Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize we have years and years of incredible episodes in
Speaker 1: our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that we've
Speaker 1: decided to handpick one of our favorites that may be
Speaker 1: new to you, but if not, it's definitely worth another listen.
Speaker 1: We hope you'll enjoy this part one episode with Adia Shanti.
Speaker 2: Does meditating feel like a chore, another to do list
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Speaker 3: If I could get somebody in a room with me
Speaker 3: and just do a moment of magic and have them
Speaker 3: awaken and stay that way, That's what I would do, right,
Speaker 3: we would just start a McDonald's of awakening.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 4: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 4: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 4: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 4: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 4: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 4: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 4: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 4: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 4: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 4: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 4: how they feed their good wolf.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode for
Speaker 1: the second time in history, I believe adi Ashanti, the guest,
Speaker 1: was the one hundred and sixty sixth episode that we did.
Speaker 1: He's the author of the Way of Liberation, Falling into Grace,
Speaker 1: True Meditation, and The End of Your World. Adi Ashanti
Speaker 1: is an American born spiritual teacher devoted to serving the
Speaker 1: awakening of all beings. His teachings are an open invitation
Speaker 1: to stop inquire and recognize what is true and liberating
Speaker 1: at the core of all existence. Adi Ashanti also runs
Speaker 1: the Omega Retreat, which Eric our own the One You
Speaker 1: Feed podcast. Eric has taken part in.
Speaker 2: Hi Audia, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Thanks Eric. Nice to be back with you again.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited to have you on a second time,
Speaker 2: and to be able to actually do it both times
Speaker 2: in person has been wonderful. I don't get that opportunity
Speaker 2: a ton with people, so but our first interview went
Speaker 2: so well, so many people loved it that I was
Speaker 2: really excited to get to do this again, and we
Speaker 2: talked about we'll make this a two parter, so great.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to kind of put it on to the
Speaker 3: end of the last one we did, which is so wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So it's kind of nice we get a chance to
Speaker 3: kind of tie up all the loose ends yep.
Speaker 2: So I don't think I'm going to do the wolf
Speaker 2: parable like we normally do. You talk through that once,
Speaker 2: but I want to start off by telling you a
Speaker 2: little bit about an experience I had with you and
Speaker 2: then kind of go into questions from there. So I
Speaker 2: attended your Omega retreat this last year and it was
Speaker 2: wonderful in a lot of different ways. And I had
Speaker 2: a period of time there where I had what I
Speaker 2: think we would typically refer to as an awakening. I
Speaker 2: sort of be came one with everything for three or
Speaker 2: four hours. Yeah, so really remarkable experience. I want to
Speaker 2: talk with you a little bit about where do people
Speaker 2: go from there? And I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about that was an experience, and I don't think
Speaker 2: an experience is what we're chasing, and I know even
Speaker 2: chasing anything is problematic, but I want to talk a
Speaker 2: little bit about what the realized or awakened state in
Speaker 2: perpetuity is like versus that moment of awakening which had
Speaker 2: a high degree of ecstasy, which I don't think is
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here long.
Speaker 3: Term, not in the long term, no, because so much
Speaker 3: of the not all of it, but so much of
Speaker 3: the ecstasy is the ecstasy of sort of first discovery.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's that's beautiful.
Speaker 3: You know, you only get one first discovery of anything,
Speaker 3: and so a lot of it is just that the
Speaker 3: sort of I call it kind of byproduct of having
Speaker 3: a perceptual shift, which when you were when you just
Speaker 3: were very briefly described it to me, you know, I
Speaker 3: was at one with everything. So that tells me something
Speaker 3: as a teacher, really important. That tells me that you
Speaker 3: had a shift of perspective which gave rise to experience
Speaker 3: rather than an experience simply an experience. That's the kind
Speaker 3: of the one of the main differences between something that
Speaker 3: we might call awakening would be has to always involve
Speaker 3: some real shift of perception, got it, Not any old
Speaker 3: shift of perception, but yeah, at very least.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of the ecstasy for me
Speaker 2: was the phrase that kept going through my head was
Speaker 2: thank God, that's over, like just the burden of carrying myself. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know that has ebbed and flowed since then,
Speaker 2: and I you know, it's been difficult to stay in
Speaker 2: anything and again, not even the ecstasy, but just to
Speaker 2: stay that in that place. But it was interesting. I
Speaker 2: came back and all of a sudden, a lot of
Speaker 2: things that I had been doing just didn't interest me.
Speaker 2: An example would be I had been someone had talked
Speaker 2: about writing a book for the show, and I had
Speaker 2: been working on that. When I came back, I went,
Speaker 2: that's not a priority for me right now, because I
Speaker 2: realized that, at least to some degree, that was driven
Speaker 2: by my desire to be an author. Now I've come
Speaker 2: back around to that, and I think I'm approaching it
Speaker 2: from a different place. But it was just it was
Speaker 2: a fascinating experience.
Speaker 3: So in fact, I think a lot of the most
Speaker 3: fascinating fascinating parts of that kind of experience are actually.
Speaker 5: More of what falls away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then what appear what appears that the unity and
Speaker 3: stuff can be wonderful, but it is really interesting that
Speaker 3: you see almost in retrospect what you were doing that
Speaker 3: was more self oriented or motivated. So when that gets
Speaker 3: to be seen through those whatever was self motivated.
Speaker 5: Takes a hit.
