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