Speaker 1: Most of this world.
Speaker 2: Almost everything in this world actually is kind of just
Speaker 2: being itself.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 3: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 3: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 3: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 3: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 3: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 3: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 3: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 3: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 3: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 3: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 3: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 3: for joining us. Listeners will notice that this is a
Speaker 3: very special episode recorded live in Santa Fe. It's a
Speaker 3: discussion with Eric talking to Henry Shuckman, a poet, author,
Speaker 3: and zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage. He is
Speaker 3: co founder of the Single Path meditation app The Way,
Speaker 3: the founder of Original Love Meditation program, and spiritual director
Speaker 3: emeritus at the Mountain Cloud Zen Center. Henry's most recent
Speaker 3: books are Original Love, The Four Inns, On the Path
Speaker 3: of Awakening, and the zen memoir One Blade of Grass.
Speaker 3: He has taught at Google and Harvard Business School, the
Speaker 3: Institute of American Indian Arts, and Oxford Brooks University, and
Speaker 3: is the author of several award winning books of poetry
Speaker 3: and fiction. Henry's poems have appeared in The New Yorker,
Speaker 3: Sunday Times, and Financial Time. He has an MA from
Speaker 3: Cambridge and an emlet from Saint Andrews.
Speaker 1: Hi. Welcome everybody, Thank you so much for coming here.
Speaker 1: Great to see you all.
Speaker 2: I'm Henry Schuckman, and I'm absolutely delighted really that this
Speaker 2: event is happening, and that Mountain Clouds has made it possible,
Speaker 2: and the incredible team here Grant and Kieran and Jeremy
Speaker 2: and Sarah and many others that brought this together, and
Speaker 2: also my friend and colleague in the what would you
Speaker 2: call it, the Healing Arts, Eric Zimmer, who's come from Columbus,
Speaker 2: Ohio to do this with us. Thank Eric, because you know,
Speaker 2: bringing out a book as I'm doing right now here,
Speaker 2: this is its first outing into the world. It's in
Speaker 2: some ways a kind of a relief that finally is out.
Speaker 2: But it's also a little bit scary, and there's a
Speaker 2: certain amount of sense of exposure and a kind of
Speaker 2: vulnerability of course that comes with that. And I can't
Speaker 2: say that I'm feeling very zen, you know. Welcome everybody
Speaker 2: to this hallowed hall, mountain clad and welcome Eric.
Speaker 1: It's a great pleasure to have you here.
Speaker 2: Eric has been running one of the most helpful and
Speaker 2: actually most beloved podcasts these last dozen years ten years,
Speaker 2: called The One You Feed and which we'll hear a
Speaker 2: little bit more about in a moment. And he's also
Speaker 2: a remarkably gifted behavior change coach.
Speaker 1: And budding author.
Speaker 2: And the most remarkable human being actually who's really given
Speaker 2: his life to service to helping helping us grow in
Speaker 2: the ways we need to.
Speaker 1: I was absolutely.
Speaker 2: Thrilled when he reached out to suggest that perhaps he
Speaker 2: could come here when my book came out to do
Speaker 2: this event. There's been a little time in the making,
Speaker 2: and here we are. Thank you, Eric, Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: This is the event.
Speaker 2: It will be fully but it's also being recorded, so
Speaker 2: it will be out on Eric's podcast in time.
Speaker 4: In time, Shall I take it from here?
Speaker 1: I think so? All right?
Speaker 4: Welcome to the one you feed. Welcome to all of
Speaker 4: you to this podcast that will air, as Henry said,
Speaker 4: some point in the future. And you know, we are
Speaker 4: all here to celebrate the release of Henry's new book,
Speaker 4: Savage Pilgrims. Do you know what your teacher used to
Speaker 4: get up to.
Speaker 1: Have you read books?
Speaker 4: In this book? No, seriously Original Love, which you all
Speaker 4: have a chance to get after. But there was a
Speaker 4: passage in here that I wanted to read. And then
Speaker 4: we'll get to the parable in a second. But I
Speaker 4: read this and I was amazed that this long ago
Speaker 4: you wrote something that still seems really true to a
Speaker 4: lot of what is in Original Love. And you wrote
Speaker 4: the little intricacies, the devices and tie ups in a
Speaker 4: life could take care of themselves. The important thing was
Speaker 4: to make room always for the big powers of life
Speaker 4: to be wide open inside, spacious and strong.
Speaker 1: That's really in that book.
Speaker 4: That's really this book from like nineteen ninety five. Yeah,
Speaker 4: which before that, Yeah, yeah, as I was reading it
Speaker 4: because I was I was wanting to read about Santa
Speaker 4: Fe And yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: Is it's down at the bottom.
Speaker 4: I didn't make that up.
Speaker 1: My God, My whole idea of my path in life
Speaker 1: has just been.
Speaker 4: You were already awakened.
Speaker 1: Then why did you do all this sitting?
Speaker 4: There was no need?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? All right.
Speaker 4: So our podcast listeners will know is called The One
Speaker 4: You Feed, and it's based on an old parable. And
Speaker 4: in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with a
Speaker 4: grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 4: inside of us that are always at battle. One is
Speaker 4: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 4: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 4: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 4: grandchild stops and they think about it for a second.
Speaker 4: They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 4: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 4: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 4: does that parable mean to you in your life and
Speaker 4: in the work that you do?
Speaker 2: No, thank you, Wow, It's speaks right to the heart
Speaker 2: of it. I believe we are trainable, we human beings,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think that's something I didn't realize
Speaker 2: when I was younger. I thought I was at the
Speaker 2: mercy of the storms. I felt inside myself shame, anxiety,
Speaker 2: mad greed, mad hunger, you know, and raw ambition and
Speaker 2: great envy and competitiveness and a lot of other ugly things.
Speaker 1: And I thought, also, you know, despair.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know then, as a young man, that
Speaker 2: it wasn't character defects, if you see what I mean.
Speaker 2: Maybe it was character defects, but I thought they were
Speaker 2: imprinted that we all have too well. I didn't really
Speaker 2: believe that. I thought all those other people out there,
Speaker 2: they don't get messed up like this.
Speaker 1: That's part of why I'm so despicable, you know.
Speaker 2: And I gradually, gradually learned that I could nearly always,
Speaker 2: in collaboration of some kind with others, one other, or
Speaker 2: a group of others or many.
Speaker 1: Others, I could actually change. It took me a long time.