Speaker 3: Yep, you can, like you said, you can decide discover
Speaker 3: a new motivation that may not be so self motive
Speaker 3: right right oriented.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I walked out wondering do I want to
Speaker 2: do this show? I mean, and that didn't last very
Speaker 2: long because I think I've been able to keep my
Speaker 2: motivation enough of my motivation about the benefit it brings
Speaker 2: to myself psychologically and spiritually and other people. But it
Speaker 2: caused me to think about it differently. So one of
Speaker 2: the things I'm interested in is you've talked about this.
Speaker 2: Everybody talks about this paradox of I really want to awaken,
Speaker 2: but really wanting something seems to stand right in the
Speaker 2: way of awakening. I mean, my experience of awakening there
Speaker 2: happened when I I don't know how I did it,
Speaker 2: but I truly said, whatever, I'm gonna let everything be
Speaker 2: exactly as it is. I had been fighting sleeping, I
Speaker 2: had been fighting back pain during meditation, and I finally
Speaker 2: just went yes.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there's a desire to awaken. You pursued it with
Speaker 2: great fervor, as you've talked about. So how does one
Speaker 2: do that? How does one honor that desire to awaken,
Speaker 2: which does feel like a natural thing to some extent,
Speaker 2: but not find themselves in the trap of always going
Speaker 2: I wish I was awake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question because it's just so relevant
Speaker 3: to so many people, and you know, at the end
Speaker 3: of the day, I can talk about, you know, almost
Speaker 3: like the ideal orientation, but none of us gets to
Speaker 3: make that decision, right, We do not get to make
Speaker 3: that decision. My orientation was striving seeking with about as
Speaker 3: much gusto as you could, you know, conjure up without
Speaker 3: going totally in steane? Is that the best way to
Speaker 3: do it? No, clearly is that the way that I
Speaker 3: had to go through.
Speaker 5: It seems like it.
Speaker 3: So I always have an eye like, where is somebody
Speaker 3: what's authentically real for them?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: For some people, what's authentically real is diving into the
Speaker 3: seeking energy so that it can run itself off as
Speaker 3: fast as possible. With somebody else, you can just point
Speaker 3: out why it's unnecessary to approach it they way been
Speaker 3: approaching it, and they can shift to a different approach.
Speaker 3: So it's what I found is doing this for twenty
Speaker 3: two years, is that there is no blanket statement, no
Speaker 3: blanket teaching I can give to everybody.
Speaker 5: You know, I can say, well, yeah, the.
Speaker 3: More you're striving towards it, you're actually blocking the realization
Speaker 3: that you're looking for. But sometimes that's what we have
Speaker 3: to go through before until we hit the moment. Like
Speaker 3: you had the retreat where a number of things start
Speaker 3: being difficult all at the same moment, and maybe something says, Okay,
Speaker 3: I just got to let go this. Yep, I can't
Speaker 3: keep resisting in these all these ways.
Speaker 2: So you said something at that retreat that I thought
Speaker 2: spoke really well to this dilemma and has helped me
Speaker 2: a little bit. Was I think it was your teacher
Speaker 2: who told you that the use of will was to
Speaker 2: get you to the meditation cushion, but once you were there,
Speaker 2: that's the place to let go.
Speaker 3: That's a great if I said that, I'm really happy
Speaker 3: I said it, or whoever said it, well done.
Speaker 5: Don't have any memories, so I can't take credit for it.
Speaker 3: But that's a really actually, that's a good way of
Speaker 3: That is a pretty good way of putting it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the thing that you can't really put in language.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: We're writing a balancing edge of too much will, where
Speaker 3: it all becomes striving and seeking, and of course then
Speaker 3: you're always focused on what's not happening or what hasn't
Speaker 3: happened yet, or the other opposite, where you become so
Speaker 3: lackadaisical you just kind of think, well, it'll happen when
Speaker 3: it happened, and you'll utilize nondual terminology to help you
Speaker 3: be lazy about it, you know.
Speaker 5: What I mean. So those are the two extremes.
Speaker 3: Somewhere in the middle is where most of us actually
Speaker 3: experience our life. Yep, somewhere in the middle that doesn't
Speaker 3: fall into the nice conceptual boxes. It's a little bit
Speaker 3: more probably like a flow state.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: That's the idea of effortlessness, is really trying to get
Speaker 3: almost to something more like a flow state, rather than
Speaker 3: just make no effort and you know, right, have another
Speaker 3: doughnut and crack a beer and watch TV and hope
Speaker 3: something happens. That's that would not be the probably the
Speaker 3: right path for me.
Speaker 2: I guess the reason it's so hard to describe or
Speaker 2: talk or not the reason. But if you look back,
Speaker 2: you know you're in the Zen tradition. I mean, they've
Speaker 2: been discussing this question forever. You know, if you're already perfect,
Speaker 2: why are you meditating? You know that that sort of
Speaker 2: concept and so it's just a dilemma is the wrong word. Well,
Speaker 2: I guess it is a dilemma in some ways. And
Speaker 2: so that leads me to my next question. You primarily
Speaker 2: had as a teacher someone who was completely unknown, a
Speaker 2: wonderful woman who lived in a house very you know,
Speaker 2: just her, and it was a very small group, and
Speaker 2: you were very intimate with her. Your world is you
Speaker 2: teach a lot of people. I don't know how many
Speaker 2: people were there in Omega. I want to say several hundred,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know what, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Somewhere between three and three fifty probably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so a lot of people. So people aren't working
Speaker 2: with you one to one. You've mentioned this is simply
Speaker 2: not tenable anymore. My question for you is, for somebody
Speaker 2: who is seeking awakening, how important is one on one
Speaker 2: time with a teacher versus interaction with a teacher that's
Speaker 2: kind of like what most people have with you.
Speaker 5: It's a good question.
