Speaker 1: The love and care that I cultivate for myself is
Speaker 1: the love and care that I'm able to share with others,
Speaker 1: not the other way around.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 2: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 2: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 2: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Lama
Speaker 2: rod Owens, a Black Buddhist Southern queen, an international influencer
Speaker 2: with a Master of Divinity degree in Buddhist Studies from
Speaker 2: Harvard Divinity School. He's the author of Love and Rage,
Speaker 2: The Path of Liberation through Anger, and co author of
Speaker 2: Radical Dharma, Talking Race, Love, and liberation. Lamarad's teachings center
Speaker 2: on freedom, self expression, and radical self care. Applauded for
Speaker 2: his mastery in balancing weighty topics with a sense of lightness,
Speaker 2: the Queen has been featured by various national and international
Speaker 2: news outlets. He's highly sought after for talks, retreats, and workshops,
Speaker 2: and his mission is showing you how to heal and
Speaker 2: free yourself.
Speaker 3: Hi, Lama Rod, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to have you on. We're going to
Speaker 3: be talking about your latest book, which is called The
Speaker 3: New Saints From Broken Hearts to Spiritual Warriors, and I'm
Speaker 3: excited to talk about that, and you've just been somebody
Speaker 3: I've been wanting to talk to for a while, so
Speaker 3: I'm glad we are getting to make this happen. But
Speaker 3: before we start, we'll start like we always do, with
Speaker 3: a parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who was
Speaker 3: talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there
Speaker 3: are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 3: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 3: and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear, and
Speaker 3: the grandchild stops and they think about it for a second,
Speaker 3: and they look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 3: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 3: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 3: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 3: the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, that's such a powerful parable. And I feel,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of connections to very similar kind
Speaker 1: of cultural parables I've studied in the past, but you know,
Speaker 1: in this really Buddhist sense, like it's really the work
Speaker 1: of what we're investing in, you know, what are we
Speaker 1: going to put our energy into, right, or we're going
Speaker 1: to put our energy into, ultimately the reduction of suffering?
Speaker 1: Or are we feeding the suffering? And it's not always
Speaker 1: the case that we're solely feeding one one of these
Speaker 1: wolves and neglecting the other. Sometimes it's we're feeding one
Speaker 1: really well and maybe leaving scraps you know for the
Speaker 1: other vice versa, you know. But for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about this parable and relationship to a garden,
Speaker 1: to sowing a garden, you know, planting seeds, and I
Speaker 1: think about the care that it takes to grow plants,
Speaker 1: you know, and the water, the sunlight, good soil, right,
Speaker 1: good temperature. You know, we'll ultimately you start with good seeds, right,
Speaker 1: and that all takes a lot of work and effort
Speaker 1: that we invest into cultivating these seeds and really creating
Speaker 1: this harvest, you know, over the growing season. Sometimes we're
Speaker 1: just confused as to what we're taking care of and
Speaker 1: what we're feeding.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we think that we're feeding the good wolf when
Speaker 1: we're actually feeding the bad wolf, you know. Or we
Speaker 1: think that we're really taking care of our plans when
Speaker 1: in fact that's not the care that they need. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just the honestness and awareness of my experience. Am
Speaker 1: I suffering less? Or am I suffering more? Right? But
Speaker 1: another level of subtlety here that's important in my work
Speaker 1: is that it's not that I want to neglect the
Speaker 1: bad wolf, but I still want to tend to the
Speaker 1: bad wolf, right. And for me, tending to means that
Speaker 1: I'm just really holding these other experiences of suffering with
Speaker 1: a lot of care, you know, a lot of tenderness.
Speaker 1: I am recognizing them, I'm naming them and just allowing
Speaker 1: them to be a mix experience about not reacting to them, right,
Speaker 1: And that's how I kind of tend to the good
Speaker 1: wolf or take care of my garden.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you say in the new book, But choosing goodness
Speaker 3: doesn't mean I stand in opposition to darkness. It means
Speaker 3: that I recognize that darkness is asking to be held
Speaker 3: in care and awareness. And you go in to say,
Speaker 3: if I can hold darkness like this, then it becomes
Speaker 3: a teacher. When I can't hold it, then it holds
Speaker 3: me and this is the beginning of evil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, when we get consumed by it, right, because
Speaker 1: that reactivity to darkness actually means that start being consumed
Speaker 1: by it, you know. But I don't want to push
Speaker 1: anything away, right, I want to bring everything into balance, right,
Speaker 1: to recognize what's happening, to not react to everything, but
Speaker 1: to figure out how to respond. Right. You know, the
Speaker 1: darkness is full of so much data. For me, it
Speaker 1: is a teacher because it is full of something that
Speaker 1: I being asked to be in relationship with, right, you know,
Speaker 1: to name the darkness and to hold space where the
Speaker 1: darkness means that, like, I'm consuming the darkness instead of
Speaker 1: the darkness consuming me. And if I can hold darkness
Speaker 1: like that, then I actually end up being much more truthful, right,
Speaker 1: and honest about who I am, right, And that cuts
Speaker 1: through a lot of shame for me. Right. When I
Speaker 1: can take care of my darkness, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: push it away or hide it for someone to find
Speaker 1: and to point out, you know, for me, right, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people come to me and say, oh, yeah, Rod, like
Speaker 1: you do X, Y and Z, And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do, you know, and I have done that in
Speaker 1: the past, right, But that's part of what it means
Speaker 1: to be human. You know, I'm not trying to become
Speaker 1: a deity or a god. I'm trying to be human,
Speaker 1: which means that, like I am experiencing the totality of
Speaker 1: my thoughts and emotions and my sensations, right, and I'm
Speaker 1: developing a deep empathy for all other humans going through
Speaker 1: the same process. Right. So it's them, it's me, but
Speaker 1: together it's us we you know, moving through this process
Speaker 1: or trying to suffer less and trying to achieve some
Speaker 1: level of enlightenment.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So you just said that you know your goal
Speaker 3: is not to be a deity, but to be human,
Speaker 3: And yet you've titled your new book The New Saints
Speaker 3: which saints tend to be when we think of them
Speaker 3: closer to a deity than a human at least in
Speaker 3: certain people talk to me about why you chose that
Speaker 3: title and what you mean by a new Saint.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I wanted to make sainthood attainable for everyone,
Speaker 1: not extraordinary, right. And you know when this book started
Speaker 1: coming about for me, and this was during the quarantine
Speaker 1: after or my last book came out, and just really
Speaker 1: sitting with a pandemic, sitting with the murder of George
Speaker 1: Floyd and the movement for Black Lives, and I just
Speaker 1: started asking myself, Okay, what am I doing? Like what
Speaker 1: am I going to offer to this new age or
Speaker 1: this new period? And I just thought, well, I think
Speaker 1: people need a really clear guide on what it means
Speaker 1: to change right, to care about themselves, to care about
Speaker 1: the world. Right, Because a lot of folks were just like,
Speaker 1: what do I do? What do I do? You know?