Speaker 2: To believe that there could be any kind of real
Speaker 2: hump I could go over where it was really my
Speaker 2: relationship with my difficulties could really change. I thought I
Speaker 2: could just manage them better, and that was great even
Speaker 2: to know that, but not that the relationship could really
Speaker 2: change with them, and that there could be significant thresholds.
Speaker 2: I don't think any quite permanent, but significant of greater freedom,
Speaker 2: greater freedom in response, in responsiveness, greater freedom and self love,
Speaker 2: self compassion, self kindness and kindness, which I'm working on
Speaker 2: to others. So to me, that is a fundamental truth
Speaker 2: of human nature that actually we can be trained, We
Speaker 2: can train ourselves, and we kind of need it. The
Speaker 2: evolutionary wiring we've inherited makes it essential, you know. And
Speaker 2: when you look at what's going on today, you see,
Speaker 2: you know, it's basically social media just ramping up the
Speaker 2: bad wolf unrestrained, and we can easily fall for it.
Speaker 1: The necessity really of training. I see, that's funny.
Speaker 2: I just I've been crazy about this book called The
Speaker 2: Survival of the Friendliest recently, which is all about how
Speaker 2: wolves became dogs and foxes could become domesticated. It's a
Speaker 2: fascinating book. Everybody should read it. Then read the Original
Speaker 2: Love first Survival of the Friendliest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, that's interesting you bring up wolves. Given that
Speaker 4: we stir it off with a parable about wolves. I
Speaker 4: want to jump into the book, and I'm going to
Speaker 4: ask a relatively obvious question to start. But the book
Speaker 4: is called Original Love. So what does that mean to you?
Speaker 4: Why is that the title of the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel rather strongly about it.
Speaker 2: First of all, I think the concept of original sin
Speaker 2: is a really unhelpful one. There may be subtleties to
Speaker 2: it that I don't understand. There may be a theological
Speaker 2: ins and outs that I can't get my head around.
Speaker 2: But basically, in the sort of simple way of understanding it,
Speaker 2: I think it's been extremely damaging in human history.
Speaker 1: Probably. I think the parable of the fall of man
Speaker 1: is probably a really bad one. Many of you might
Speaker 1: have read Grading Sweet.
Speaker 5: Grass right, and it begins with that and how that
Speaker 5: contrasts with another very different mythology, a Native American mythology
Speaker 5: of the human relationship with this earth.
Speaker 2: I don't believe in original sin, but secretly I did.
Speaker 1: I think I had a lot.
Speaker 2: Of shame in my childhood and my youth and my
Speaker 2: young adulthood, and it took some work to be cognizant
Speaker 2: of that. But here's the thing. Every time I've been
Speaker 2: graced with some flash of insight or greater wisdom, or
Speaker 2: greater opening, or greater sense of you know, our true.
Speaker 1: Relationship with this planet.
Speaker 2: Every time, and there's come in different forms and different
Speaker 2: kinds of small awakenings and maybe the odd medium sized one.
Speaker 2: You know, they always come with some sense of belovedness.
Speaker 2: It's just never happened to me where there wasn't this
Speaker 2: tremble of love in the aftermath because or even in
Speaker 2: the midst usually a bit more in the aftermath, because
Speaker 2: it's always some kind of revelation that what I thought
Speaker 2: was my place in the world as a separate, lonely
Speaker 2: entity stalking the planet was wrong, was wrong, fundamentally wrong,
Speaker 2: you know, And instead you know there is a level
Speaker 2: on which we're not separate. And actually it's the most enlivening, affirming,
Speaker 2: beautiful thing for a human being to discover, I suspect,
Speaker 2: and it's real and it comes with a sense of love.
Speaker 1: What then, we'll call that.
Speaker 2: Kind of thing is seeing your original face, I mean
Speaker 2: some of that anyway, or discovering your original nature. I
Speaker 2: just wanted to say it out loud.
Speaker 1: Original love.
Speaker 2: I know it's risky in it might sound really corny,
Speaker 2: but I think it's right.
Speaker 4: So I want to read something that you wrote about
Speaker 4: this book in general. You say that one of the
Speaker 4: things you want to get across in this book is
Speaker 4: that we don't need blinding revelation or massive enlightenment experiences,
Speaker 4: though they may come to encounter an unconditional love, waiting
Speaker 4: to be touched in the heart of even ordinary moments.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of what you're trying to
Speaker 4: do in this book is you're trying to take the
Speaker 4: subtype Zen called the express train to enlightenment, right, and
Speaker 4: then there's other paths that are a little bit considered
Speaker 4: more progressive paths, and you're trying to present those two
Speaker 4: as equally important and really going alongside each other. And
Speaker 4: to that end, there's an analogy that you use about
Speaker 4: two ruts. Do you want to share that.
Speaker 1: With this, Yeah, I'd love to.
Speaker 2: So there's in early Chinese Zen from the sixth century CE,
Speaker 2: there's a short fragment of a tract that likens the
Speaker 2: path of practice, that's to say, meditation practice to a
Speaker 2: cart track that has two wheel ruts. You've seen, you know,
Speaker 2: grassy tracks with two dusty or muddy dirt tracks and
Speaker 2: printed in the grass, that kind of And it says
Speaker 2: one track is called the four Foundations of Mindfulness, which
Speaker 2: basically is a progressive path, just as you said, of
Speaker 2: gradually growing in mindfulness, becoming more aware, more able to
Speaker 2: be responsive. And yeah, well, the things I've already talked
Speaker 2: about actually kindness and a bit more joy, and you know,
Speaker 2: being able to handle difficult feelings and difficult problems in
Speaker 2: life better. That's one path, one rut, and the other
Speaker 2: wheel rut it calls principle, which is a bit of
Speaker 2: a technical term in Chinese Buddhism.
Speaker 1: We might think of as just reality all.
Speaker 2: We could think of it as that original nature where
Speaker 2: nothing is separate, where you know, sometimes it shows itself
Speaker 2: as a great boundless spaciousness. Sometimes it shows itself as
Speaker 2: a single fabric that all things participated. Sometimes it shows
Speaker 2: itself as just clearly.
Speaker 1: There was never anybody here here where I think I am,
Speaker 1: and there's never been anybody here, and therefore what I
Speaker 1: really am is just this flux and flow of everything
Speaker 1: doing what it does. So that's the second wheel RUP.
