Speaker 1: We get locked between our awareness of who we are
Speaker 1: and our idea of who we are and who we're
Speaker 1: actually being and how we're existing in the world. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Corey Allen, a writer, musician,
Speaker 1: and creator of the podcast The Astral Hustle. He focuses
Speaker 1: on how to live better with leading experts in mindfulness, neuroscience,
Speaker 1: and philosophy. Corey's first book is entitled Now Is the Way. Hi, Corey,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 1: I am really happy to have you back on you
Speaker 1: and I had a wonderful conversation on your podcast several
Speaker 1: months ago, and I have been looking forward to this
Speaker 1: ever since, because there's just some people you just sort
Speaker 1: of hit it off with and and you certainly fell
Speaker 1: into that category for me. And you've got a wonderful
Speaker 1: book called Now Is the Way, an unconventional approach to
Speaker 1: modern mindfulness, which we'll talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: in a moment. But let's start like we always do.
Speaker 1: At the parable, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are tools inside of us
Speaker 1: that are always at battle. What is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second, and he looks
Speaker 1: up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which
Speaker 1: one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. I think that that parable
Speaker 1: speaks directly to one of my main interests and something
Speaker 1: that is not only incredibly important to me, but a
Speaker 1: very important value of mind in life, and that is mindfulness.
Speaker 1: You know, it really targets in on the fact that
Speaker 1: in all of our minds, no matter who you are,
Speaker 1: there is a perpetual arising flow of thoughts. The unexamined
Speaker 1: mind is just this automation of your genetic and family
Speaker 1: inheritance in your past experiences. And if that go as unexamined,
Speaker 1: you then just live your life basically reacting to your
Speaker 1: past in the present based upon what you happen to
Speaker 1: run into. By chance. When you begin to examine the
Speaker 1: mind and increase your self awareness, you become aware of
Speaker 1: the contents of your consciousness, and after you do that,
Speaker 1: you begin to be able to see what is arising.
Speaker 1: And then once you become aware of what's arising, you see,
Speaker 1: oh well, sometimes I have but I sense are negative thoughts.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I feel what are positive thoughts. Sometimes I feel
Speaker 1: aware whenever I express these thoughts, Sometimes I don't, and
Speaker 1: what have you. So what one can do in mindfulness
Speaker 1: is in the momentum of your own thinking. With that
Speaker 1: self awareness, you can begin to guide your thoughts towards compassion.
Speaker 1: You can choose which thoughts to express and turn into action,
Speaker 1: which ultimately becomes who you are in the world and
Speaker 1: how you exist in the world. And then you can
Speaker 1: also become aware of those arising thoughts that are negative
Speaker 1: and things that you would have regretted expressing later if
Speaker 1: you did do so in the moment um and release
Speaker 1: those and don't express those. And by doing that act
Speaker 1: of mindfulness, by guiding your thoughts in the present moment
Speaker 1: with self awareness towards compassion and equanimity, you can become
Speaker 1: more of what you want to be. You can offer
Speaker 1: your future. And so this parable to me of the
Speaker 1: dark wolf is or the negative thoughts that inhabit all
Speaker 1: of our minds. The light wolf are the positive and
Speaker 1: kind of compassion thoughts that inhabit all of our minds.
Speaker 1: And essentially, to me, it's which one of those in
Speaker 1: the moment you know, do you want to express and
Speaker 1: turn into actions and therefore create who you are? Or
Speaker 1: which one do you want to turn away and release? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that idea, and I think you you reflected
Speaker 1: it in the book a couple of times that you know,
Speaker 1: our actions ultimately determine who we are. Would you agree
Speaker 1: with that? I believe so, yeah, I mean it calcifies
Speaker 1: who we are in the eyes of others, which also
Speaker 1: tends to turn around and kind of crystallize a bit
Speaker 1: of how we see ourselves because it's the feedback that
Speaker 1: we're getting from the world, you know, And ultimately, the
Speaker 1: more that we choose to act in one way versus another,
Speaker 1: that will, of course, you know, create certain neural connections
Speaker 1: in our brain. That's you know, there's no plasticity of
Speaker 1: our brain shifts. Then and then those habits of thinking
Speaker 1: become more common. And as we choose to do whatever
Speaker 1: we're doing in life and express whatever we're expressing, turning
Speaker 1: these thoughts into actions, um, that begins to make it
Speaker 1: easier to exist in that way, more instinctual, to behave
Speaker 1: in such a way. And so whenever we, you know,
Speaker 1: do that, then yes, not only externally does it kind
Speaker 1: of crystallize who we've become, but it also then sets
Speaker 1: up these pathways to guide our future behaviors. There's something
Speaker 1: you said in the book I'm just gonna jump to here.