Speaker 1: Some people were saying all I can do is post
Speaker 1: on social media, you know, but no, actually has to
Speaker 1: be more, right, And I also knew that my experiences
Speaker 1: had to be the template. You know. I had to
Speaker 1: use my life as a way to create a connection
Speaker 1: to other people to say, you know what, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: human too, right, And these are the things that I
Speaker 1: struggle with, but these are the tools them using to
Speaker 1: cultivate deeper awareness and care for myself and for others.
Speaker 1: And I just believe that this is what the saints
Speaker 1: were basically doing. They weren't trying to be God. They
Speaker 1: were trying to help, right, And they were connected to
Speaker 1: their most authentic selves, which we may call divine or sacred.
Speaker 1: But that's the capacity that all humans have, is to
Speaker 1: connect to that kind of direct, caring expression of who
Speaker 1: we really are. And for me, that sainthood, right. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean develop and awaken special abilities, right. It
Speaker 1: could mean that, but that's not what I'm talking about, right,
Speaker 1: I mean the greatest expression of a saint is to
Speaker 1: care really deeply, to love deeply, to express really profound
Speaker 1: compassion for themselves and for others around them. Right. And
Speaker 1: because that expression was so direct and simple and profound,
Speaker 1: people said, oh, you're special, right, right. And that expression
Speaker 1: of deep care lasts, right, It's not that you know,
Speaker 1: when this person dies, that their care dies with them.
Speaker 1: Their care and printed the world, printed communities and people
Speaker 1: and influence people to do something different, right, And of
Speaker 1: course in some traditions, those are the qualifications of being
Speaker 1: recognized as a saint. Your care endures beyond your death,
Speaker 1: and we can still rely on that example of care
Speaker 1: to create a more liberated, caring world.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the things that your work touches on
Speaker 3: a lot, I think is this real intertwining of individual
Speaker 3: liberation and collective liberation. Right. And you know, one of
Speaker 3: the criticisms that is leveled often at the modern mindfulness
Speaker 3: movement and all forms of Buddhism can be put under
Speaker 3: this headiness showing up that way is that it's too
Speaker 3: focused on the individual and not enough on the other.
Speaker 3: And we also see people who are very committed to
Speaker 3: social liberation social change that we can often see either
Speaker 3: for their own health or the people around them may
Speaker 3: need a little more investment in their individual healthiness and
Speaker 3: freedom and liberation. How do you think about knowing when
Speaker 3: and where to invest in each or is it really
Speaker 3: a continuous investing in both all the time? Like, help
Speaker 3: me think through that, because I think this is a
Speaker 3: really nuanced point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an incredibly important point here. And as I was
Speaker 1: writing the book and really sharing this, you know, this
Speaker 1: work with people. You know, this was the exact kind
Speaker 1: of feedback that I got. You know, this seems really
Speaker 1: individual and of course, you know, for me, is how
Speaker 1: can I actually create the change that I need to
Speaker 1: see if I have no idea who I am and
Speaker 1: how I show up, how I impact relationships and communities, right,
Speaker 1: because I can bypass myself and do really great things
Speaker 1: in the community. But then we've seen examples of people
Speaker 1: who have really done very little work for themselves, and
Speaker 1: how they end up being exposed is really violent people
Speaker 1: and creating harm, right, you know, when they're not in
Speaker 1: the public right and being seen. And so another you know,
Speaker 1: kind of teaching that I often share with the folks
Speaker 1: is that if I don't do my work, then I
Speaker 1: become work for others as well. So I kind of
Speaker 1: like pulled all this together and said, Okay, in this text,
Speaker 1: I need to really really state the importance of individual work, right,
Speaker 1: because my individual work, you know, even more specifically, I
Speaker 1: will say that the love and care that I cultivate
Speaker 1: for myself is the love and care that I'm able
Speaker 1: to share with others, not the other way around. Right,
Speaker 1: It's not that the love and care that I cultivate
Speaker 1: for others is what I actually offer back to myself
Speaker 1: is the reverse. Whatever you're feeling from my work and
Speaker 1: from my teaching and from just interacting with me is
Speaker 1: rooted in how I relate to myself. And this care
Speaker 1: and love that I experience for myself has come with
Speaker 1: a lot of deep individual practice away from others, right.
Speaker 1: It has come from going through periods of being really selfish.
Speaker 1: That selfishness is skillfully used to create the conditions for
Speaker 1: me to really focus on how I'm suffering and how
Speaker 1: to reduce that suffering for myself. What I learn from
Speaker 1: the work that I do for myself is what I
Speaker 1: take and offer to others in my community. So if
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this individual work, then, like me, it
Speaker 1: gets really difficult to figure out how to show up
Speaker 1: in a way that's helpful. Right. And if I don't
Speaker 1: do this work for myself, then I'm just putting all
Speaker 1: this work onto others, right, because they're having to do
Speaker 1: emotional labor for me, because I haven't done the work
Speaker 1: for myself to cultivate an awareness of what I need.
Speaker 3: So let me follow that up with a variation on
Speaker 3: that question. Because you've been practicing, I think twenty years,
Speaker 3: you've done multiple months in silent retreat, right, Well years, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: so you've been extraordinarily invested in that process. I don't
Speaker 3: think you are suggesting that people wait until they've got
Speaker 3: that level of practice behind them to begin to offer
Speaker 3: things to the world. So how do you think about
Speaker 3: knowing when you've got enough going on inside yourself that
Speaker 3: you have something to offer to others?