Speaker 2: Now, the second wheel RUP is always here and actually
Speaker 2: isn't a progressive path, it's just the fact. But we're
Speaker 2: human beings, you know, so we need Yeah, we can
Speaker 2: glimpse that. Sometimes we can really have things knocked away,
Speaker 2: so we sense it quite consistently, But we're still human beings.
Speaker 2: We still need tending, we still need gradual cultivation, We
Speaker 2: still need a chance to you know, at the very
Speaker 2: least growing ways that make us more permeable.
Speaker 1: To that original nature.
Speaker 2: So I mean, for me, it's a perfect metaphor because
Speaker 2: I don't want to practice that says you've got to
Speaker 2: realize you were never here, or you're going to be miserable,
Speaker 2: which is really the sort of non dual There are
Speaker 2: non dual paths.
Speaker 1: That are kind of like that.
Speaker 2: You just got to see that you don't really exist
Speaker 2: the way you think you do, and all your problems
Speaker 2: are solved.
Speaker 1: It's kind of true in a way.
Speaker 2: But for the vast majority of human beings, I actually
Speaker 2: want to be able to tend this human being.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say you're wrong. You know, you're
Speaker 1: just wrong. No, you're suffering. You need care, and so
Speaker 1: are many others.
Speaker 2: And so I believe in a two rough path. I
Speaker 2: know it doesn't sound very mellifluous, the two rout track,
Speaker 2: but it's true.
Speaker 1: It's actually I believe in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, almost thirty years ago now I got sobers, you know,
Speaker 4: from a heroin addiction. And there's a line in twelve
Speaker 4: step programs that I heard then and has been central
Speaker 4: to everything I've thought about all these years. And it's
Speaker 4: an idea of being relieved of the bondage of self.
Speaker 4: And as I was thinking about the two paths, I
Speaker 4: was thinking a little bit about the one rut, the progressive,
Speaker 4: the mindfulness, the support. We'll talk about what goes in
Speaker 4: that rut here in a minute in the book. That
Speaker 4: is a way of over time lessening that bondage of self,
Speaker 4: that dependence, right, more and more freedom, yes, And the
Speaker 4: other rut is sort of the one where it just vanishes.
Speaker 4: You realize you were never in bondage, you were never
Speaker 4: in prison, right, it just didn't exist, right. And I
Speaker 4: think what hit me about the book and that I
Speaker 4: really liked is that you can get into a sense
Speaker 4: whereas if I've not had these blinding enlightenment experiences, then
Speaker 4: I'm doing all of this wrong and I'm failing. And
Speaker 4: it's a pretty hard grating curve. It's either one hundred
Speaker 4: or zero, right, And that's not a good way for
Speaker 4: people to progress and change. We don't tend to do
Speaker 4: that well in life.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: There's a reason that consistent progress motivates us and moves
Speaker 4: us forward. So would you say that a way of
Speaker 4: thinking of that is that as we go along the
Speaker 4: first rut, that we're talking about. We are getting freedom
Speaker 4: from that self. We are less in bondage to it.
Speaker 1: I totally believe that.
Speaker 2: I mean, i'd say almost, Like the first thing is
Speaker 2: really I don't want to speak for everybody, but I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people that I've seen as a teacher,
Speaker 2: and I include myself, we need more self love.
Speaker 1: And that's a starting point. You know. So if you're
Speaker 1: starting with this because I don't.
Speaker 2: Have self love, because I secretly despise myself, I'll get
Speaker 2: on board this train that said, well, you're going to
Speaker 2: realize you never had a self that can be quite attractive.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, yeah, let's get rid of this thing. Let's
Speaker 4: get it out of here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know, actually, I don't think that's either humane
Speaker 2: or quite good way of meeting our real needs. Because
Speaker 2: I'm talking about free from the bondage of self. I
Speaker 2: would say, if we just go to the place of
Speaker 2: self love, we are significantly free from the bondage of
Speaker 2: self because the relationships changed.
Speaker 1: This is a lot of what I talk about.
Speaker 2: If I may just morph into it a bit in mindfulness,
Speaker 2: is that of it or the way of experiencing it
Speaker 2: and trying to share it that I have that I
Speaker 2: share in the book is actually it's basically like a
Speaker 2: space of allowing, not like I got to whip up
Speaker 2: myself to be more aware. I've got to beat myself
Speaker 2: into mindfulness. I've got to do my reps every day.
Speaker 1: I've got to try to follow my breath, and my damn,
Speaker 1: my damn mind slides off the breath all the time.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's actually the path of allowing spaciousness,
Speaker 2: and allowing is so much more humane, you know. And
Speaker 2: if we find the space to allow our experience, that
Speaker 2: bondage slackens, you know, or maybe it unties itself, you know.
Speaker 2: And so it's.
Speaker 1: Not actually that you've got to have a blinding revelation
Speaker 1: that you've never really been here, which I.
Speaker 2: Think is a real thing to discover. But you may
Speaker 2: never be interested in that, you know. I know a
Speaker 2: lot of wise people who have never been curious about awakening, right,
Speaker 2: you know, which is what that would be, that revelatory experience.
Speaker 2: They apparently have succeeded in being wise and kind and
Speaker 2: quite cheerful.
Speaker 4: So it's some morose types that are that are aiming
Speaker 4: for it exactly. So let's get into the book. The
Speaker 4: book is about four inns as in places that you
Speaker 4: would stay on the path to awakening. We sort of
Speaker 4: talked about awakening is that other rut, So we'll set
Speaker 4: it aside for a second. What are the three inns
Speaker 4: that are in that first run?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So the first one is mindfulness. It's the
Speaker 2: foundation of everything, really and it's not to be sort
Speaker 2: of skipped over because there's so.
Speaker 1: Much that it gives us.
Speaker 2: If we just kind of get, really get what mindful
Speaker 2: awareness is for us, even a little bit, it'll change
Speaker 2: our lives.
Speaker 1: It's such a what do they call it? A superpower?
Speaker 1: Isn't that what they say?
Speaker 2: You know, to be able to take that little step back,
Speaker 2: just to micro shift back, find the bit of space
Speaker 2: that is aware and that does that thing I was
Speaker 2: talking about, allowing that lets this moment be as it is.
Speaker 2: I think we know when we're getting it, And then
Speaker 2: speak for myself, I know when I'm getting it because
Speaker 2: I always seem to feel something. I feel some little
Speaker 2: some little quiver of gratitude, or some little hint of
Speaker 2: maybe a kind of humbleness, or some little hint of
Speaker 2: sometimes sadness that was there unrecognized, and that I can
Speaker 2: now recognize and be with something.