Speaker 1: You mentioned about negative thoughts a little bit and I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna read something you wrote, and then I have
Speaker 1: a question. So you say, don't confuse negative thoughts with
Speaker 1: justifiable negative emotions. The negative thoughts I will you to
Speaker 1: let flow by are the unfair judgments and criticisms of
Speaker 1: yourself and others. On the other hand, legitimate grievances that
Speaker 1: cause negative emotions are important and should be addressed. Confronting
Speaker 1: what makes you feel negative is how you can create
Speaker 1: positive change in your life. I'm curious how you tell
Speaker 1: the difference between those things. Yeah, that's a really important
Speaker 1: and astute question. It's messy, It's kind of murky in
Speaker 1: our minds a lot of times whenever we think about
Speaker 1: this notion of negative thoughts, because there's such a spectrum
Speaker 1: of what goes on in our brains. A negative thought
Speaker 1: that arises, you know, a simple judgment against someone else,
Speaker 1: some criticism that we might feel. Those are these just
Speaker 1: passing general kind of inner critic based negative thoughts that
Speaker 1: we can let flow by. Now the legitimate grievances that
Speaker 1: we might feel. This is important because you know, in
Speaker 1: the inner path that we might go on, you know,
Speaker 1: m we basically there's a lot of confusion um in
Speaker 1: the sense of what you know means to to be kind,
Speaker 1: to be compassionate, and so people tend to feel like
Speaker 1: they're being compassionate, you know, just kind of taking on
Speaker 1: the weight of other people and other people's criticisms and
Speaker 1: so forth, and thinking that that's kindness in some way.
Speaker 1: But whenever we feel those things and we feel a
Speaker 1: negative reaction to what someone is saying outside of us,
Speaker 1: that's whenever, you know, we shouldn't mistake that, Oh well,
Speaker 1: this is an actual emotional response to what's coming from
Speaker 1: someone else that needs to be voiced so that I
Speaker 1: don't turn into this kind of phony compassionate doormat as
Speaker 1: opposed to just a random sort of negative thought that's
Speaker 1: arising in your mind, kind of out in the ether
Speaker 1: of your brain, right. And I think that's what can
Speaker 1: be so challenging about some of this stuff about, you know,
Speaker 1: negative thought, negative emotion is this sense that they're also
Speaker 1: telling us something, right. I always find this on a
Speaker 1: continuum between like, all right, the power of positive thinking,
Speaker 1: anything shows up in my mind at all that isn't yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: life is great, then I'm going to just kick it out.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, that doesn't seem really realistic, that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a living with what's real and what's happening.
Speaker 1: And then you can go to the other extreme, which
Speaker 1: is I just let whatever is happening, as you sort
Speaker 1: of said earlier, the unexamined mind, where it just flows
Speaker 1: on by. And I always find it interesting to talk
Speaker 1: with people about how in their own life they sort
Speaker 1: of determine Okay, that's a thought, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: learn from it and I'm gonna see what it has
Speaker 1: to say. And this other thought, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try and you know, scoot along on
Speaker 1: its way, keep it out of here, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of from your perspective, how are you looking at that?
Speaker 1: Whenever I have a thought that arises and it's something
Speaker 1: that I don't want to embrace and to express, I
Speaker 1: sort of look at it like a window, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, here, come, is this thing that's rising. I've
Speaker 1: used the minut before before. Like if you're standing on
Speaker 1: the side of the road and there's a car coming,
Speaker 1: you know, one single car on a very long road
Speaker 1: coming up with the horizon, it's like, well, there comes
Speaker 1: and you can choose to you know, either let's call
Speaker 1: it wave with the driver or not. You know, just
Speaker 1: seeing this thought arising, this impulse feeling, this creeping sort
Speaker 1: of tension and the formulation of what will be something
Speaker 1: or could be a negative action to take. I see
Speaker 1: that coming and recognize it as it's arising, and then
Speaker 1: consciously do not indulge it. And sometimes it's very easy.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it happens automatically. As a classic example of human behavior,
Speaker 1: you're out in public with someone that you know, say
Speaker 1: you're in a store or something, and there's someone very
Speaker 1: abrasive in there, you could be very easy. It is
Speaker 1: very common for whenever both of you leave to look
Speaker 1: over to the other person and be like, you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that what was that person and kind of
Speaker 1: bust them down a little bit. So that's like a
Speaker 1: typical life scenario, right, So in that moment, you could
Speaker 1: feel that formulation, like the ego almost is daring you.