Speaker 3: Again, I don't really have a sort of final answer
Speaker 3: to that question. It always comes down to each of
Speaker 3: us individually, right. The question isn't does in the broad sense,
Speaker 3: does humanity need a close working, spiritual teacher or you know,
Speaker 3: it's like, well do I That's what's really?
Speaker 5: What does it feel like to me?
Speaker 3: Do I feel like I'm at a point where I
Speaker 3: could really use some more personalized guidance, or maybe I
Speaker 3: have something I want to discuss but I don't want
Speaker 3: to do it in front of three hundred people, or
Speaker 3: you know so. I mean, of course, when I start teaching,
Speaker 3: neither me or my teacher ever dreamed that it would
Speaker 3: take the form that it did. I think both of
Speaker 3: us thought, without even really talking about it, that it
Speaker 3: would look something pretty much like being in my living room.
Speaker 3: So yeah, people do often get a false sense, though,
Speaker 3: of my relationship with my teacher. Even though I went
Speaker 3: there every weekend, I probably asked her ten to fifteen
Speaker 3: really direct questions in the fourteen years. I knew that
Speaker 3: had to do with my spiritual practice. We weren't kind
Speaker 3: of sitting around chumming it up and talking about it
Speaker 3: all day long.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It was a place where we went to meditate and
Speaker 3: do some chanting, and she'd give a talk, and then
Speaker 3: every once in a while she'd give a like a
Speaker 3: day long and then she'd see us privately. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it always goes back to the individual, doesn't it.
Speaker 5: You know. I'm that's the thing about.
Speaker 3: The longer I do this, the harder it is to
Speaker 3: articulate any part of it, Because I see that the
Speaker 3: opposite of what I could say could almost be equally
Speaker 3: true of almost anything I say.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean. So you know, do do
Speaker 5: people need teachers? Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: That's not really a relevant question, is it is? For anybody?
Speaker 3: It's do I where do I feel like I am?
Speaker 2: Do I need interesting?
Speaker 5: Do I need that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great way to think about it, because
Speaker 2: there's certainly certain traditions that have that idea of that
Speaker 2: awakening almost comes from the teacher, that's right, Which I
Speaker 2: don't get that sense in your teaching that that's at
Speaker 2: all what you're saying.
Speaker 3: No, it's not what I'm saying. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 3: of a paradox because in Zen, the whole definition if
Speaker 3: it is a direct transmission from teacher to student outside
Speaker 3: of words and scriptures. Right, that definition has been there
Speaker 3: for hundreds and hundreds of years, and it can easily
Speaker 3: lead to a false impression.
Speaker 5: Because look, if I could get.
Speaker 3: Somebody in a room with me and just do a
Speaker 3: moment of magic and have them awaken and stay that way,
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 5: That's what I would do, right, we would just just.
Speaker 3: Start a McDonald's of awakening, you know, come hang out
Speaker 3: with the teacher for three minutes and there you go.
Speaker 3: Doesn't actually happen that way, yep, you know, it just
Speaker 3: doesn't happen. I think what I see is what's often
Speaker 3: called transmission, and if it's useful, we can transmit energy,
Speaker 3: we can transmit experiences from one another if we know
Speaker 3: how to do that. Not that I'm giving you something
Speaker 3: I know how to evoke it, yep, right. A comedian
Speaker 3: knows how to laughter from you. Are they giving you
Speaker 3: the laughter? No, but they're involved in some relationship. So
Speaker 3: I think of it as a teacher acts almost like
Speaker 3: as an unconscious mirror. They're mirroring back something for the student.
Speaker 3: In that sense, it's a transmission where I'm not giving
Speaker 3: you something that you don't already have. Of course, how
Speaker 3: could I give you your true nature? I could give
Speaker 3: you all sorts of experiences if I was skilled at
Speaker 3: doing that, but I couldn't actually give you what you are. That's,
Speaker 3: by the definition of that would be pretty impossible, Nor
Speaker 3: is it a good idea to try. By the way,
Speaker 3: early on, I don't know if we discussed this last
Speaker 3: time we were together, but very early on I realize,
Speaker 3: almost by stumbling upon it, that I could cause most
Speaker 3: of the people that came to me to have a
Speaker 3: kind of wakening experience. And it wasn't that I was
Speaker 3: giving them something. I would just sort of wick up
Speaker 3: a sort of presence, turned the dial up on it
Speaker 3: so it'd be so bright that would kind of overwhelm
Speaker 3: whatever mind state or you know, whatever place they were in. Fortunately,
Speaker 3: I realized very early that even though to me that
Speaker 3: seemed to be a good things, what couldn't.
Speaker 5: Be good about that?
Speaker 3: But I saw really differently there was something very hard
Speaker 3: to put your finger on it. But there's something different
Speaker 3: about when when I was really almost intentionally trying to
Speaker 3: wake somewhat up, and then when it happened sort of
Speaker 3: on its own, with no intention, there's something that was
Speaker 3: more pure about it when it didn't involve my intention.
Speaker 3: There was something much more lasting. If it didn't involve
Speaker 3: my intention.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, maybe it's a cause of
Speaker 2: brief experience, and then not laster right next.
Speaker 5: To anybody overwhelming their.
Speaker 2: Presence, it's like magic mushroom right like here you are,
Speaker 2: you know, and then.
Speaker 3: Right so I just I'd stopped doing it, even though
Speaker 3: from my point it seemed like I had all the
Speaker 3: right motivations. But what I saw was even the motivation
Speaker 3: for the teacher that's trying too hard to make something
Speaker 3: happen in their student isn't a good idea. And it's
Speaker 3: not a good idea for a student because awakening just
Speaker 3: simply doesn't end up to be good for everybody if
Speaker 3: you're not.