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, as soon as I started practicing
Speaker 1: Buddhism and meditation, I was teaching right, And I don't
Speaker 1: know what that was. Maybe it was ego, but like
Speaker 1: I felt like I got something that other people needed
Speaker 1: to get, particularly people who look like me and who
Speaker 1: wouldn't be open to receiving this work from anyone else
Speaker 1: that didn't look like them. So I felt that urgency
Speaker 1: early on. But for me as a teacher, one of
Speaker 1: my kind of like ethics around teaching is that I
Speaker 1: never share anything with others that I haven't practiced for myself. Right,
Speaker 1: So that doesn't mean that like I wait years and
Speaker 1: years to practice something. It means that, like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: can intensively practice something for a very short period of
Speaker 1: time and learn something really valuable, and I can share
Speaker 1: that really valuable thing. But that's all I can share, right,
Speaker 1: So you know, for me, it's like I keep going
Speaker 1: on as I learned something and practice with it and
Speaker 1: really get a lot of data out of it, then
Speaker 1: I feel really comfortable in sharing that. So it's almost
Speaker 1: as if you're building the plane as you're flying.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of I'm a recovering heroin addict and
Speaker 3: I got sober through twelve step programs, and right away
Speaker 3: you sort of learned like, well, I've only got two weeks,
Speaker 3: but somebody who's walking in the door has no time,
Speaker 3: and two weeks is a pretty big accomplishment if you've
Speaker 3: got nothing right. It's not the same as two years,
Speaker 3: of course, but I do know something, a little bit
Speaker 3: of something that I can pass on and that then,
Speaker 3: of course there's that whole symbiosis of me sharing what
Speaker 3: I have with you is good for both of.
Speaker 1: Us exactly because it creates a community of support, like
Speaker 1: where we all get together and say, you know what
Speaker 1: I have something, you have something right. But it reminds
Speaker 1: me of another kind of old story called stone Soup
Speaker 1: that you know, we used to read when we were little.
Speaker 1: The story of Stone Soup is that there was this
Speaker 1: village and this guy shows up and it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the music Man, you know, but it works out out,
Speaker 1: you know, well for everyone. But this guy shows up
Speaker 1: in the village and says, I can make the best
Speaker 1: soup you've ever tasted, right, And everyone was like, okay, right,
Speaker 1: so where are your ingredients? Where where you know, where
Speaker 1: are your pots and your pans? And he was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just have to like gather a few things from people,
Speaker 1: you know. So he gets the pot from someone, he
Speaker 1: gets someone else to fill it with water. Then he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: does someone have an onion or two? Or does someone
Speaker 1: have some other vegetables and so forth and so on.
Speaker 1: So the whole village has gathered like to put something
Speaker 1: that they have extra up into the pot to make
Speaker 1: this soup. But he started with a stone. He was like,
Speaker 1: I have a rock, you know, And that was the
Speaker 1: first well actually he puts the rock into the pot
Speaker 1: and water first, and then people come along and say
Speaker 1: you need more than that, you know, you need more
Speaker 1: than water in a rock. I have something in my
Speaker 1: house to throw in. And that's how he got this
Speaker 1: soup going. And the story is really about building community
Speaker 1: with the resources that people have. You know, I have
Speaker 1: an onion, but I'm not going to eat an onion.
Speaker 1: But another person has a pot, another person has some water,
Speaker 1: another person has some salt, so forth, and so on
Speaker 1: until you build something communally together. That's really amazing, and
Speaker 1: I think we forget that sometimes, we forget that we
Speaker 1: don't have to have all the resources and all the solutions,
Speaker 1: that we pull everything together into a pot and create
Speaker 1: something that helps everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great story. I love that one. You
Speaker 3: say that the path of a new Saint is a
Speaker 3: path of freedom, not of comfort or happiness. Say more
Speaker 3: about that, and maybe start by what do you mean
Speaker 3: by freedom?
Speaker 1: For me? Freedom really grounded in you know, Buddhist tradition
Speaker 1: is really to transcend all the causes and conditions of suffering,
Speaker 1: right to remember a state of being that transcends all
Speaker 1: of this dualism you know, of comfort and this comfort
Speaker 1: pleasure and displeasure, to return back to our natural state,
Speaker 1: which is just being being beyond suffering, which is really
Speaker 1: hard for us to conceptualize because all we know is
Speaker 1: suffering and discomfort. That's the freedom, you know that I'm
Speaker 1: really thinking about you know, and really have organized my
Speaker 1: whole life around as the primary focus. Right. And so
Speaker 1: when I talk about going for freedom, I'm talking about
Speaker 1: going all the way. When we establish happiness our comfort
Speaker 1: right as the goal, we practice for that goal, we
Speaker 1: may actually get there, right, but it doesn't go further
Speaker 1: than that. Right, you can still be happy in a
Speaker 1: world that's falling apart, you know, like you can watch
Speaker 1: any reality show about very wealthy people, right, like they
Speaker 1: can navigate you know, a shortage of resources. Right. And
Speaker 1: so when I talk about letting go of happiness our
Speaker 1: comfort as the goal, I'm saying that once you go
Speaker 1: for freedom completely, all the stuff is going to happen. Like,
Speaker 1: there will be happiness and joy. There's going to be
Speaker 1: a way that we experience a lot of comfort even
Speaker 1: as we struggle to get free. Right. And so for me,
Speaker 1: I might as well shoot for the whole thing and
Speaker 1: get everything instead of shooting for going halfway and just
Speaker 1: stopping halfway. Right. But again, you have to get clear
Speaker 1: about if you're really ready to let go of the suffering, right,
Speaker 1: because we have definitely created identities around suffering. Suffering is
Speaker 1: who I am, right, and to let go of identifying
Speaker 1: what suffering means that I have to figure out who
Speaker 1: I am, and that can be terrifying for many of us.
Speaker 1: Right to let go of everything that I know, to
Speaker 1: shoot for this ambiguous, abstract experience of freedom. Like, that's
Speaker 1: a lot. You're putting a lot on the table. That's
Speaker 1: a huge gamble. I can only do that because I
Speaker 1: have studied with people who have gone all the way.