Speaker 1: Like there's almost like a childish kind of swell that
Speaker 1: arises with that feeling because you know, you know in
Speaker 1: the back of your mind there's this tentacle tapping on
Speaker 1: the back of your brain where you you know that
Speaker 1: whenever you get that out, you're going to feel almost
Speaker 1: like you got away with something that strange kind of
Speaker 1: quiet giddiness that comes with criticism, expressing judgments and negativity
Speaker 1: about someone else to someone who is on your team.
Speaker 1: And that's because you know, of course, what you're doing
Speaker 1: on a subconscious level is creating this hierarchy in the
Speaker 1: conceptualized part of your mind where the stranger who you're criticizing,
Speaker 1: you've created a team or you know, companion to criticize
Speaker 1: them with. So therefore that person becomes another and then
Speaker 1: you can rise above this other person in your mind
Speaker 1: by cast gadding them and judging them and so forth.
Speaker 1: So whenever one feels that swelling tension and kind of
Speaker 1: that that dare of the ego, recognize rising that impulse arising,
Speaker 1: and then being able to then just literally choose to
Speaker 1: move your attention forward and elsewhere and don't say that
Speaker 1: thing and move on. And that's a very practical way
Speaker 1: to recognize what's coming, because it starts in the body,
Speaker 1: you know, and and and moves up in the mind.
Speaker 1: You can just feel the whole system working, urging you
Speaker 1: to do, you know, something in your life. But having
Speaker 1: that what I call in the book the mindfulness gap,
Speaker 1: you know, the space between you know, feeling the arising
Speaker 1: thought and then executing that thought where you can recognize
Speaker 1: it and then chunk it in this gap and just
Speaker 1: move on. And you know, if one feels remiss by
Speaker 1: not expressing something that they feel that it was cute
Speaker 1: or might serve their ego in some way, don't worry
Speaker 1: because there will be within seconds another whole litany of
Speaker 1: thoughts that you can choose from that do not foster negativity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you call it the mindfulness gap. You know. Victor Frankel
Speaker 1: talked about the space between stimulus and response. How do
Speaker 1: we go about growing that space so that we are
Speaker 1: better able to make choices about what we do? What
Speaker 1: are some practical ways of actually getting better at doing that? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean meditation is really number one. Ultimately, what one
Speaker 1: wants to do is to cultivate a bit of negative
Speaker 1: internal space. And that's really just quieting the mind and
Speaker 1: of calming the body down enough to where you can
Speaker 1: get a little bit of wiggle room inside of yourself, because,
Speaker 1: as I said at the beginning, quite shoppily, most of
Speaker 1: us are just living. You know, most people, not to
Speaker 1: generalize too much, but most people live a life without
Speaker 1: ever actively trying to increase their self awareness or become
Speaker 1: more aware of what's going on inside of their bodies.
Speaker 1: And so they are born river synthesized by the two
Speaker 1: belief systems of their parents than reinforced by their culture
Speaker 1: and the chance and time in which they're growing up.
Speaker 1: And they have all their random experiences and and go on,
Speaker 1: and as I said, they're just kind it for reacting, uh,
Speaker 1: in all these ways throughout life, and there's never any
Speaker 1: space but between the kind of automation of their past
Speaker 1: and how they're existing in the present. It's just this
Speaker 1: reactive thing which people often then spend all this time
Speaker 1: to a lot of anxiety and guilt and inner critic
Speaker 1: comes from because then you're you're acting in this way unmindfully,
Speaker 1: and then later you recognize it after it's happened, and
Speaker 1: then you post event process and beat yourself up about it.
Speaker 1: And that's where a lot of you like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: such an idiot, or I was a bad person, or
Speaker 1: I feel bad for saying that I shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1: And so any type of contemplation practice, you know, meditation
Speaker 1: is the best one, even just sitting if you don't
Speaker 1: even like the idea of meditation or the word or whatever.
Speaker 1: Even just sitting on the couch for five to ten
Speaker 1: minutes a day, turning off all of the external stimulation,
Speaker 1: all the devices, you know, the TV, the phone, the laptop,
Speaker 1: the music, whatever it might be. Just simply sit there
Speaker 1: and allow your body to relax and rest. Rest your
Speaker 1: hands on your legs, take a breath in nice and comfortably,
Speaker 1: observe your chest rising, and then as your exhale, let
Speaker 1: the muscles in your face relax, and your shoulders, relax
Speaker 1: your arms and hands, and just let your body rest.