Speaker 1: To me, it's always like a little bit of an
Speaker 1: opening of some kind. I mean, what I am.
Speaker 2: Give in this book and you take it or leave it,
Speaker 2: But I think it's an open to some little hit
Speaker 2: and a kind.
Speaker 1: Of love that marks it. Oh yeah, I've really moved
Speaker 1: into a place of mindfulness.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a beautiful line I'm flying without a parachute. Now,
Speaker 4: there's a beautiful line in the book. And I hope
Speaker 4: I get it right. You're talking about the present moment
Speaker 4: being enough, and then you say the world is already fulfilled.
Speaker 4: I read it and I was like, that's beautiful. It
Speaker 4: just jumped out at me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I hope I can remember. I think I
Speaker 2: know there's something in there that seems to be something
Speaker 2: we recognize when when we kind of disengaged from all
Speaker 2: our kind of seeking and grasping and machinations and trying
Speaker 2: to the constant sort of transactional engagement with life, what
Speaker 2: will it give me?
Speaker 1: What can I get when I hope not to get?
Speaker 2: You know, when we disengage from that which we can do,
Speaker 2: even if only briefly, When we do disengage from it,
Speaker 2: maybe it's easier to open up to realizing most of
Speaker 2: this world, almost everything in this world actually is kind
Speaker 2: of just being itself. There's this human hustle and bustle,
Speaker 2: and even we can see sometimes that's just being itself.
Speaker 1: We could just sort of observe.
Speaker 2: And somehow there is a way that this very moment
Speaker 2: is already completely fulfilled intrinsically, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's a very good place to.
Speaker 2: Start in whatever we might want to do in the
Speaker 2: world by way of helping it.
Speaker 4: There's a line from the Dowday Ching that says something
Speaker 4: to the order of when you realize that nothing is missing,
Speaker 4: the whole world belongs to you. Oh man, that idea
Speaker 4: of the world is already fulfilled.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, wow, that's beautiful. I must go back to
Speaker 1: the Dowday Ching. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: In the mindfulness section, you use another analogy that there
Speaker 4: are different ways that we interact in the world, and
Speaker 4: one is we're walking slowly down a path. The others
Speaker 4: we get on a bicycle. Do you want to pick
Speaker 4: it up from there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2: There's a passage about traveling down a valley, like if
Speaker 2: we're walking, we sense the pebbles beneath the soles of
Speaker 2: our feet or shoes and the edges of the of
Speaker 2: the potholes, and we hear individual birds an individual insects
Speaker 2: that might fly by.
Speaker 1: If we're on a.
Speaker 2: Bike, all that texture the road tends to get kind
Speaker 2: of in somewhat homogenized into just little bumps the rubber
Speaker 2: and rubber in air. Maybe we get a kind of
Speaker 2: tapestry of bird song, not individual threads. If we're in
Speaker 2: a car, we don't get very much of that at all.
Speaker 2: And if we're on a freeway, we kind of are
Speaker 2: just looking at the clock, and maybe we're listening to
Speaker 2: something that's really what we're interested in, destination, mileage, time
Speaker 2: and whatever we're distracting ourselves with by whatever.
Speaker 1: An audiobook possibly this work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was going to say it's been released with
Speaker 4: Henry's wonderful voice.
Speaker 2: So yeah, actually, if it is this one, you're okay,
Speaker 2: you're excused. So the idea of the analogy was like, well,
Speaker 2: actually we can be going in some direction that we
Speaker 2: want with some purpose or mission or whatever we're driven by,
Speaker 2: and notice here and now not be obsessed and you know,
Speaker 2: lot fixated on something down there that is just kind
Speaker 2: of sucking all our attention. We can disengage that and
Speaker 2: be present and have a rich experience of this very
Speaker 2: moment and still be you know, kind of pursuing things
Speaker 2: that we might projects, we might want to pursue in
Speaker 2: our lives. It's perfectly possible. And what are we missing
Speaker 2: if we don't do that, If it's just.
Speaker 1: One lurch toward a goal after another one elastic time,
Speaker 1: So the next thing I got to get and the
Speaker 1: next thing. And then in the way we've sort of
Speaker 1: we've numerated everything now, you know, there's so many things
Speaker 1: that are with numbers, including meditation minutes. You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's great if it motivates, that's fine, But gosh,
Speaker 2: if it's just chasing numbers, you know, and tormented by numbers.
Speaker 2: This one's going down scarily, you know, and this one's
Speaker 2: going up and I don't want it to and you know,
Speaker 2: or I wanted to go up faster.
Speaker 1: You know, what a way of living. Really, we're so disengaged,
Speaker 1: we're so engaged in what just takes us out of
Speaker 1: our actual experience of life. It's sad, it's really sad.
Speaker 1: Where so much is being given to us in every moment,
Speaker 1: you know, and part.
Speaker 2: Of the meaning of original love is exactly that bounty
Speaker 2: that we're being given right now. You know, light and
Speaker 2: color and sensations and sounds. I know it's just the
Speaker 2: sound of my voice, you know, but still hearing and
Speaker 2: feeling things and being among other people.
Speaker 1: You know, it's all being given.
Speaker 2: And how sad if I'm just thinking about you know,
Speaker 2: Amazon rank something, you know.
Speaker 4: Not that that would be happening. As you were sharing that,
Speaker 4: I was thinking about an experience that I think we
Speaker 4: probably all have had something like this where you've got
Speaker 4: a lot going on that day, and you're in your
Speaker 4: car and you're driving with the windows down, you got
Speaker 4: the music on it, you're there, you're enjoying it, and
Speaker 4: it could be the same exact experience another day and
Speaker 4: you're like two inches from the windshield, you know, yelling
Speaker 4: at the people in front of you. And I think
Speaker 4: we sometimes think that we have to set aside big
Speaker 4: chunks of our life in order to slow down. And
Speaker 4: there are ways of slowing down in the midst of
Speaker 4: what we're doing. How do you think about doing that
Speaker 4: in a busy life. You know, somebody's job, kids, right,
Speaker 4: lots going on, not going to set any of that aside,
Speaker 4: but wants to taste this more. How do we start
Speaker 4: to interrupt that pattern of being lost as we go
Speaker 4: about our day. It's one thing to interrupted when we're meditating,
Speaker 4: which are enough, but it's another thing to interrupt it
Speaker 4: when we're in the flow of life. In the marketplaces,
Speaker 4: they would say in old Zen writings.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do think of my master Yamana Roshi,
Speaker 2: who is a very busy businessman running.