Speaker 5: Ready for it.
Speaker 3: It can be so disorienting that it can actually make
Speaker 3: life more difficult.
Speaker 2: You talk about how people will have a realization or
Speaker 2: awakening experience moment, whether it be ten seconds or ten hours,
Speaker 2: or ten days or ten weeks, right, but that unconscious
Speaker 2: patterns will pull them back out of that space. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious about what some of those unconscious patterns are
Speaker 2: and how do people work with unconscious patterns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm sure I did explain it to you
Speaker 3: just as you depicted it for me. But I want
Speaker 3: to make it. I want to make a little bit
Speaker 3: of a change. It's not so much that you get
Speaker 3: pulled out of the awakened perspective as it sort of.
Speaker 5: Gets clouded out, clouded over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a very small thing, but in the end,
Speaker 3: it actually makes a big difference in one's.
Speaker 2: Approach because you're still there.
Speaker 3: You're still there. You can't not be there. I think
Speaker 3: that's one of the things that awakening shows you. Even
Speaker 3: if I feel like I'm not there, at the same time,
Speaker 3: strangely I know that I am. But that's not really
Speaker 3: good enough, right because we don't want to just know it.
Speaker 2: It can almost be frustrating.
Speaker 5: It can almost be frustrating, right.
Speaker 3: So what pulls us back mostly any any unresolved emotional
Speaker 3: conflict that could be between ourselves and us, between ourselves
Speaker 3: and the world, whoever, whatever it is, anything that's sort
Speaker 3: of unresolved. Doesn't mean it will, but it can have
Speaker 3: the power to that contracting energy can kind of you know,
Speaker 3: it can happen within seconds. Right You're driving down the road,
Speaker 3: You're feeling open and spacious and lovely, and then somebody
Speaker 3: you know cuts you off or almost hits you, and
Speaker 3: who knows how you're going to react. You know, it
Speaker 3: doesn't give it. It's not always some really big, complicated, dark
Speaker 3: pattern as much as it's just sort of that emotional triggering.
Speaker 3: So what I like to tell people is, you know,
Speaker 3: awaking well will blow a certain amount of ones conditioning
Speaker 3: unnecessary conditioning sort of out of their consciousness for everybody.
Speaker 5: It's different. For some person, say.
Speaker 3: It blows out five percent, for somebody else that blows
Speaker 3: out ninety five percent.
Speaker 5: You never know.
Speaker 3: But the stuff to pay attention to is what's reoccurring.
Speaker 3: Have I seen this pattern, you know, like ten times
Speaker 3: in the last month, Okay, then I need to pay
Speaker 3: attention to that. I actually need to kind of maybe
Speaker 3: intentionally go meditate on that energy, like intentionally allow myself
Speaker 3: to feel that. And if I have to think things
Speaker 3: to feel it or go back to memories to feel it, fine,
Speaker 3: go back there.
Speaker 5: Do it.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a willing suspension of higher truth. So
Speaker 3: you can get down into where it hasn't penetrated, right,
Speaker 3: because it's easy to stay on the outside and just
Speaker 3: kind of say to yourself, well, it's a passing thought form,
Speaker 3: and you know, be in a very transcendent mindset. But
Speaker 3: that doesn't necessarily help it.
Speaker 5: So you get it.
Speaker 3: Evoked, and then you see if you can really just
Speaker 3: be with the energy of it, because that's our resistance. Right,
Speaker 3: this isn't pleasant. I want to I don't want to
Speaker 3: be with this, yep, So it goes somewhere else. But
Speaker 3: most of all this stuff is if you get one
Speaker 3: simple principle, and it is somewhat oversimplified, but I think
Speaker 3: it works in overwhelming majority of cases. Anything that's happened
Speaker 3: to us could be yesterday, could be forty years ago.
Speaker 3: That was too big for us to remain conscious why
Speaker 3: we experienced it. It gets trapped in our system, that's
Speaker 3: what happens, right, and so it gets turned into some
Speaker 3: other emotion, or it just gets stuffed or something, and
Speaker 3: it's those things are just sort of they're waiting for you,
Speaker 3: as if like the universe inside you saying okay, can
Speaker 3: you experience this?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 3: Can you just experience this? And if you can, then
Speaker 3: it can go through you and you can start to
Speaker 3: find some release and if you can't, then you tend
Speaker 3: to go just in circles.
Speaker 5: Again.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's such a big learning to be able to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 3: It is like it's one of those really easy things
Speaker 3: to say, but when it comes to the moment, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it doesn't always seem that simple.
Speaker 2: But it does work. Yes, you tell a story about
Speaker 2: when your first moment of a huge heart awakening was
Speaker 2: when you had to put your your dog to sleep.
Speaker 2: And I just had to do that the other day.
Speaker 5: M sorry to hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the second one in like eight months, so
Speaker 2: it's been a tough year dog wise. But I have
Speaker 2: learned over time to just be okay with it in
Speaker 2: the sense of like, be okay with I'm fine with
Speaker 2: being sad. Yeah, you know what, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: try and turn away from that. I'm not going to try.
Speaker 2: And somebody asked me, are you at peace with it?
Speaker 2: And I said, well, that's so, I'm not sure how
Speaker 2: to answer that, because philosophically or morally or you know, yes,
Speaker 2: dogs die, they get cancer, it happens, right, there's nothing
Speaker 2: the moral order has not been ripped apart by this event.