Speaker 1: You know, that's a beautiful way to just begin, and
Speaker 1: just don't try and do anything, really lower the stakes,
Speaker 1: remove perhaps the characterization or the kind of cartoony idea
Speaker 1: of what meditation or mindfulness practice might be, and just
Speaker 1: allow yourself to exist and then feel. What will happen
Speaker 1: is that, you know, our hands replicate what's going on
Speaker 1: in our mind, and our mind replicates what happens in
Speaker 1: our hands. And in the modern world, we spend so
Speaker 1: much time. Think about how many times you're you're touching something,
Speaker 1: You're tapping on a screen, you're clicking on a mouse,
Speaker 1: you're adjusting something, you're fidgeting with something rather you know,
Speaker 1: that's because of the oversaturation of technology and everything that
Speaker 1: we've grown into now, and so that's all happening in
Speaker 1: the brain. The brain has been structured based upon our
Speaker 1: environment to be fussing with something every three seconds, and
Speaker 1: so what will happen is that you'll feel this kind
Speaker 1: of vacuum the first time that you really sit and
Speaker 1: just try and don't move and just rest for ten
Speaker 1: minutes straight, because your brain is gonna be going like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: shouldn't we be messing with something or touching something, or
Speaker 1: you know, fidgiting with something. And what's beautiful is that
Speaker 1: what you feel that arising, that feeling of fidgitiness and
Speaker 1: just kind of recognize and go, Okay, I'm feeling a
Speaker 1: little skin crawley, a little fidgety right now. That's because
Speaker 1: I'm used to always, you know, doing something. But I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna sit here and relax and just chill and
Speaker 1: just continue pointing my focus. Every time I forget, I
Speaker 1: can remember and point it back to my breath, my
Speaker 1: chest rising and falling, and just trying to kind of
Speaker 1: exhale and relax a little bit more every time and
Speaker 1: the mind begins to mirror that and it just takes
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, you could do that for
Speaker 1: ten minutes and feel a little bit of difference, and
Speaker 1: then mindfulness practice compounds over sustained practice, and so you
Speaker 1: do it five days in a row, you're gonna feel
Speaker 1: five times the benefit it and you'll start to notice.
Speaker 1: And this is, you know, because this is stuff of
Speaker 1: the mind, this is not stuff of the body. It's
Speaker 1: a bit more challenging for people to gauge because we're
Speaker 1: always distracted with the stuff of our lives. So it's
Speaker 1: not like the gym you're working out. You're not measuring
Speaker 1: your muscles. There's no muscle for your your mind. This
Speaker 1: you have to really tune in and just be aware
Speaker 1: of how are you feeling. And so what happens is
Speaker 1: that in most cases it kind of sneaks up on people.
Speaker 1: It fades in is what I how I like to
Speaker 1: say it. And so you'll be in a familiar situation
Speaker 1: where you would have reacted to something in some way defensively,
Speaker 1: or you would have taken the opportunity to criticize coworker
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be, or you know someone else
Speaker 1: that you don't know, and you realize in that moment
Speaker 1: rise you're about to do, you feel it. You feel like,
Speaker 1: oh wait a second, I'm about to do this thing.
Speaker 1: And you may still do it, and that's fine, that's fine,
Speaker 1: but you've felt it, and that's just that glimpse of
Speaker 1: spaciousness within the body. And as you continue to practice,
Speaker 1: you recognize one day that normally where you would have
Speaker 1: had an even explosive reaction to something and been defensive
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be, you recognize that in that
Speaker 1: moment you find the ability to choose and to actually
Speaker 1: be aware of the situation almost from above a bit.
Speaker 1: And then that's whenever you can really put it on
Speaker 1: the beautiful work of patients and compassion into practice. But
Speaker 1: simply by sitting, relaxing the body and giving the mind
Speaker 1: and the nervous system a bit of time to destimulate
Speaker 1: is how you'll create the internal spacialists and begin to
Speaker 1: live more mindfully. Yeah, I really think that idea of
Speaker 1: the mind often will mirror the body. It's really useful
Speaker 1: to realize in a situation like that where you can
Speaker 1: just sort of still the mind a little bit more
Speaker 1: by stilling the body, and you know, I've been talking
Speaker 1: on the show a little bit lately about also realizing
Speaker 1: sometimes that our mind will try and match our body
Speaker 1: in other ways, and it can be useful to know
Speaker 1: that because we can be like, oh, okay, that's what's happening.