Speaker 1: You know, I come from a tradition that is based
Speaker 1: upon people going all the way to enlightenment, right, And
Speaker 1: so there's all this data and proof and personal experience,
Speaker 1: so like, I have no problem going for that. And ultimately, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm just tired of suffering, you know, I'm sick
Speaker 1: and tired of being sick and tired, as Vannie Lou
Speaker 1: Hamer once famously said. And so therefore I've put everything
Speaker 1: on the table and I'm going all the way Enlightenment
Speaker 1: a bust. That's the slogan.
Speaker 3: Now do you find that that is a place people
Speaker 3: often work themselves into. I think a lot of people,
Speaker 3: in my experience, come to practice a spiritual practice of
Speaker 3: any sort kind of under the yoke of severe suffering,
Speaker 3: of acute suffering. Yes, and in the beginning, it's like
Speaker 3: if I could just not shoot Heroin, or if I
Speaker 3: can just get over my wife leaving me, or if
Speaker 3: I you know, that's what I'm after. And then it
Speaker 3: seems that for a lot of people, as we stay
Speaker 3: on the path longer, we begin to see further down
Speaker 3: the path and go, oh, okay, there's somewhere further to go.
Speaker 3: So we can start in a place of maybe just
Speaker 3: wanting a little happiness or a little bit of comfort.
Speaker 3: But if we're sincerely engaged in the practice, do you
Speaker 3: believe it generally will lead us forward and beyond?
Speaker 1: It can? Absolutely? For me, I was longing for freedom
Speaker 1: from the very beginning, you know, like, so happiness and
Speaker 1: comforts felt really almost impossible for me, right, and I
Speaker 1: kept looking and searching and reading and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: getting into Black liberation work and the writings and the
Speaker 1: thoughts you know, thinkers around that, getting into activism and everything.
Speaker 1: Everything that I did up until I met Buddhism, started
Speaker 1: practicing Buddhism was this kind of pursuit of what freedom
Speaker 1: really felt like. And then Buddhism was like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is freedom, right, Like, this is what you've been looking for?
Speaker 1: Is to transcend all of this right. And again, for me,
Speaker 1: it was easier because one I had a natural orientation.
Speaker 1: But secondly, I started meeting people who were much further
Speaker 1: into this work than I was, and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to be exactly like them. Like I started
Speaker 1: meeting teachers who had actualized this kind of mental and
Speaker 1: emotional freedom that I didn't even think was possible, you know,
Speaker 1: and that galvanized my work, and I just put everything
Speaker 1: on the table. I was like, this is what I'm
Speaker 1: going for, right, I can be free. I can have
Speaker 1: this level of freedom in my body in this world. Right.
Speaker 1: And if that wasn't the case, I wouldn't be here, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think I would have survived, yea, you know,
Speaker 1: the suffering that I was moving through.
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Speaker 3: to one you feed dot net slash habits. I remember
Speaker 3: the first time I was exposed to Buddhism. It was
Speaker 3: Zen Buddhism, and it was in high school and a
Speaker 3: teacher gave me, maybe, you know, zenmind, beginner's mind. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I didn't understand ninety nine percent of what
Speaker 3: I was reading, but I got some intuition that what
Speaker 3: they were talking about was the ability to be okay
Speaker 3: regardless of the way my life on the outside appeared
Speaker 3: to go. And even by that age, I was pretty
Speaker 3: clearly convinced like, the world's a rough place, you know,
Speaker 3: and we don't have complete control over what circumstances show
Speaker 3: up for us. And so I was very early I
Speaker 3: was just drawn into that idea of like, oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: there's a piece that's beyond circumstance, And to me, that's
Speaker 3: kind of what we're talking about here, right, as far
Speaker 3: as freedom goes, you said to transcend the causes and
Speaker 3: conditions of suffering. I'm wondering if we could drill down
Speaker 3: the word suffering for a minute, because different people use
Speaker 3: this idea and this word in different ways. And you
Speaker 3: don't mean the ability to go beyond ever feeling any
Speaker 3: sort of discomfort or pain or is that what you mean?
Speaker 3: What do you mean when you say transcending or going
Speaker 3: beyond the causes and conditions of suffering? What does that
Speaker 3: look like for a human being to actually get there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, as an embodied being, so in the body, in
Speaker 1: this world, in the relative to experience this kind of
Speaker 1: complete freedom means that I actually recognize the illusion of everything, right,
Speaker 1: especially the sense of self, our ego, right who I
Speaker 1: thought I was, I am not? That begins to free
Speaker 1: us from these paths and these narratives, right that reinforce
Speaker 1: this eye that can suffer, that can be uncomfortable. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, I think this is a useful, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of analogy that was taught to me by one
Speaker 1: of my professors in graduate school. But you know, suffering
Speaker 1: is like cooking a really nice spaghetti dinner, you know,
Speaker 1: tomato sauce, and then taking the left over sauce, the
Speaker 1: red sauce, and putting it into a tupperware. But you
Speaker 1: can't really find a top that fits well. So you
Speaker 1: find the closest thing right, and a lid that really
Speaker 1: doesn't fit well, but it'll it'll keep the food covered,
Speaker 1: you'll keep the sauce covered when you put in the fridge.
Speaker 1: So you put it in the fridge, and then sometime
Speaker 1: down the road you go and open the fridge and
Speaker 1: that tupperware falls out, and because the top didn't really
Speaker 1: fit the container, the red sauce spills all over your clothes,
Speaker 1: all over the floor, and you have this huge mess.
Speaker 1: And that's suffering. Right. No matter what we do in
Speaker 1: this life, will never get to a place where it
Speaker 1: feels like everything makes sense, everything's right, everything fits like
Speaker 1: this will never make sense, complete sense, no matter how
Speaker 1: hard I try. So the first step is just recognizing that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like this tupperware and this top do not match.