Speaker 2: But I'm very sad, that's right. So I'm not done
Speaker 2: with that, you know. But my favorite thing I've heard
Speaker 2: you say, and I was in a book or heard
Speaker 2: you say, but you know, let everything be exactly the
Speaker 2: way it is. And that is such a powerful teaching
Speaker 2: and almost is easier for me in some ways to
Speaker 2: apply to big things like that than it is the
Speaker 2: trivial moment to moment, day to day. Strange, isn't it
Speaker 2: that my little comforts?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, the big stuff we often are we confront
Speaker 3: like I have really no option. I either push against
Speaker 3: this and suffer or I don't. The little stuff you
Speaker 3: can get, the little illusion.
Speaker 5: Well, I could kind of put this off, or you know,
Speaker 5: it's easier to do a little dance maneuver.
Speaker 2: Yep, but it is.
Speaker 3: It's one of those teachings. It's just so deceptively simple.
Speaker 3: And you know, I've been teaching it for twenty two years,
Speaker 3: and I still find out what that teaching means. I'm
Speaker 3: still discovering a deeper understanding of what the teachings that
Speaker 3: I've been teaching for twenty two years is so, and
Speaker 3: I often have found that to be the case. The
Speaker 3: truest in the sense of the most useful sort of statement,
Speaker 3: there's often a simplicity about them. Sometimes there's so simple
Speaker 3: that something that does will say no, no, no, it couldn't be.
Speaker 3: We have to have something more complicated than that. But
Speaker 3: often the most helpful stuffs are the simple things that
Speaker 3: we're just kind of missing.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 2: Simple, not easy, simple not easy.
Speaker 3: But in the end, like your dog passes right, it's
Speaker 3: easier to let yourself feel as bad as you feel,
Speaker 3: or feel whatever grief you feel without trying to shut
Speaker 3: it down. It's easier to do that in the end
Speaker 3: than to be trying to shut it down for the
Speaker 3: rest of your life.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, yep, yeah, And I think I learned that.
Speaker 2: I've I've referenced her from time to time, Pema Children
Speaker 2: her book When Things Fall Apart. I learned that letting it,
Speaker 2: like just giving myself to that moment, is one of
Speaker 2: the best things I ever learned to do. I think
Speaker 2: because I feel current with things in my life. You know,
Speaker 2: his death didn't bring up all the pain from the
Speaker 2: last dog because I grieved the last dog, that's right.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: And the last dog didn't bring up all the grief
Speaker 2: of my marriage or that marriage falling apart, because that
Speaker 2: had been you know. It's yeah, And I wasn't that
Speaker 2: way for a large part of my life. I think
Speaker 2: every little thing that happened had, you know, a powder
Speaker 2: keg of emotion behind it, just waiting to blow. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, then that's the nice thing is about we can
Speaker 3: we can actually transform.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So another thing that you did at the retreat, and
Speaker 2: it's a hand gesture, I can't listeners won't be able
Speaker 2: to see it, but it was a really a really
Speaker 2: useful thought for me. And it was something your teacher
Speaker 2: used to say to you all the time, and she
Speaker 2: would say, less of this, which is a clenched fist
Speaker 2: for listeners, and more of this, which is an open
Speaker 2: hand for listeners. So talk to me about that in general.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, is that still one you work with?
Speaker 3: Sure, it's you know, it's another one of those deceptively
Speaker 3: simple teachings and the until you start to really kind
Speaker 3: of contemplate it. And I like the physical part of
Speaker 3: the gesture. I mean, anybody listening could put their hand
Speaker 3: in front of them themselves and make a fist and Okay,
Speaker 3: that's what it means to hold on.
Speaker 5: That's how it physically feels.
Speaker 3: And then you let your fists go and you open
Speaker 3: your palm, and it's like, okay, that's what it feels
Speaker 3: like to let go, because sometimes we literally kind of
Speaker 3: forget it, not in our minds, been in our bodies,
Speaker 3: our bodies like I'm trying to do something, but they
Speaker 3: don't have a reference for what that feels like. But yeah,
Speaker 3: my teacher told me that when I was well back
Speaker 3: to where we started, you know, one hundred miles an
Speaker 3: hour gun and for enlightenment with everything I had, and
Speaker 3: I couldn't hear that teaching at the time. I literally
Speaker 3: just wasn't in a place where I could really hear
Speaker 3: it and utilize it. But I came to it nonetheless,
Speaker 3: you know. I came to it nonetheless because well, nothing
Speaker 3: else works.
Speaker 5: It's pretty simple.
Speaker 3: Right, Going through life with lots of resistance just doesn't work.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: It's not fun, it's it's not self expressive in any
Speaker 3: positive sense. It doesn't win you better friends. It just
Speaker 3: it's like not workable. But you know, each one of
Speaker 3: us has to find that out and the grist of
Speaker 3: our own experience, which finding that out isn't always easy, yep,
Speaker 3: you know, because we usually do.
Speaker 5: It through a few pretty overwhelming moments.
Speaker 2: Yep. I think that's why I think the Serenity prayer,
Speaker 2: I know it's we only hear a short part of it,
Speaker 2: is maybe the wisest thing I have ever heard, because
Speaker 2: it covers that there's work to be done here, and
Speaker 2: there's plenty of times where you can't work you gotta
Speaker 2: And of course then that wisdom is the precious gold
Speaker 2: to tell the difference. But I can be on either
Speaker 2: of those extremes I have an ability to be like
Speaker 2: effet right. Yeah, that's not spiritual development. That's not I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is, but it's not a healthy pattern.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: So that means I've got to engage in the desire
Speaker 2: to change, you know. And then there's plenty of things
Speaker 2: where letting go is clearly the important thing. And I
Speaker 2: had a thought about this, and I think it was
Speaker 2: after you did that and then this, and I thought
Speaker 2: about the phrase letting go, and I almost thought that
Speaker 2: in some cases it might be better just to think
Speaker 2: of let because letting go sometimes we can't, right, so
Speaker 2: let go, And I'm trying to let go, but it's
Speaker 2: not going, you know, whereas let is sort of.