Speaker 1: So let's talk for a moment about you describe in
Speaker 1: the book having two minds, the watching mind and the
Speaker 1: doing mind. Let's talk a little bit about both of those. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: So the watching mind, you know, and Zen would would
Speaker 1: be called the observer. It's that part of your brain
Speaker 1: if you sit back and think about it, doesn't always
Speaker 1: feel like there's this little camera right behind your brain,
Speaker 1: just kind of watching what's going on in your life.
Speaker 1: It's not really involved in the decision making per se.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of this little pen light of awareness
Speaker 1: that's looking around and taking note of everything that's in
Speaker 1: your visual field and all of your senses. You know,
Speaker 1: this is the watching mind. It's just that little glimpse
Speaker 1: of awareness that's always kind of keeping track of your
Speaker 1: consciousness and your conscious awareness. And then the doing mind
Speaker 1: is what Zen would be called the actor. You know,
Speaker 1: in Buddhism as well, it's the actor. So that is
Speaker 1: the you that is making the choices, that is plugged
Speaker 1: into the game of your life. There's negotiating physical space
Speaker 1: that is making the decisions, that is carrying out and
Speaker 1: you know, manifesting bringing these thoughts into reality. And there's
Speaker 1: kind of the game piece on the board of your life.
Speaker 1: And so the watching mind is the observing you know,
Speaker 1: the observing thought. The doing mind is the acting one.
Speaker 1: I hope you don't mind. I'd love to just cut
Speaker 1: to something a bit meatia real quick with those two things,
Speaker 1: since I mentioned Zen a little bit. Uh Deti Suzuki,
Speaker 1: the great Zen writer beautiful essays on Buddhism from the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. He has such a wonderful description of enlightenment
Speaker 1: using these terms we're talking about now. You know, he
Speaker 1: points to the Western mind and Western philosophy and so
Speaker 1: on having a real problem with getting the point of Zen,
Speaker 1: getting the point of enlightenment because they go and they
Speaker 1: identify the watching mind and the doing mind, the observer
Speaker 1: and the actor, and they think, okay, that's it. Now.
Speaker 1: What I need to do is have the observer watch
Speaker 1: and keep an eye on the actor. And that is
Speaker 1: how I will be able to self actualize. If I
Speaker 1: can just use that little camera in the back of
Speaker 1: my brain to keep track of that game piece on
Speaker 1: the board and tell that game piece what to do.
Speaker 1: Then I'll be good. But as Suzuki points out, that
Speaker 1: you know has forever resulted in the Western mind running
Speaker 1: in circles, banging its side up against the wall forever,
Speaker 1: because what happens is that between that space and the
Speaker 1: watching mind and the acting mind, there is the ego
Speaker 1: and the intellect, and within the intellect lives are in
Speaker 1: a critic or self judgments um on all these this
Speaker 1: whole gauntlet of nasty intellectual things, and so we try
Speaker 1: and act in that way. And what happens is that
Speaker 1: then the witness mind is kind of writing the script
Speaker 1: for the actor to play out in life in this
Speaker 1: way of approaching it. And what happens is that the
Speaker 1: observer is succumbs to the critic to to fear to anxiety,
Speaker 1: starts writing funky scripts for the actor, and then the
Speaker 1: actor starts making bad choices. But then the acting mind
Speaker 1: stops trusting the observing mind because it gets a little
Speaker 1: bit of existential stage right, because it's kind of tap
Speaker 1: dancing on the stage of humanity for all the other people,
Speaker 1: and then it gets clammed up, and then you start
Speaker 1: getting into this whole struggle between kind of your awareness
Speaker 1: and who you are in the world. And that's when
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel this feeling I point to
Speaker 1: in the book, calling it existential paralysis, where we get
Speaker 1: locked between our awareness of who we are and our
Speaker 1: idea of who we are, and then who we're actually
Speaker 1: being and how we're existing in the world. Right, And
Speaker 1: that's a problem which was much to my surprise after
Speaker 1: I talked about on my podcast one time, I had
Speaker 1: hundreds of people hitting me up saying, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that someone else's experiences, And from my
Speaker 1: point of view, I was going, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: can't believe all of these people. I thought this was
Speaker 1: a me thing. I figured out this is just a