Speaker 1: And I can hold that, you know, and I can
Speaker 1: name that and proceed forward understanding that I'm not here
Speaker 1: to try to make this make sense. I'm here to
Speaker 1: figure out how to transcend my need for tupperware or
Speaker 1: anything to begin with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think this is a very important point
Speaker 3: in a place that people who don't understand Buddhism will
Speaker 3: often get lost, right, because that can sound like complete detachment,
Speaker 3: and I don't think that's what you're saying. And some
Speaker 3: people will say something like, well, you know, if my
Speaker 3: mother dies and I be sad, isn't that like a
Speaker 3: normal human reaction? So put a little finer point on this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, everything is just an experience. It's not inherently
Speaker 1: who I am. Yes, so I can mourn the loss
Speaker 1: of someone that I love, and I do that every
Speaker 1: time I lose someone that I love. But I know
Speaker 1: that that this is just an experience, not moving through,
Speaker 1: and that what I'm actually trying to do is to
Speaker 1: be present, to feel it, to name it right, to
Speaker 1: be in it right. Because the deeper I get into experiencing,
Speaker 1: the less suffering actually that I go through, right, And
Speaker 1: the more I get into it, the more I'm able
Speaker 1: to just release it, to let it go, to let
Speaker 1: it pass, you know, like things just pass through. Our
Speaker 1: experienced thoughts and emotions pass through our minds through our bodies. Right,
Speaker 1: These are just energies, right, And I know that mourning
Speaker 1: right the morning that I do is just one experience
Speaker 1: that I can have because I can also experience joy
Speaker 1: even in the midst of mourning. Right, I can struggle
Speaker 1: and still feel deep gratitude for being in the world
Speaker 1: and for going through what I'm going through. You know,
Speaker 1: we talked about being consumed by things, and I think
Speaker 1: that so much of what prevents us from experiencing a
Speaker 1: kind of fluidity and openness and spaciousness is how we
Speaker 1: get really centered into experiences of comfort or even joy
Speaker 1: or pleasure, you know. And for me, I am practicing
Speaker 1: to hold space for everything, both the good and the bad,
Speaker 1: so to speak right, and not to just always push
Speaker 1: things away or to grab onto things, but to say
Speaker 1: everything is arising, right, and I get to choose how
Speaker 1: to tend to everything that's arising. I get to choose
Speaker 1: what to invest in and to divest from as well.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about essentially fundamental agency to get to this
Speaker 1: point where I am choosing and complete awareness to choose
Speaker 1: what my experience will be and how to manage my
Speaker 1: experience instead of unconsciously reacting to everything that arises, which
Speaker 1: creates this experience of being overwhelmed and consumed.
Speaker 3: Right, You've got a line in the book.
Speaker 2: I really like it.
Speaker 3: You say, when I say freedom or liberation, I'm talking
Speaker 3: about our fundamental capacity to choose responsiveness over reactivity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. For me, that's really important kind of freedom that
Speaker 1: I have been working on in my meditation practice. Right,
Speaker 1: So that kind of responsiveness helps me to really be
Speaker 1: in the world and not be afraid of the world. Right,
Speaker 1: because I have this agency to choose how to respond
Speaker 1: to what's happening, I don't have to react potentially creating
Speaker 1: more harm, more chaos, you know, and adding more you know,
Speaker 1: this friend take energy into the world. I get to say,
Speaker 1: you know what this is happening. The anxiety, the sadness,
Speaker 1: the despair of the hopelessness, the grief, all of that.
Speaker 1: It can arise and I can just notice it, name it,
Speaker 1: I can experience it. Right. I don't have to grab
Speaker 1: on to it, right, but I have to show up
Speaker 1: and be there with it. And that's how I tend
Speaker 1: to everything that arises. Right, I tend to everything. I
Speaker 1: take care of everything, but I don't have to respond
Speaker 1: to everything. You know, that comes up, right, And that's
Speaker 1: how I practice a kind of a health, a mental
Speaker 1: health of physical health. But like that's how I ultimately
Speaker 1: practice self cares by getting clear about what I'm reacting
Speaker 1: to and how to respond, you know, essentially, So.
Speaker 3: As you're going through in the book, you're describing sort
Speaker 3: of some of the characteristics of a New Saint, and
Speaker 3: one of them I think is interesting because you've talked
Speaker 3: a little bit about this fundamental notion in Buddhism that
Speaker 3: there isn't really a self in the way that I
Speaker 3: think there is. Right, I'm identified as this thing, but
Speaker 3: that thing is sort of made up of lots of
Speaker 3: other things, for lack of a better way to say it. Right,
Speaker 3: it's not a discrete entity. It's just a combination of
Speaker 3: other things. But you also talk about how a new
Speaker 3: Saint also understands identity, and I assume in that sense
Speaker 3: you're using identity in the sense of you being a
Speaker 3: queer black man as an identity, right, So talk to
Speaker 3: me about how those two things kind of come together.
Speaker 3: You know, when is identity a useful idea for us
Speaker 3: and how do we use it? And when is it
Speaker 3: a constricting idea? Is for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. I think identity is how we
Speaker 1: solidify the sense of self. That's how we validate self
Speaker 1: and how self expresses itself, you know. And so this
Speaker 1: reality right an identity again, Narrative stories like that are
Speaker 1: full of meaning, you know, and that meaning is based
Speaker 1: on interactions with others you know, and other groups and
Speaker 1: other systems of thinking and behavior as well. Identity becomes
Speaker 1: useful because it creates a kind of connection of belonging
Speaker 1: to others, like it creates community. The overall identity is human, right,
Speaker 1: creates a kind of human belongingness to all humans, right,
Speaker 1: which is incredibly important. Right. Identity becomes a struggle when
Speaker 1: we start taking identity really seriously, right, and then we
Speaker 1: believe that identity means more than what it actually does.
Speaker 1: When identity becomes over meaningful, then it becomes like something solid.