Speaker 5: Like okay, yeah, like I like that, you know.
Speaker 2: Here it is. If it goes great, if it doesn't, okay,
Speaker 2: but I'm not in control that, right.
Speaker 5: You're clear on what you can and can't do, that's right.
Speaker 3: I'll often say something very similar to your let which
Speaker 3: is nice and short.
Speaker 5: Okay, if you.
Speaker 3: Can't let it go, can you let it be?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Can you let it be there?
Speaker 2: Just that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's kind of like your your.
Speaker 5: It's yeah, right, let it Can I do that?
Speaker 3: Because usually if we really honestly look at that one
Speaker 3: more often than not, the answer is yeah, I can
Speaker 3: let it be. Yeah, and then gosh, what would that
Speaker 3: feel like to let it? Because that, to me, that's
Speaker 3: the crucial step, Like what's the sense, what's the feel?
Speaker 3: So it's not intellectual anymore. It's like when you unclinch
Speaker 3: your hand, you can.
Speaker 5: Feel it, it feels different. Yeah, right, you don't.
Speaker 3: It's a the kinesthetic experience of that, I think is
Speaker 3: what we need.
Speaker 2: Kudos to your teacher for a very beautiful way to
Speaker 2: look at it, you know, because I've been.
Speaker 5: Banging a rate a really tough nut there for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Uh, bles's your heart.
Speaker 2: You know. I can think of plenty of times where
Speaker 2: I was trying to let go with a clenched fist,
Speaker 2: you know, like I knew I should let go. I
Speaker 2: knew I would be better off if I let go.
Speaker 2: I just didn't have the ability to do it right.
Speaker 3: And sometimes that's that's the truth, right, Yeah, I just
Speaker 3: can't do it right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's always good to normalize that for people,
Speaker 2: because I think I felt like I was failing, you know,
Speaker 2: evolve people, spiritual people, people in recovery. They let things
Speaker 2: go and that's not working right now, So I must
Speaker 2: be failing. And you know there wasn't any failing. If
Speaker 2: there was any failing, it was in the being too
Speaker 2: hard on myself.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And sometimes failure ends up to be the part of triumph. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like sometimes you just you gotta fail your way through
Speaker 3: some stuff. You can't do it all like neat and
Speaker 3: pretty and spiritual. Sometimes you just sort of fail your
Speaker 3: way through it.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: But if you fail your way through something consciously, that
Speaker 3: can actually cause a sort of transferm If you fail
Speaker 3: through something unconsciously with nothing but resistance, we tend to
Speaker 3: not transform much.
Speaker 2: Learn much from it.
Speaker 5: Yeah. But I love that that serendity prayer.
Speaker 3: I think that that ability to discriminate between what you
Speaker 3: can do and what you can't do. You know what
Speaker 3: you can do, but just important know what you can't do.
Speaker 3: And I think it's really important in any kind of
Speaker 3: spiritual practice that we would have some real clarity about
Speaker 3: exactly what we can do exactly what we can't do.
Speaker 2: You used to work with students one on one, and
Speaker 2: I know that everybody's different. Yeah, So not asking for
Speaker 2: a blanket statement, but some degree of practice seems to
Speaker 2: be part of the equation or useful in the process.
Speaker 3: Absolutely essential, I meaning ninety nine percent of the cases, yeap.
Speaker 2: In that case, how would you think about building a practice?
Speaker 2: You know, what would it consist of? How often or
Speaker 2: how long or Again I'm not looking for exactly answers
Speaker 2: maybe as so much as a way to think through it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now I appreciate the question, Eric, because I have thought
Speaker 3: this because my impulse is, you know, to try to
Speaker 3: really help people find their own way, and so it's
Speaker 3: to not give direct answers to a question like that.
Speaker 3: And yet, you know, I've also seen that that's not
Speaker 3: always the best response either, because sometimes people just can't
Speaker 3: find their way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, they just And I think one of
Speaker 2: the things I've learned learned from working with lots of people,
Speaker 2: you know, in the coaching work I do, is that
Speaker 2: ambiguity is the mother of procrastination in a lot of cases. Right,
Speaker 2: if I don't know what to do now, I got
Speaker 2: to figure out what to do and do it. If
Speaker 2: there's some clarity about that first part, then all I
Speaker 2: have to do is muster up the energy to do
Speaker 2: it right, and we get stuck in that first part.
Speaker 3: Right, right, So for me, I would just say, yeah,
Speaker 3: if somebody wanted to engage in this or probably any
Speaker 3: spiritual teaching, but I'll keep it restricted to mind for
Speaker 3: the moment. That Yeah, I would suggest that they do
Speaker 3: some meditation every day. I would love them to do,
Speaker 3: you know, at least a half an hour morning or evening.
Speaker 3: If I someone said what's ideal, I'd do a couple
Speaker 3: of times a.
Speaker 5: Day would be ideal.
Speaker 3: Don't push it to the sense that you start to
Speaker 3: hate it, however, because you don't want to get a
Speaker 3: relationship with the very notion of meditating as something that's
Speaker 3: arduous and awful and something you don't want to do.
Speaker 2: I've been shaking that off for years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it took a while for an old Zen guy.
Speaker 3: It took me for a while to like rediscover like
Speaker 3: actually sitting here.