Speaker 1: human thing that happens, right. And so back to the
Speaker 1: notion of Suzuki pointing to there's an element missing in
Speaker 1: the Western understanding of that approach, and that is the will,
Speaker 1: and that the will and the attention and the focus
Speaker 1: is really what needs to be tapped into. Again, through
Speaker 1: meditation or some type of contemplation practice, you can strengthen
Speaker 1: that will and then the observer and the actor becomes
Speaker 1: synthesized into a single being. So you can, as you're
Speaker 1: observing from above, you know, in that that witnessing mind,
Speaker 1: you're also acting at the same time, all predicated upon
Speaker 1: the direction and attention and you know, fluid motion of
Speaker 1: the will arising. And what that does is that it
Speaker 1: peels away much of the conceptualization that we apply to
Speaker 1: our life, the story that we create through our narrative
Speaker 1: thinking of all the subsistence of our brains creating this
Speaker 1: story that's kind of gapless mirage and illusion of what
Speaker 1: our actual waking life is like. And in that process,
Speaker 1: as that story begins to melt away, we live in
Speaker 1: synergy with the observer and the actor. Then we get
Speaker 1: glimpses of what is. We get reality without our colorization
Speaker 1: and our stories wrapped all over it, And reality without
Speaker 1: conceptualization is enlightenment. Yep. I've been practicing Zen pretty deeply
Speaker 1: for a while. And that is the place that seems
Speaker 1: to land, right, Which is this the thinking mind and
Speaker 1: the doing mind merge into one thing, and action just emerges.
Speaker 1: Things just come out of when we see reality more clearly,
Speaker 1: the right response, the right reactions naturally and spontaneously emerge.
Speaker 1: They do. Yes, And also, you know, just the the
Speaker 1: will and mindfulness kind of live in the same house,
Speaker 1: you know, because then one could hear that and go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: then do you become automated? Do you become this creature
Speaker 1: that exists without any reflection, because if I if you
Speaker 1: get to this place, then you're just kind of on
Speaker 1: autopilots of you know, in a good way hypothetically. But
Speaker 1: that's not it at all, you know, it's this continuous
Speaker 1: awareness of pointing the will. And they say, you know,
Speaker 1: any serious writer of Eastern thought will say that the
Speaker 1: focus takes a lot of energy, you know, and a
Speaker 1: lot of force and a lot of your attention to
Speaker 1: keep that system in place that we're talking about. So
Speaker 1: it's not a way of being without discipline. I think
Speaker 1: the will is an interesting idea, right, because one of
Speaker 1: the things that comes up in practice of meditation really
Speaker 1: of any sort contemplative practice is some degree of allowing
Speaker 1: things to be the way they are. You'll see this,
Speaker 1: and then, you know, we don't practice to become enlightened.
Speaker 1: My deepest experiences of being have come when I've somehow
Speaker 1: managed to totally take my hands off the controls. And
Speaker 1: yet there's a role for the will, and there's a
Speaker 1: role for trying. My favorite phrases, trying not to try,
Speaker 1: you know, because we clench up too tightly while we're
Speaker 1: doing all this. If we're trying to force it too much,
Speaker 1: it doesn't work right. Yeah, And so it's a lot
Speaker 1: of practice, right And and of course I think this
Speaker 1: is why you will see the combination of tranquility practices
Speaker 1: and inside practices working hand in hand a lot of
Speaker 1: times being kind of prescribed to go together, to leed
Speaker 1: to some type of cessation. Ultimately is for that very reason,
Speaker 1: a compassion practice is, you know, ultimately leading you through
Speaker 1: something like meta practice, where you're you're breathing in it's
Speaker 1: an absorption and transmission act, where you're you're breathing in
Speaker 1: the sense of love and kindness, of good will and
Speaker 1: what have you towards not only people in your life
Speaker 1: that you might have little hanging ups and resentments with,
Speaker 1: but also ultimately then towards all living beings and your practice.
Speaker 1: And this is a beautiful practice because as you sit
Speaker 1: there and simply just breathe, anyone can do this too,
Speaker 1: if you have just a few moments. I practice it
Speaker 1: in meditation sometimes and also before I fall asleep, as
Speaker 1: I'm laying in bed at night, and you just breathe
Speaker 1: in and as you just close your eyes, no big deal, again,
Speaker 1: lower the stakes. You just breathe in and just really
Speaker 1: try and you feel a sense of kindness and good will.
Speaker 1: It's trying to visualize and draw in the sense of goodness.