Speaker 1: It solidifies, right, and it blocks us from experiencing spaciousness
Speaker 1: and fluidity, right. It keeps us from connecting to this
Speaker 1: really translucent, illusionary quality of the phenomenal world that everything
Speaker 1: isn't so rigid, but we've made it really rigid, you know,
Speaker 1: because of our deep belief and meaning making right and
Speaker 1: of course the sense of self and ego uses identity
Speaker 1: and the meanings around identity to create hierarchy, right, And
Speaker 1: that hierarchy is really about establishing the realness of ego,
Speaker 1: like because the ego doesn't have to be high, it
Speaker 1: can be low. Right. I can think I'm the most
Speaker 1: important person in the world, or i can think I'm
Speaker 1: the most miserable, you know, person in the world. It's
Speaker 1: both of those extremes solidified ego, an ego the sense
Speaker 1: of self that can experience these extremes. Right. And what
Speaker 1: we're trying to do in terms of this liberation work
Speaker 1: is get back into the fluidity, the illusionary quality of
Speaker 1: all of these identities. Right. I'm not trying to actually
Speaker 1: push anything away, and that's not the goal of Buddhism
Speaker 1: is to erase ego and erase identity, but to come
Speaker 1: into a deeper awareness of what these experiences are, so
Speaker 1: we can say, yeah, these are experiences of my most
Speaker 1: authentic nature, but this isn't who I am. If I
Speaker 1: were to say I am anything, then I would say
Speaker 1: that I am an expression of space, emptiness, energy, that
Speaker 1: my consciousness is just energy that's aware, right, not gathered
Speaker 1: around this limiting sense of self, but is spacious, open, fluid, connected, Right,
Speaker 1: That's what we're trying to get back to. And I
Speaker 1: can do that and at the same time identify identity. Right,
Speaker 1: But you have this space where you're understanding that, yes,
Speaker 1: and this isn't who I am either, This is like drag, right,
Speaker 1: that I'm doing right, But then you start believing in
Speaker 1: the drag. Then that's when the problems start to arise.
Speaker 1: And that's the problem. We believe that this is who
Speaker 1: we are, that our race and class and sexual orientation
Speaker 1: and nationality and physical ability, all of that is who
Speaker 1: I am. And we weaponize this false belief of these
Speaker 1: identity locations being who we are against one another and
Speaker 1: also against ourselves as well. When it doesn't allow us
Speaker 1: to feel connected and feel fluidity and spaciousness and you know,
Speaker 1: and connect us to like this experience of emptiness, then
Speaker 1: it gets in the way.
Speaker 3: And so you say that the News Saint embraces rather
Speaker 3: than bypasses, the complexity of identity. So by that you
Speaker 3: mean being able to hold both of those things. On
Speaker 3: one hand, you know, in the descriptive terms, I'm a
Speaker 3: straight white male, and I'm also, as you said empty,
Speaker 3: I'm empty of a real self and being able to
Speaker 3: move fluidly between those two me it's sort of like
Speaker 3: the absolute and the relative right, that idea of it,
Speaker 3: and being able to, at least in my traditions, then
Speaker 3: where you can move back and forth between those two things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can move back and forth between them, or
Speaker 1: they can just mix together and you can say I
Speaker 1: am and I'm not right because everything becomes a response
Speaker 1: in that space. So I am actually choosing how to identify,
Speaker 1: knowing that this choice is actually, you know, quite illusionary, right,
Speaker 1: But I intentionally make this choice because this is how
Speaker 1: I belong in the relative right. And if I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to belong, then what am I doing here? You know?
Speaker 1: Because if I'm not trying to belong to see myself
Speaker 1: and others, then I'm actually kind of solidifying the sense
Speaker 1: of self, you know, the sense of self gets real
Speaker 1: because I'm special and I don't belong in terms of community.
Speaker 1: I'm not a part of this human community. I'm actually
Speaker 1: quite special, and we have to disrupt that, you know,
Speaker 1: So we bring these extreme teachings together. I am and
Speaker 1: I'm not, and that is an experience that disrupts a
Speaker 1: lot of fixation, you know, and a real kind of
Speaker 1: like result of that, that kind of practice is that
Speaker 1: you just feel the spaciousness you feel you can say
Speaker 1: I am you can say I am a man, right,
Speaker 1: and you can actually connect to what that has meant
Speaker 1: individually and systematically, what that has meant historically, right, And
Speaker 1: you can say, and this is just an experience of
Speaker 1: who I am, right, and that experience frees us from
Speaker 1: this intense self identification. It says, yeah, being a man
Speaker 1: is just an experience, Like it's not inherently who I am, right,
Speaker 1: you know, but when I say I am a man,
Speaker 1: this is who I am, I'm fixed it becomes a
Speaker 1: kind of rigidity. Of course, that rigidity is where you know,
Speaker 1: relative patriarchy springs from right. You know, I've trapped myself
Speaker 1: in this identity of location and there's nowhere else to go, right,
Speaker 1: And that's real violence for against ourselves and against countless
Speaker 1: people right who are situated outside of this rigid space
Speaker 1: that we've locked ourselves into.
Speaker 3: So you talk about four primary activities that a new
Speaker 3: Saint is going to engage in. You know, the first
Speaker 3: is to give a shit about everyone's liberation, to figure
Speaker 3: out their work, what they are supposed to do, to
Speaker 3: do that work, and then return to that work again
Speaker 3: and again. So elaborate any of those four or the
Speaker 3: whole concept, you know, riff on whatever you want out
Speaker 3: of what I just read there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, first, I think most importantly is that we give
Speaker 1: a shit. We care. We care about ourselves, we care
Speaker 1: about other people, we care about the environment, we care
Speaker 1: about animals, we care about the phenomenal world. Right, And
Speaker 1: that's a ton tric principle. What is tontric principle says
Speaker 1: that when we talk about care and love, we're talking
Speaker 1: about caring and loving all phenomena, you know, not just
Speaker 1: living our conscious phenomena, but like ananimate phenomena, like everything
Speaker 1: that arises, Like I care about and that helps me
Speaker 1: to stay present and aware to what's happening. Right. But
Speaker 1: you know when we talk about caring, yes, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're suffering, and I want to be free from that suffering.
Speaker 1: And if I want to be free from that suffering,
Speaker 1: it seems like everyone else does. Right, And then you
Speaker 1: figure out like what the work is, like, how do
Speaker 1: you disrupt suffering? What's your path? What's your modality? Like?
Speaker 1: What are you reading, who are you studying with, who
Speaker 1: are your communities that's helping you to do this work right?