Speaker 5: Can be really really nice. Yeah, yeah, it hasn't got
Speaker 5: to be.
Speaker 2: It's nicer when it's not eighteen hours a day like
Speaker 2: the Zen folks do too.
Speaker 5: Yes, it is.
Speaker 3: Well, they may, you know, get in trouble with Zen folks,
Speaker 3: but you know, us in Zen, we can make a
Speaker 3: kind of fetish out of meditation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's the zen object of worship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: And part of that is.
Speaker 3: Really good because at least you're doing something, you're not
Speaker 3: just sitting around talking about it. That sense, it's really
Speaker 3: really good. But when it becomes too emphasized, then maybe
Speaker 3: it's not so good. So I think spending some time
Speaker 3: in quiet is really that's the magic. That's the magic,
Speaker 3: that's what allows something inside of you that you don't
Speaker 3: have any conscious access to, something starts to occur within
Speaker 3: us beyond below what we're perceiving. Simply when we're sort
Speaker 3: of intentionally attending to a quiet space, there's something that
Speaker 3: happens underneath that that's very spiritually powerful. Who knows when
Speaker 3: it will manifest. But so that's pretty easy, right in
Speaker 3: the sense of to tell someone we'll meditate, try to
Speaker 3: meditate some every day.
Speaker 5: The other one is just.
Speaker 3: As important, but not so easy to turn into a formula,
Speaker 3: because that's the kind of the inquiry part, And the
Speaker 3: inquiry can just be taken as sort.
Speaker 5: Of a tool like this is just what I do
Speaker 5: because it's supposed to be the thing to do.
Speaker 3: Or I like to have inquiry be a manifestation of
Speaker 3: something more native to you, right, So if somebody comes
Speaker 3: up and they say, I'm working on the question, who
Speaker 3: am I, you know, I'll often ask them why what
Speaker 3: does the question mean for you?
Speaker 5: Why are you interested in the question?
Speaker 3: Because I want to see if the question is actually theirs,
Speaker 3: if it's really relevant to them. If I do find
Speaker 3: it's relevant to them, then we have something to work with.
Speaker 5: If not, then we find something that is relevant.
Speaker 3: It's harder to take that and make it into a formula, right,
Speaker 3: because it's almost like a wonderment at being. Yeah, just
Speaker 3: the mere fact of being a kind of a wonderment.
Speaker 3: And that by saying wonderment, I don't mean to put
Speaker 3: a spiritual whitewash. It doesn't mean that it's always fun
Speaker 3: to do that. You know, at a certain point, when
Speaker 3: the resistance goes away, then it's pretty darn enjoyable. But
Speaker 3: I've often thought I would love everyone that came to
Speaker 3: see me have had like two or three really good
Speaker 3: years of pretty arduous meditation under their belt, and two
Speaker 3: or three really good years in college courses that taught
Speaker 3: them nothing but how to think well for themselves. Those
Speaker 3: are kind of polarized opposites one, right, it's kind of
Speaker 3: not thinking and the other one is how to really
Speaker 3: think very clearly, because I think we often don't learn
Speaker 3: that either. An inquiry is a way of using your
Speaker 3: thoughts and your perception in a really clear and really
Speaker 3: really precise way.
Speaker 2: You talk about it has to be precise.
Speaker 5: Has to be precise.
Speaker 3: That's why I always orient towards Okay, what are you
Speaker 3: doing here?
Speaker 5: What do you want?
Speaker 3: Exactly precisely? What is this about for you? So that's
Speaker 3: part of it. And yeah, if we're gonna get precise,
Speaker 3: that's the key.
Speaker 5: You have to be precise. You know.
Speaker 3: It's like someone can ask themselves like, well, I'll do
Speaker 3: this at retreat. You may have seen me do it,
Speaker 3: or I'm working with somebody through say who am I?
Speaker 3: And they'll go, who am I? And they're not used
Speaker 3: to being as precise as I usually want them to be.
Speaker 3: And so I'll say, Okay, what happens when you ask
Speaker 3: that question? Well, I don't come up with an answer. No,
Speaker 3: that's not the first thing that happened.
Speaker 5: What's the thing that.
Speaker 2: Has the right answer that you know you're supposed to
Speaker 2: arrive at right?
Speaker 3: What happened that caused your mind to say I didn't
Speaker 3: get the right answer something was being experienced. Well, when
Speaker 3: I asked myself who was I didn't find anything. Okay,
Speaker 3: Now that's interesting, isn't it.
Speaker 5: See?
Speaker 3: But all that just that right at the top, that
Speaker 3: can all be missed if you're not precise.
Speaker 5: Who am I? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe I have to ask the question other one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand times. But if you're really precise, you ask the question,
Speaker 3: but you're looking at what that question is evoking in
Speaker 3: your experience. Yeah, that's what you're really looking for. What
Speaker 3: is it evoking in my experience? Present time? Then there's
Speaker 3: no future to it.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 2: You know, you talked about the ability to think very
Speaker 2: well for themselves. You know, one of the things that
Speaker 2: I've heard you stress over and over and it's one
Speaker 2: of those things that I think can hear it deepening
Speaker 2: and deepening levels. Like I think you've said something to
Speaker 2: the effect of spirituality is the direct investigation of your experience. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 2: we have to be willing to look closely for ourselves
Speaker 2: and be willing to trust what we find there, even
Speaker 2: if what we find there isn't where we think it
Speaker 2: should be.
Speaker 4: M M.