Speaker 1: A company with three thousand employees in Japan.
Speaker 2: He sits every morning and every evening, and he also
Speaker 2: guides about one hundred Zen teachers around the world in
Speaker 2: their practice. And yet he's able to be running a
Speaker 2: company with a very busy life, and he's got to
Speaker 2: the point in his practice where he can actually say,
Speaker 2: there's no way I could separate my Zen life from
Speaker 2: my business life.
Speaker 1: It's just one hole.
Speaker 2: And the anchoring I do every morning is enough to
Speaker 2: sustain me through all of that with the kind of
Speaker 2: clarity that I'd like to have, you know, I wish
Speaker 2: I could say something like that. I don't run a
Speaker 2: big company at all, but I still get lost and
Speaker 2: called up in stuff and forget and have to bring.
Speaker 1: Myself, and I think I would say the key.
Speaker 2: Is it's really important to have the daily formal sit
Speaker 2: and then there are little tactics and things we can
Speaker 2: do to help bring us back, bring us back through.
Speaker 1: The course of the day.
Speaker 2: You know, Eric, I've got a bit that I might
Speaker 2: read which is on exactly this topic, which you'd perfect.
Speaker 2: Erica had asked me earlier if I might want to
Speaker 2: read a little bit, and there was a bit that
Speaker 2: came to me to read.
Speaker 1: So it's not long, I might.
Speaker 2: Still put you to sleep, right, but it's on this subject.
Speaker 2: It's called a crowded airport, this little section. I used
Speaker 2: to be sent on many writing assignments in remote and
Speaker 2: less developed areas of Latin America.
Speaker 1: Often I flew through Miami, and I.
Speaker 2: Remember one particular time arriving back in the airport at
Speaker 2: what must have been an unfortunate confluence of circumstances, perhaps
Speaker 2: several jumbo jets that arrived around the same time, or
Speaker 2: there was an unforeseen shortage of staff, whatever it was, the.
Speaker 1: Place was jammed.
Speaker 2: Hundreds upon hundreds of people were filing in toward the
Speaker 2: immigration hall. Even the corridor leading into it was maybe
Speaker 2: twelve wide, with people and hardly moving at all. At first,
Speaker 2: I had a customary reaction, Oh boy, this is going
Speaker 2: to take forever, standing upright packed among so many people,
Speaker 2: all of us trying to get into the hall where
Speaker 2: our queuing and waiting would really begin.
Speaker 1: Ah, this is awful.
Speaker 2: I started to think it could easily have turned into
Speaker 2: something excruciating. But luckily I had my practice. I took
Speaker 2: an inner step back. I became a mute observer. It
Speaker 2: all flipped. Instead of being a frustration, it became a wonder,
Speaker 2: a gift, a truly precious opportunity to be among so
Speaker 2: many exquisite beings. It was a rare privilege, of course,
Speaker 2: it was to be pressed among this gathering of wonderful creatures,
Speaker 2: human beings who all had plans and things they loved
Speaker 2: and loved ones in their lives, and who all had
Speaker 2: consciousness and knew they were alive and knew how to love.
Speaker 2: Suddenly I felt blessed to be among these upright, balanced
Speaker 2: and exceptional creatures, just to feel their physical warmth, their intentionality,
Speaker 2: their innate kindness.
Speaker 1: It was a wondrous thing to be among that throng.
Speaker 2: As I shuffled along in my place in the line
Speaker 2: slowly creeping toward the immigration counters.
Speaker 1: I almost didn't want it to ever end.
Speaker 4: I read that I told you before I couldn't remember
Speaker 4: that analogy. Now I remember it, and I remember reading
Speaker 4: it going I just flew out here from Ohio and going, boy,
Speaker 4: I need to practice more, because I think that sort
Speaker 4: of experience is a trying one. It's a beautiful way
Speaker 4: of sort of that step back and taking a look
Speaker 4: and flipping Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's very possible. It's very possible.
Speaker 2: I mean, all of us right now, I can do it. Actually,
Speaker 2: you know, just some little sense of presence, you know,
Speaker 2: we just sort of slightly disengage, you know, slightly just
Speaker 2: come back into yourself. Notice that there is being present
Speaker 2: on a good day, on.
Speaker 4: A good day. Yeah. In the book, you talk about
Speaker 4: the hindrances, and I don't want to go too far
Speaker 4: into those right now. And there's a line that you
Speaker 4: say that I wish I could pull up. But it
Speaker 4: says something to the order of, we don't distract ourselves
Speaker 4: away from but we also don't needlessly suffer in. And
Speaker 4: you were talking about that in the context of meditation,
Speaker 4: but I wanted to broaden that out right and talk
Speaker 4: about that when we think about afflictive emotions and thoughts
Speaker 4: in general, because I think there's always a continuum of
Speaker 4: what you're saying, which is, on one hand, we distract
Speaker 4: ourselves away, pull out the phone, whatever it is we do,
Speaker 4: get out of here. And then there's the other, which
Speaker 4: we sort of end up mired in and wallowing in
Speaker 4: and almost reinforcing and feeding. How do you think about
Speaker 4: finding a place between those two, if that's even what
Speaker 4: it is, or is it a completely different place. Maybe
Speaker 4: it's not even in that continuum, but where we don't
Speaker 4: go to either of those extremes that we're all familiar
Speaker 4: with but aren't very helpful.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, well again, I think those little tactical things
Speaker 2: we can deploy, But primarily my feeling is it's all
Speaker 2: about allowing rather than resisting or trying to banish that.
Speaker 1: If we get into.
Speaker 2: The sort of experience of let's say I'm really restless
Speaker 2: in the city, I don't exactly know why, but I
Speaker 2: just am, rather than sort of kind of damn that restlessness,
Speaker 2: you know, stop being restless, don't have restlessness. What if
Speaker 2: restlessness is the teacher right now?
Speaker 1: How do I let that happen. Something's going to shift
Speaker 1: around resistance. I can't do that.
Speaker 2: I'm resisting it too much. Okay, then something's going to
Speaker 2: shift around resisting. I'm going to let resistance be present.
Speaker 2: I'm going to allow the fact that I'm really resisting
Speaker 2: this restlessness. We can do that, and then we've still
Speaker 2: managed to get the whole picture and nothing's had to change,
Speaker 2: but our experience will have changed.