Speaker 1: And then you do it right and it's hard. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I say, it's like going to the front lines of
Speaker 1: your work. You go to your front lines, right. You
Speaker 1: don't get behind someone else, right, Like no one's front
Speaker 1: line is being behind someone else you know and encouraging
Speaker 1: them on. And it's like, oh, yeah, you can do it,
Speaker 1: you can do it. It's not to be a cheerleader,
Speaker 1: but to go to where your front line is and
Speaker 1: to stand there and to do your work no matter
Speaker 1: how hard it is, right. And so once you get there,
Speaker 1: you keep reminding yourself, no, this is where I'm at.
Speaker 1: So you keep returning over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you don't get to take a break, right,
Speaker 1: like we all need a break, right. But once you
Speaker 1: take a break, which I call self care in the book,
Speaker 1: once you do that care, you return back over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. And if everyone is doing that,
Speaker 1: then we will see, you know, the awakening of this
Speaker 1: much more liberated future. Right. But I think that's really
Speaker 1: the hard piece here, is figuring out what your work
Speaker 1: is and doing it because it may not look so
Speaker 1: glamorous as other people's work, right, that's really hard. So
Speaker 1: sometimes our work is really invisible, you know, like our
Speaker 1: work may not be applauded. I read so many stories
Speaker 1: about these different kinds of like situations, wars and so forth,
Speaker 1: where people were actively disrupting the impact of wars, like
Speaker 1: you know, I've been reading stories about the Holocaust, you know,
Speaker 1: and how people and countries that the Nazis were invading
Speaker 1: they would do whatever they could to support you know,
Speaker 1: Jewish you know, families and individuals and really put their
Speaker 1: lives on the line. That's going to your front line,
Speaker 1: you know. And we may not know all of these
Speaker 1: people who are doing the subversive work of keeping people safe,
Speaker 1: but they did, right, and that's what we do. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll be doing all kinds of work that will not
Speaker 1: be applauded, that won't be awarded. I also say that
Speaker 1: not all of us are going to be like doctor King,
Speaker 1: you know, are these great change makers that we all
Speaker 1: know and love. But that's okay because that was their work,
Speaker 1: and we have the great opportunity to figure out what
Speaker 1: our work is and do it.
Speaker 3: How do people go about figuring that out right? Because
Speaker 3: you know, everybody has ego and everybody wants to be
Speaker 3: doctor king. And one thing I have seen a lot
Speaker 3: of in people I've worked with is this sense people
Speaker 3: who are living what looked to me to be very good, moral, decent, kind,
Speaker 3: supportive lives who feel like they're not doing anything because
Speaker 3: they haven't found it in an international charity and get
Speaker 3: rid of ringworm disease or something.
Speaker 1: Right, absolutely, I think one of the things is for me,
Speaker 1: like how am I helping the people around me first
Speaker 1: and foremost? Because sometimes when we have these dreams of
Speaker 1: establishing these huge international movements, it's like we kind of
Speaker 1: bypass the people living around us and with us to
Speaker 1: go to this more idealized, glamorous, sexy kind of work
Speaker 1: where we're going to be recognized. Like so much of
Speaker 1: this gets derilled when we want to be applauded for
Speaker 1: the work instead of understanding that this is essentially what
Speaker 1: we should be doing. Period. This isn't finding your work,
Speaker 1: shouldn't be extraordinary. It should just be what we do
Speaker 1: as humans. You know, in my ethical framework based in Buddhism,
Speaker 1: like I'm here to help we should be helping each other,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't need to be applauded to do that,
Speaker 1: I'm just fulfilling my role in my path, you know.
Speaker 1: But I just really think that, like when you just
Speaker 1: look around you, who are you living with, who's your family?
Speaker 1: Tell me about your family, how you're showing up in
Speaker 1: your family right now? To reduce suffering, to support your family,
Speaker 1: like it's not glamorous, is really hard, but that's important
Speaker 1: to do. Look at the suffering of the people around
Speaker 1: you first, and then you build from that if you
Speaker 1: need to. Right, But again, like I talk with folks
Speaker 1: who are doing all kinds of work and they're like,
Speaker 1: this isn't important. You know, I'm just a stay at
Speaker 1: home parent, or I work for a bank, are you know?
Speaker 1: I just serve at a restaurant. Right They're like, how
Speaker 1: can I possibly be doing the work? And I say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, the kindness that you're offering to the people
Speaker 1: you're caring for actually can really impact people, you know,
Speaker 1: in ways that you can and even imagine. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been all of these. I haven't been a stay
Speaker 1: at home parent, you know, but I've had a lot
Speaker 1: of mundane jobs while I've been like this is pointless,
Speaker 1: this is useful, but I've challenged myself to show up
Speaker 1: and to really take care of people in the work
Speaker 1: that I'm doing, and that impacts people. Someone may come
Speaker 1: into a restaurant and just be having the worst day
Speaker 1: and then they're taking care of by a server who's
Speaker 1: just really kind, really present, and that changes people. And
Speaker 1: the change that they experience with this interaction with the
Speaker 1: server may actually inspire them to go out and to
Speaker 1: change different relationships that they're struggling in. You can't ever know,
Speaker 1: of course. I think parenting and caretaking kids or just
Speaker 1: one of the most important things that we could be doing, right,
Speaker 1: and just the work that you're doing instilling into children,
Speaker 1: just this path of caring for themselves for others, like
Speaker 1: it will impact the world in ways that you can't
Speaker 1: even imagine. Right, Raising children children who are just like connected,
Speaker 1: they're present, they're choosing their joy, they're being fluid and open,
Speaker 1: and they just they have a sense that like they
Speaker 1: have agency in their lives. That's what we need from
Speaker 1: our young people. Yeah, right, And for caretakers who are
Speaker 1: really invested in that work. And I am very fortunate
Speaker 1: all of my friends who are parenting are really deeply
Speaker 1: involved in that kind of caretaking. Like, they're very aware
Speaker 1: that they're raising kids that will one day really like
Speaker 1: be supporting the collective, you know, so they're instilling into
Speaker 1: their kids everything that our generation struggled, you know, to cultivate.
Speaker 1: And that's not to blame our parents, right, right, but
Speaker 1: to recognize the difficulty and the challenges, you know, of
Speaker 1: figuring out what your work is, you know, in doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about practice, and you
Speaker 3: say that practice is not easy and often involves a
Speaker 3: fair amount of struggle, and that you and your practice
Speaker 3: appreciate struggle because it's how you register the effort that
Speaker 3: you invest into getting free, and it's also the process
Speaker 3: through which you get clear. Say a little bit more about.
