked with individually. And another one
Speaker 1: is just what I call the course story, so believe
Speaker 1: it or not. Even once you have an awakening experience
Speaker 1: out of the general sense of it self, there's a
Speaker 1: core strand of the ego, which I call the deficiency story,
Speaker 1: which will come up and rear its head until it's
Speaker 1: fully resolved. And that's like that deep feeling of un
Speaker 1: being unlovable, are not good enough so that everybody has
Speaker 1: that's a very persistent aspect of ego. So some people
Speaker 1: have had an awakening where that just as obliterated completely.
Speaker 1: But over the years I found that the majority of
Speaker 1: people still have to look at this core story a
Speaker 1: little bit longer after that initial awakening experience to truly
Speaker 1: freedoms freedom. So and I don't know why that is
Speaker 1: except that it just awakening doesn't necessarily eradicate all of
Speaker 1: the stars, help you see through all of it. Something
Speaker 1: about it just doesn't go that deep every time. Got it?
Speaker 1: So there's different levels than potentially or continuing unfolding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a continuing unfolding. The goodness is there's no end
Speaker 1: to the depth the depth of freedom. But after you've
Speaker 1: awakened initially in the seeking energy is gone. This is
Speaker 1: the key because there's a lot of people that will
Speaker 1: hear this and they'll start to seek it like I
Speaker 1: want enlightenment now, right, Um, So you've got to kind
Speaker 1: of deal with the seeking energy and have that sort
Speaker 1: of initial awakening into awareness and what you do and
Speaker 1: you abide in that the seeking is going to die
Speaker 1: and then but from that awareness, then you can really
Speaker 1: take a look at these deeper strands as they show up.
Speaker 1: At that point, it doesn't feel like you're really going anywhere,
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel like you have to get to a place,
Speaker 1: but you're still able to investigate or explore these things. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's a subtle nuance I just want to throw
Speaker 1: out there because some people will say, well, I have
Speaker 1: to be looking at this stuff for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life. But see, once you awaken to where does
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter? Continuing to look at things doesn't matter
Speaker 1: anymore because you're not seeking anything. You're here in the moment,
Speaker 1: awaken aware. You just sort of exploring things that you
Speaker 1: couldn't see in your consciousness before. Now they're showing up
Speaker 1: and you can see them. Got it, well, Scott, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time to come on.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, the book that we mostly talked about
Speaker 1: was Living Realization. You've got several others, Natural Rest for
Speaker 1: Addiction and um, we'll have links to your website and
Speaker 1: your homepage and all that stuff in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for taking the time to
Speaker 1: come on Yeah my pleasure, right, thank you, Okay bye. Right.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
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