Speaker 1: See what I mean. It's like what's going on won't.
Speaker 2: Have changed, but the way we feel about it will
Speaker 2: have changed. So I might have a feeling of frustration
Speaker 2: and impatience or whatever it is. But rather than I
Speaker 2: want to get rid of this in patience and this frustration,
Speaker 2: I want to do something that will make that.
Speaker 1: Change, you know, I just don't want it to be arising.
Speaker 2: Instead, if I just kind of assume it's got something
Speaker 2: to teach me, you know, and then actually what I
Speaker 2: think ought to be going on is the thing to
Speaker 2: tear up and a goda allowing that. Actually, for me,
Speaker 2: that's the pivot.
Speaker 4: It makes me think of the semi famous Shinsen Young
Speaker 4: equation of suffering equals pain times resistance, right, which is
Speaker 4: I think in our human lives. There are times we
Speaker 4: can get rid of a certain pain, and then if
Speaker 4: we can, I think we often should, right, it's wise
Speaker 4: course of action. And there are times we simply can't,
Speaker 4: whether it's restlessness and sitting, whether it's a family member
Speaker 4: being sick, whether it's us being sick. Like life brings
Speaker 4: its things and sometimes you just can't get rid of them.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 4: But if we are able to turn down the resistance,
Speaker 4: which is what you're describing here, turn down that resistance,
Speaker 4: our suffering level remains lower, not gone, right. But I
Speaker 4: almost think of it as just like oftentimes it's about
Speaker 4: like how do we not make it worse?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, which I think we are exquisitely good at doing. Yes,
Speaker 4: by resisting, we tend to make things worse. That sounds
Speaker 4: really good when I say it or you write it
Speaker 4: and we read it. But when we're in it, that's
Speaker 4: a harder animal because it seems like, yes, I just
Speaker 4: create space in there, but the contraction is sometimes so intense.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, So is it a.
Speaker 4: Matter of just continuing to practice that and meditation being
Speaker 4: a good laboratory for practicing that, That allows us to
Speaker 4: sort of be able to go from this tight fist
Speaker 4: to this open allowing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think absolutely.
Speaker 2: I believe meditation is the training space and to do
Speaker 2: basically exactly that. But I would say also that if
Speaker 2: we're sensing there's a real tight contraction, I'm going to
Speaker 2: try to let that be there. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: try to make it uncontract. I'm going to try to
Speaker 2: let it be there. And you know, in doing that,
Speaker 2: it will actually soften. When I really do that without
Speaker 2: wanting it to soften, without wanting it to loosen, really
Speaker 2: truly letting it be here, which I think is the
Speaker 2: non resisting, it will in fact soften, you know.
Speaker 1: And I know this.
Speaker 2: I mean it's very difficult if people were really close
Speaker 2: to have really hard things in their life that are
Speaker 2: kind of they're not going.
Speaker 1: Anywhere those hearts. That's a very very hard thing to
Speaker 1: be with.
Speaker 2: And you know, many of us would just sort of
Speaker 2: jump into trying to fix, jump in to trying to manage.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it won't work. We really can't do anything. How
Speaker 2: are we going to live with that?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And I've learned a way, you know, which has come
Speaker 2: out of all this meditation practice and teaching. I think
Speaker 2: that I've received which seems to be exactly the same
Speaker 2: really as what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's it's non resisting.
Speaker 2: And that's what when the heart is really caring about something,
Speaker 2: what would it take basically to let it break and
Speaker 2: to let it be open, and to let it through
Speaker 2: becoming open, become whole. You know, That's what I'm interested in,
Speaker 2: and I think it's real.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 4: Everyone. One of the things that I know many of
Speaker 4: you struggle with is anxiety, and very recently I shared
Speaker 4: some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically, I
Speaker 4: shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice,
Speaker 4: you write down one or two of your core values
Speaker 4: and then identify one action step that aligns with them.
Speaker 4: I find that taking one positive action towards things that
Speaker 4: matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have
Speaker 4: a reflection question, what positive experiences have you had today
Speaker 4: that you could focus on instead of your anxiety. Every
Speaker 4: Wednesday I send out a newsletter called a Weekly Bite
Speaker 4: of Wisdom for a Wiser, Happier You, and in it
Speaker 4: I give tips and reflections like you just got, And
Speaker 4: it's an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice.
Speaker 4: It's a way to stay focused on what's important and
Speaker 4: meaningful to you. Each month we focus on a theme.
Speaker 4: This month's theme is anxiety, and next month we'll be
Speaker 4: focusing on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of
Speaker 4: weekly wisdom, go to Goodwolf dot me slash newsletter. So
Speaker 4: let's move on from the first in of mindfulness, which
Speaker 4: we could spend the rest of this conversation on. The
Speaker 4: second in is support.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me say in kind of summary that it's
Speaker 2: very easy to have the mindset that our first of all,
Speaker 2: our meditation practice is something we have to do ourselves.
Speaker 2: We have to put in the time like somebody going
Speaker 2: to the gym and doing reps. We have to do
Speaker 2: those mindful minutes, you know. And yeah, there's some truth
Speaker 2: to that. But actually I am a real believer that
Speaker 2: not much by way of growth and recovery and healing
Speaker 2: and development and maybe even awakening happens in this life
Speaker 2: without support, without connection, without others. When I look back
Speaker 2: all the times I've been most creative, all the times
Speaker 2: I've been starting to go through a therapeutic process, there
Speaker 2: was at.
Speaker 1: Least one other person there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, this actually is interestingly, one time that's
Speaker 2: not true, I had an awakening experience as a bolt
Speaker 2: from the blue when I was nineteen, out of the
Speaker 2: blue and I was all alone, but I was kind
Speaker 2: of in love with someone newly in love with someone
Speaker 2: at the time who wasn't present at all and wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be for a while. But I did have
Speaker 2: that feeling of real strong wolves towards someone, and so
Speaker 2: maybe that even that then that was that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So anyway, so that the second in is a corrective
Speaker 2: to the idea that we've got to do it all myself.
Speaker 4: When we hear that support. The thing that I think
Speaker 4: a lot of us think of is, Okay, we need
Speaker 4: to go get more support than we have, And that
Speaker 4: may very well be true. But a big part of
Speaker 4: the chapter, and I think is really valuable, is recognizing
Speaker 4: the support that already exists. Right, so talk about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you very much, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2: I think it's so easy in the same kind of
Speaker 2: mindset to think that we are really thoroughly independent individual,
Speaker 2: non dependent creatures. And you know, you only got to
Speaker 2: start for a moment. Every single breath you take is
Speaker 2: an exchange with this planet.