Speaker 1: And then as you breathe out, just feel it kind
Speaker 1: of pushing out of your body, pushing out of your chest,
Speaker 1: and you know, kind of right between your eyes, out
Speaker 1: into the world, into this almost into your imagine nation.
Speaker 1: If your eyes are closed and you're picturing someone that's
Speaker 1: frustrated you, then you're breathing in this feeling of kindness,
Speaker 1: and as you exhale, it's a transmission, pushing forward this
Speaker 1: feeling towards them, and it relaxes the body and you
Speaker 1: breathe and again you you exhale and expand that and
Speaker 1: the four directions as they say, and that's one of
Speaker 1: your compassion begins to become boundless. And if you breathe
Speaker 1: out and can push that loving kindness in all directions.
Speaker 1: But that's a tranquility practice which ultimately then the next
Speaker 1: step is, you know, using inside, which is something like
Speaker 1: an emptiness practice. And in the early translations, emptiness seems
Speaker 1: scary to the Western mind because given that we live
Speaker 1: in a materialistic based society, we have that really built
Speaker 1: into the foundation of our worldview, and so the idea
Speaker 1: of calling something emptiness is very scary to the Western mind.
Speaker 1: It's like whenever we talk about self or non self,
Speaker 1: and it really freaks out Western people because I think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: if I go to kind of soften and ultimately recognize
Speaker 1: that I have no self, it seems like death to
Speaker 1: them is in It often creates amygdala response in the brain,
Speaker 1: like it's the same reason why religion and politics have
Speaker 1: such an aggressive reaction. However, people find some of the
Speaker 1: conflicting view. It's because those things are so woven into
Speaker 1: the fabrica and the foundation of our conscious mind and
Speaker 1: our subconscious the review go to criticize them, anything in
Speaker 1: criticism coming towards has some weight to it. It feels
Speaker 1: like the capital eyes being erased at the foundational level,
Speaker 1: and that literally kicks on a fight or flight response
Speaker 1: from the individual. That's why politics and all this stuff
Speaker 1: are so ripe with animalistic anger and rage because they're
Speaker 1: literally fighting. People feel like they're coming fighting for their
Speaker 1: their psychic lives in this way. So the notion of
Speaker 1: non self, denotion of emptiness seems very scary, but ultimately
Speaker 1: what it is it was translated to oneness. Right. So
Speaker 1: the idea that we have in the west of oneness
Speaker 1: is the saint. Which that's a nice, warm and fuzzy
Speaker 1: idea that has turned into a meme, I know, a
Speaker 1: spiritual meme. We said, I understand the lacking of duality,
Speaker 1: We're all one and so forth. You hear that all
Speaker 1: the time. And this is the same as emptiness, right.
Speaker 1: So emptiness is just recognizing that you have the spaciousness
Speaker 1: within you, that you, as a sentient, three dimensional collection
Speaker 1: of atoms, have a sense of spaciousness which does not
Speaker 1: stop where your skin stops. And so here you are
Speaker 1: right and leading this compassion, tranquility and to the spaciousness
Speaker 1: of emptiness or of oneness. Then we'll lead you to
Speaker 1: the inevitable acceptance and integration of that idea, which then
Speaker 1: you can really take the self off the hook once
Speaker 1: you get deep enough into that and have the the
Speaker 1: cessation which is the blown away, the blown out experience
Speaker 1: of really clicking the ego off and reducing the eye
Speaker 1: me and my way of thinking and simply experiencing something
Speaker 1: closer to just awareness. And I know that's a very
Speaker 1: long way to get to your question, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about how do we try and live
Speaker 1: in that process without grasping and getting hung up by
Speaker 1: just giving you a little pithy answer and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: well you just kind of watch your breath and relax
Speaker 1: like that, that's not going to do too much for people.
Speaker 1: So think about it in a bit bigger of the picture,
Speaker 1: you know. Yep, we did wander into some pretty weighty
Speaker 1: concepts there. You know. Emptiness is an idea in Buddhism
Speaker 1: and particularly in Zenz and just all crazy about emptiness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we hear emptiness and we think there's nothing there, right,
Speaker 1: And as you said, emptiness is much better described as
Speaker 1: as you could say oneness. I I've heard it described
Speaker 1: well as boundlessness, so things they're not separated in the
Speaker 1: way we think we are, or emptiness as formlessness. Things
Speaker 1: don't have the form that we think that they have,
Speaker 1: or the form isn't as rigid as as we think.