Speaker 2: Like you know, sometimes if I look for myself, I
Speaker 2: think I find something, I know the answer is it's
Speaker 2: not supposed to be there, right, So trusting that for
Speaker 2: me has been important in going that's what I see
Speaker 2: and feel. Now, I can keep working with it and
Speaker 2: eventually go past it.
Speaker 5: But if I skip that, and.
Speaker 2: I'm certainly not trying to say like I've got this
Speaker 2: figured out in any way, I'm just trying to stress
Speaker 2: the importance of trusting ourselves to some extent and looking
Speaker 2: at our experience, not yours, not some enlightened beings, what's
Speaker 2: happening with me right now?
Speaker 5: Because I don't ask these.
Speaker 3: Questions chasing my experience when there's a lot of that
Speaker 3: going on, you know what I mean. So I think
Speaker 3: you're right in the sense of our experience is where
Speaker 3: it's at, and it's one of those really simple things, right,
Speaker 3: But when you go to do it, you realize it's
Speaker 3: not so simple at all. I'm so used to comparing
Speaker 3: my experience to everything around me that I never have
Speaker 3: my experience for more than like a quarter second before
Speaker 3: I'm comparing it. Yeah, So, like you said, if you
Speaker 3: were doing this inquiry and you came back and said, ah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I really feel like I'm coming up with a self,
Speaker 3: I would say, Okay, well let's explore that. Tell me
Speaker 3: about that, and we dive into that. It may sound
Speaker 3: like because I've done it for myself, but I don't
Speaker 3: necessarily go when I'm with somebody with a preconceived idea
Speaker 3: of what I think they're.
Speaker 5: Supposed to see.
Speaker 3: Yep, whatever they see is that's what they see. As
Speaker 3: long as their own experience, then we can just keep
Speaker 3: looking through the layers of that.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 5: Right, as I tell.
Speaker 3: People, the only way to get this wrong is to
Speaker 3: not be ruthlessly honest about what's happening in your experience.
Speaker 3: The only way you can get it wrong is to
Speaker 3: not do that.
Speaker 5: But outside of that, you're not getting it wrong.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 5: Boy, is that hard to do for people?
Speaker 2: Yeah. It brings to mind for me how we are
Speaker 2: afraid to be wrong, how much we want to have
Speaker 2: the right answer. And also, you know, you talk a
Speaker 2: lot about not turning your authority over to someone else.
Speaker 2: You know, the word spiritual teacher has a sense of
Speaker 2: like my teacher, and most of our experiences with teachers
Speaker 2: is you've got to give them the right answer when
Speaker 2: they ask a question. There's a right answer, right, and
Speaker 2: so the very idea of saying my experience of that
Speaker 2: is very different. I know what the right answer is
Speaker 2: because I read the book. Yeah right, but I'm not
Speaker 2: having that experience. And I just think that's so hard
Speaker 2: for us is to say I don't know it is
Speaker 2: or that's not what's happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, we've mythologized the role of the spiritual teacher,
Speaker 3: which doesn't help us out. Yeah, what do religions do
Speaker 3: with their authority figures? They dress them up to look
Speaker 3: like kings and queens. That's what they do, right, whether
Speaker 3: it's Christianity or Buddhism or whoever it is. You dress
Speaker 3: the authority up as if they are a king and queen.
Speaker 3: And we wonder why we have so much projection going
Speaker 3: on around Whereas having been with my teacher as long
Speaker 3: as I have been, there is something that goes beyond
Speaker 3: the bounds of like say, relating to a spiritual teacher
Speaker 3: as like a college professor or something, which I think
Speaker 3: is actually a pretty healthy place to start relate to
Speaker 3: your teacher kind of more like that, kind of more
Speaker 3: like if you were in a college. You know, over time,
Speaker 3: you know, my relationship part with my teacher became more
Speaker 3: just something there was a different element that was at it.
Speaker 3: It was more like a profound combination of respect and
Speaker 3: gratitude got mixed in over time. But that was over time, right,
Speaker 3: It wasn't immediately manufactured out of nothing, which would have
Speaker 3: just made it a projection. So I think when people
Speaker 3: initially go to teachers, they're probably best to they're going
Speaker 3: to assume any kind of stance something more like listening
Speaker 3: to a college professor, at least initially is probably.
Speaker 5: A good idea.
Speaker 3: And to always remember that or be aware of that
Speaker 3: balance between you go to a teacher for hopefully some
Speaker 3: wise counsel and advice. Right, So in that sense, you're
Speaker 3: open and you're available, and maybe you'll even try some
Speaker 3: of it. But the balanced part is at the same time,
Speaker 3: you're not pretending like you're a spiritual child or infant. Right,
Speaker 3: you're looking at the advice. You're seeing if it seems
Speaker 3: good and rational and worth doing for yourself. And so
Speaker 3: there's all these many decisions that are actually getting made
Speaker 3: all along the point.
Speaker 5: I would just say.
Speaker 3: Make them consciously, you know, because there's just the thing
Speaker 3: where we make spiritual teachers like kings and queens. It
Speaker 3: does not serve awakening. It just doesn't It doesn't help,
Speaker 3: you know, it just doesn't help. And it makes people,
Speaker 3: of course very vulnerable to replaying whatever unhealthy relational patterns
Speaker 3: they've had in their life. They'll tend to do it
Speaker 3: with their teacher.
Speaker 2: It's been a long time since Martin Luther did what
Speaker 2: he did right, but it was that you, the regular people,
Speaker 2: have access to the Word of God yourself, right, you
Speaker 2: can read the book. You don't have to go through
Speaker 2: these people. Excellent. Well, let's wrap this up for part
Speaker 2: one and when we come back more questions about practice
Speaker 2: and self inquiry.
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