Speaker 1: Every time take.
Speaker 2: A step, you're walking on something that's supporting you sin
Speaker 2: on a chair, it's supporting you. There's basically not a
Speaker 2: fraction of a moment in life that isn't given by
Speaker 2: ten trillion other things, you know. And this is all
Speaker 2: stardust and whatever the molecules are. You know, this body,
Speaker 2: this brain that's talking, hearing right now, perceiving, it's all
Speaker 2: forget the subatomic stuff, just all the molecular stuff doing
Speaker 2: what it does, you know, and we're getting to experience it.
Speaker 2: But it's basically a gift to us to be having
Speaker 2: all this stuff, making us have this, allowing us to
Speaker 2: have this experience. It's all given somehow, if you see
Speaker 2: what I mean. We didn't put it all together, you know,
Speaker 2: And here it is. We're experiencing so on so many levels.
Speaker 2: You know, if you start thinking about it, like ticking
Speaker 2: that Hahn, the great teacher says, you know, just pick
Speaker 2: up a sheet of paper. The forest is there, the
Speaker 2: sun is there, the rivers are there, the clouds and
Speaker 2: rain are there.
Speaker 1: All the people who worked.
Speaker 2: In the forest and worked in the farms, and worked
Speaker 2: in the milling station and worked as shipping and they're
Speaker 2: all in this piece of paper, and everything that they
Speaker 2: ate is in this piece of paper, and all their
Speaker 2: ancestors are in this piece of paper. And the dinosaurs
Speaker 2: are in this piece of paper. If you go back,
Speaker 2: you know, they everything's in this piece of paper.
Speaker 1: That mighty three hundred foot high trees, six hundred fot
Speaker 1: high trees thirty million years ago or three hundred million
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: Whatever it was, they're in this piece of paper, you know.
Speaker 2: So the idea that we could be isolated as a
Speaker 2: single strand in all of this, that's what this second
Speaker 2: in is.
Speaker 1: God is in its target. We want to really take
Speaker 1: a look.
Speaker 4: At that as I think it was Carl Sagan who said,
Speaker 4: if you want to make an apple pie from scratch,
Speaker 4: you have to invent the universe.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: It is a core idea that I think You've got
Speaker 4: a line in there somewhere about like our life being
Speaker 4: a confluence of a million contingencies. I think you and
Speaker 4: I were talking about this last night. We were talking
Speaker 4: about how like one little moment you meet one person
Speaker 4: sort of by chance, and you look back and you
Speaker 4: can see how your whole life changed by this contingency
Speaker 4: that it could easily have not happened. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 4: just it's kind of amazing. But I love that idea
Speaker 4: of connecting to the support we already have. I think
Speaker 4: about this often with generosity. In one of the programs
Speaker 4: I teach, we talk about generosity, and the way you
Speaker 4: could take that is I need to be more generous,
Speaker 4: and sure, perhaps, But the other way to take it is,
Speaker 4: let me look at all the ways I'm already generous,
Speaker 4: and can I connect to those and then I get
Speaker 4: that support. And you're saying, we can recognize the support
Speaker 4: that we already have while we reasonably think about where
Speaker 4: might our practice of whatever our different types are, use
Speaker 4: more supports.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, And of course there are many ways that
Speaker 2: someone like a troubled young man and trouble young person
Speaker 2: of whatever gender, may feel very reluctant to reach out.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe not any young people that it takes
Speaker 2: to certain vulnerability to reach out.
Speaker 1: I need help. I can't actually do this on my own.
Speaker 2: That's a huge step for many of us to recognize that,
Speaker 2: and I think that's part of this path of practice
Speaker 2: in many ways.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was a gift to be a homeless hero
Speaker 4: addict at twenty four because I really didn't have much
Speaker 4: choice but to ask for help. I mean it wasn't
Speaker 4: like I debated it, oh, you know, it just was
Speaker 4: sort of like, okay that or die. And but that
Speaker 4: was a gift to learn that so early for me
Speaker 4: it felt.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, well, I love the fact that you're open
Speaker 2: about this and that you have come from that. It
Speaker 2: speaks volumes about you, and it speaks to what we're
Speaker 2: talking about at the very start, which wolf wins, you know,
Speaker 2: and to be on that path of I'm going to
Speaker 2: keep feeding the good wolf, you know, to be able
Speaker 2: to you know, hear it's awesome.
Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit more about the next in
Speaker 4: which is absorption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is you know again, this is really sort of.
Speaker 2: Coming out of different kinds of trainings, you know, recognizing
Speaker 2: what's common among them, and speaking mostly.
Speaker 1: About meditation, but not exclusively.
Speaker 2: So one thing that is found among different kinds of
Speaker 2: meditation and other areas too, is tapping into our human
Speaker 2: capacity to get into flow, to go into flow states.
Speaker 2: Flow states being characterized typically by a sense of effortlessness
Speaker 2: of ease, of a kind kind of intrinsic fulfillment and
Speaker 2: peace and energy and time kind of vanishes or goes quiet,
Speaker 2: and sometimes the sense of self consciousness goes.
Speaker 1: Round quiet as well.
Speaker 2: You know, athletes will talk about some incredible shot they
Speaker 2: did on a hoop and everything seemed to just become
Speaker 2: like strangely effortless, and you know, and musicians go into it,
Speaker 2: and artists could cause it. Many stripes may go into it,
Speaker 2: and lots of other people who aren't doing unusual things
Speaker 2: like athletics and music, et cetera, also go into it.
Speaker 1: In the course of the day's work.
Speaker 2: You can go into flow doing the washing up, and
Speaker 2: you can go into it in all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: including meditation. And one of the things that the meditation
Speaker 2: traditions like to call out is they call it samadi
Speaker 2: or you know, which is kind of you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: absorption or flow, different names, but as a state of
Speaker 2: finding an intrinsic, extraordinary piece quiet, calm, energy, effortlessness, it
Speaker 2: just kind of switches on. And it's really important to
Speaker 2: call it out in a meditation practice because it's incredibly
Speaker 2: good for us.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really healthy for the nervous system.
Speaker 2: I think there's some research that in so far as
Speaker 2: when people have a choice, they've gravitated to a profession
Speaker 2: that's linked to some activity where they would find they
Speaker 2: could get into flow.