Speaker 1: That, you know, I think some people are like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to struggle. This isn't helpful for me, as
Speaker 1: you know talk about in the book, Struggle for me
Speaker 1: is how I'm shaped right, Like it really struggle has
Speaker 1: really helped me to learn what to divest from because
Speaker 1: part of the struggle is that the struggle is actually
Speaker 1: reflecting back to me what I shouldn't be doing sometimes right,
Speaker 1: but also struggle also can reflect back to me what
Speaker 1: I need to cultivate and awaken and really train in right,
Speaker 1: to develop a deeper competency and capacity to do right
Speaker 1: because my struggle is sometimes not having what I need
Speaker 1: to do the work that I'm presented with, right. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are just tired right now
Speaker 1: and they want to practice that's easy. And I just
Speaker 1: have never been that interested and easy. Like I have
Speaker 1: a personality that's like, let's just do it the hard way,
Speaker 1: like literally, because I know what the hard way is,
Speaker 1: you know. But I think maybe I over value struggle,
Speaker 1: you know, in a way that other people, you know,
Speaker 1: are undervaluing it. But I just come from a community
Speaker 1: or culture where struggle has deeply defined our capacity to
Speaker 1: experience joy and community.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Struggle has brought into context what is important for us,
Speaker 1: you know, and I just value that. You know, if
Speaker 1: something is worth doing, it's not going to be so easy.
Speaker 1: And I tell people too that, like, if it's easy,
Speaker 1: it's probably not your work. Right. If you're complaining about
Speaker 1: the work, there's a good sign that you're where you
Speaker 1: need to be, right, Listen, I'm in that same boat, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love doing what I'm doing, Like this work, you know,
Speaker 1: the writing the teaching. This is the only thing that
Speaker 1: I want to do, and it's also a struggle, yep right,
Speaker 1: And some days I don't want to do shit, yep right,
Speaker 1: And it's okay. So I know that my love and
Speaker 1: my purpose will always bring me back to the work.
Speaker 1: So for me complaining, it's just a way that I'm
Speaker 1: like recognizing that that this is difficult, Yeah, and to
Speaker 1: honor resistance. Instead of letting it consume me or letting
Speaker 1: it become something I'm pushing away, I just center it
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, like this is real work, and I
Speaker 1: gratefully do this, you know.
Speaker 3: At the same time, Yeah, I love that idea because
Speaker 3: there is a cultural narrative, you know, there's that old
Speaker 3: line like if you do work that you love, you'll
Speaker 3: never work a day in your life. And I'm like
Speaker 3: that's nonscience, Like that's just solute nonsense, or that like
Speaker 3: if it's hard, it means it's the wrong thing for me,
Speaker 3: or And I love how you're sort of separating a
Speaker 3: deeper understanding of meaning and purpose and love from the
Speaker 3: day to day ups and downs of being a human being.
Speaker 3: I didn't sleep real well last night, so you know what,
Speaker 3: writing that three paragraphs today just really kind of sucks
Speaker 3: because I'm really tired. You know, another day I might
Speaker 3: really like writing it. But that, you know, for me
Speaker 3: has been a learning of like, you know, I can
Speaker 3: love what I do and it's still be really hard
Speaker 3: sometimes and still really not want to do it some
Speaker 3: of the time. And that's not a sign that I've
Speaker 3: doing the wrong thing. Now. It can be a sign
Speaker 3: of that, but that's not the only thing.
Speaker 1: It can mean, absolutely, And for me, I think about
Speaker 1: regret quite a bit, you know, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to end this life having regret it not doing the
Speaker 1: work that was called to do right. And I may
Speaker 1: not be great at the work, right. I think that
Speaker 1: also gets in the way we think that we have
Speaker 1: to be amazing at the work that we're doing or
Speaker 1: what we love to do, is that that's not always
Speaker 1: the case. No, we can be kind of mediocre, right,
Speaker 1: but it's still what we should be doing, right, And
Speaker 1: of course what is mediocre or not just very subjective offering,
Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, and so like the love, yeah,
Speaker 1: the love for the work right is a motivation that
Speaker 1: keeps me moving through the struggling of the work itself.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: But I know what it feels like, you know, doing
Speaker 1: the work that I'm called to do and the impact
Speaker 1: that it has on people, and that's what also keeps
Speaker 1: me going as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Later on in the book, you talk about this
Speaker 3: idea of expansive and contracting habits. You say, myself cares
Speaker 3: about understand how to balance contracting activity with expansive activity.
Speaker 3: We're naturally hovering between these two extremes because we're constantly
Speaker 3: negotiating work. We don't want to do prompting constriction along
Speaker 3: with work we want to do prompting openness. The goal
Speaker 3: is to train ourselves to balance these two experiences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I talk about checking emails as
Speaker 1: one of those really contracting experiences. I just kind of
Speaker 1: shut down. So I have a lot of aversion, you know,
Speaker 1: so I can check emails and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend thirty minutes, which is a lot
Speaker 1: for me. This is like, that's a hell where I'm
Speaker 1: from me thirty minutes of email. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: do thirty minutes of emails, but I'm going to balance
Speaker 1: that with thirty minutes or forty five minutes of taking
Speaker 1: a walk outside or sitting outside yep, right, and I
Speaker 1: just I go back and forth like that because even
Speaker 1: that contracting work is being asked to be cared for,
Speaker 1: and that care is pairing it with something that feels
Speaker 1: expansive and opening and RESTful. Right, Instead of just spending
Speaker 1: hours and hours a day doing things that I don't
Speaker 1: want to do, I intersperse that world with things that
Speaker 1: open and expand and allow me to feel rested and
Speaker 1: restore it.
Speaker 3: Well, we are at the end of our time. I
Speaker 3: have really appreciated this. You and I are going to
Speaker 3: go into a post show conversation where you're going to
Speaker 3: lead us through a meditation that will sort of expand
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Speaker 3: so much. It's really been a pleasure talking with you,
Speaker 3: and I'm so glad I got to do it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, it's been great.
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