Speaker 1: You know, Chick sent me high was this great researcher
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 4: Impressed.
Speaker 1: You can say that.
Speaker 2: I've had some practice back in the seventies and eighties
Speaker 2: and nineties and at the University of Chicago, and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, it makes people happier to be tasting flow.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I wanted to call that out and in
Speaker 2: a way not overlook it, not be saying well, you've
Speaker 2: got to have the blinding relation that you never hear, no,
Speaker 2: have that lovely flow, you know. And also, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: not quite the same as the bottom falling out of
Speaker 2: the bucket, as then calls it, where we do really
Speaker 2: see the world in a radically different way, but it's
Speaker 2: damn good.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: You make the analogy of as we head into that
Speaker 4: absorption that the separations between us and other things and
Speaker 4: other things in each other begin to get a little
Speaker 4: more blurry, right, and then there's you know, maybe befo,
Speaker 4: we're fortunate the bottom falls out, but this absorption state
Speaker 4: is giving us this starting to blur. You know, we're
Speaker 4: not as separate. One of the things I think is
Speaker 4: interesting though, is if we look at flow states, they
Speaker 4: tend to happen in the way that psychologists are describing them.
Speaker 4: In the midst of an activity that is a certain
Speaker 4: level of challenging. There's the right amount of challenge and
Speaker 4: the right amount of interest. Meditation is interesting because you're
Speaker 4: not exactly doing anything but to hit absorption. There is
Speaker 4: some way in which you're doing enough that you're moving
Speaker 4: out of the default mode network. How do you do
Speaker 4: that right? How do you do enough that you are
Speaker 4: able to sort of enter absorption but not do so
Speaker 4: much that you're now clamped down on the experience and
Speaker 4: trying to control it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. I wish I knew
Speaker 1: the answer.
Speaker 4: If you could tell us that we could, you could
Speaker 4: bottle it. You wouldn't need to sell.
Speaker 2: This book exactly exactly. I mean, I think you know.
Speaker 2: I'd say two possible answers would be one is yet
Speaker 2: just sometimes it is easier to stay mindfully attentive to
Speaker 2: our meditation practice, whatever it might be, and we just
Speaker 2: stay on it, and suddenly we can and then and
Speaker 2: then it'll just come on that just the gearshift, and
Speaker 2: it takes no effort to stay beautiful, present and aware
Speaker 2: and richly absorbing experience. It It just somehow happened and
Speaker 2: then commonly was like, man, this is great, and then
Speaker 2: it's gone, you know, and then we'll say, hey, I
Speaker 2: want that back.
Speaker 1: You know, just what happened five minutes ago.
Speaker 2: I'm going there again, and it won't you know, So
Speaker 2: one factor is not wanting it, you know, right. I
Speaker 2: think that truly is another thing would be again.
Speaker 1: I mean, actually it's related to that very point, is
Speaker 1: the allowing thing. You can get that.
Speaker 2: More from allowing, because when you're allowing, the real principle
Speaker 2: of allowing is allowing anything that arises in our practice.
Speaker 2: So from that point of view, it can be applied
Speaker 2: to anything. As we were saying, intense restlessness could even.
Speaker 1: Be a trigger aflow if we're really allowing it, because
Speaker 1: then it becomes this strange, interesting, tight thing that I
Speaker 1: can actually be aware of and let it be present,
Speaker 1: and it.
Speaker 2: Suddenly is beautiful, and suddenly everything is beautiful and the
Speaker 2: thing is still lab but it's lost its clenching.
Speaker 1: You know. I think I'd still put my money mostly
Speaker 1: on allowing.
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting to somebody who spent a lot
Speaker 4: of time doing these various things that and working with
Speaker 4: people that are doing them is that there's a state
Speaker 4: in which we are just allowing because we think if
Speaker 4: we allow, this thing is going to go away, right,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just a slightly more sophisticated strategy. Right.
Speaker 4: So it almost feels like the Russian nesting dolls. Just
Speaker 4: allow that, don't allow that, like just continuing to keep
Speaker 4: it doing it exactly.
Speaker 1: We allow the strategic allowing exactly. We should probably move
Speaker 1: to awakening.
Speaker 2: I think so, I think the heart of our lives,
Speaker 2: what we are, the heart of humans, because then hasn't
Speaker 2: gone a monopoly on awakening? Nothing does, no, nobody does.
Speaker 2: You can't, no institution ever could, no organization ever could,
Speaker 2: nothing could possibly ever pin down what it is have
Speaker 2: a fail safe delivery system.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, it's not possible. What it is is?
Speaker 2: Actually that can't track. Analogy isn't really just about practice.
Speaker 1: It's about life. That the one rut is us going
Speaker 1: through our life making coffee in the morning, logging on,
Speaker 1: going to work, doing zoom, meeting, team meeting, whatever, all
Speaker 1: of that, and meanwhile there's the other rut always with
Speaker 1: us doing the exact same things. Actually, but do we
Speaker 1: recognize it? What is it? What is it? What is
Speaker 1: this second run, what is it?
Speaker 2: Well, you can say things about it, but none of
Speaker 2: them are really it. You could say, like I did, actually,
Speaker 2: well it's bad, it's infinitely spacious, it's it's actually nothing
Speaker 2: at all. It's recognized when the self is gone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's also actually being the self.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's the tree outside, it's all the trees outside.
Speaker 2: It's none of the trees outside. It's what is it?
Speaker 4: Are you gonna tell us? Everyone's waiting now.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's what it is.
Speaker 2: Ah ah ah, that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. Ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's as simple as that. It's really
Speaker 2: just kind of that little pause, space.
Speaker 1: Gap, just this, just this, just this. To talk about
Speaker 1: it is to make it elsewhere, but it's never elsewhere.
Speaker 1: It can't be other than this this. Okay, I to
Speaker 1: say something.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure I want to mess this up with
Speaker 4: another question. I actually think that's a perfect place to
Speaker 4: wrap up.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that's a beautiful place to end.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you so much, Thank you everybody.
Speaker 6: Actually I just got the right answer.
Speaker 4: Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: You've got to read the book to finally.
Speaker 4: Did your publicist just beam that into your ear? Henry,
Speaker 4: you forgot something. Yeah, you're sure you want to promote
Speaker 4: this one and not this one.
Speaker 2: Oh man, Thank you so much, Eric, Thank you everybody
Speaker 2: for coming here.
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