Speaker 1: And I think it's a really useful tool. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing that you said there, every time I
Speaker 1: hear oneness, I I think of not DT Suzuki, but
Speaker 1: shoonry Suzuki says he's got a great phrase, which is
Speaker 1: we're not one, but we're not two. And I just
Speaker 1: think that's that's it, because yes, we're not all one,
Speaker 1: but we're also not separate. What the hell does that mean? Right?
Speaker 1: And this is where we go beyond concept. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing about zen that I like so much. It's
Speaker 1: form and emptiness, emptiness and form, like, yes, these forms
Speaker 1: are all right here. I'm here, I'm in the shape
Speaker 1: I'm in, This microphone is right where it is, you're
Speaker 1: over there in Austin. Those are all true things. And
Speaker 1: there's another level that's also happening where these things aren't
Speaker 1: so distinct, where they aren't so formless, where the two
Speaker 1: of those come together. I think it's sort of what
Speaker 1: you were talking about, where they doing mind and the
Speaker 1: watching mind merge into both sides of it. That's form
Speaker 1: an emptiness, emptiness and form, doing and being being and
Speaker 1: doing they're not really separate. With that understanding, it then
Speaker 1: becomes an ecosystem, right, and so it's there, we're all
Speaker 1: part of the organism as a whole, and that organism
Speaker 1: is humanity as being. And this tracks to a very
Speaker 1: valuable idea. Once people get into these more challenging, deeper
Speaker 1: waters around this stuff, what often happens in this area
Speaker 1: is a sense of meaning begins to come into question,
Speaker 1: and people go, oh, well, if all this checks out,
Speaker 1: And it seems to check out the more you can
Speaker 1: think about it, then what does my existence mean? As
Speaker 1: you increase the scope of your awareness and the watage
Speaker 1: of your mind begins to expand, and you get that
Speaker 1: sense outside of yourself and realize you're part of one
Speaker 1: big thing. You like, what does my life even, matt
Speaker 1: or what does any of my actions matter at all?
Speaker 1: And I say to that that it matters. Everything is crucial.
Speaker 1: Everything is so important because I think of if you're
Speaker 1: sitting in traffic and you're looking at all these cars
Speaker 1: in front of you on the highway. There's hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of cars, and you think, well, there's a human
Speaker 1: in each of those cars, and they each have their
Speaker 1: little vibe going on inside their car. There's the music
Speaker 1: and their air conditioning level, and with their their tension,
Speaker 1: where they're going. You know, they're the logistics of their day. Well,
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and it's individual to every subjective person
Speaker 1: in every single car. And you're looking at those and
Speaker 1: you think, wow, look at all of these cars. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't notice if one was missing, and I wouldn't notice
Speaker 1: if there was an extra one, And I could be
Speaker 1: that one that was missing, and I could be that
Speaker 1: one that's the extra one. So how is their meaning
Speaker 1: and all of this? Because look how many cars are there.
Speaker 1: But if you look at that from a different angle,
Speaker 1: you can see that in order to have the huge
Speaker 1: picture of all of for you to get lost in,
Speaker 1: there has to be each individual component to create the
Speaker 1: giant thing to begin with. So in order for that
Speaker 1: giant thing for us to get lost in and to
Speaker 1: kind of question our meaning, we have to exist. All
Speaker 1: of us must exist to create the thing to get
Speaker 1: lost in. And so our very actions are so important
Speaker 1: and are so crucial because we are each a cell
Speaker 1: on the organism of humanity. Yep, yep. That's a beautiful
Speaker 1: way of saying it. And I think I feel like
Speaker 1: I've talked about it on the show several times recently,
Speaker 1: talking about meaning ultimately becomes an experience because my experience,
Speaker 1: if I try and reason my way into meaning, I
Speaker 1: eventually just go, well, but like you said, I'm one
Speaker 1: cell and a giant thing. I'm I'm a spec of
Speaker 1: dust that flashes like that and it's gone. And Joseph
Speaker 1: Campbell said it so well. He said, I don't think
Speaker 1: people are looking for the meaning of life so much
Speaker 1: as they're looking for the experience of being alive. And
Speaker 1: that's where I have found meaning actually comes alive for me,
Speaker 1: is in living. And the example I often use is
Speaker 1: one of like, if I walked outside my door and
Speaker 1: there was a dog laying there that had been hit
Speaker 1: by a car, right, it would be imperative to me
Speaker 1: that I take care of that dog. There's nothing you
Speaker 1: could say that would tell me that that's not important.
Speaker 1: You could be like, well, that's just one dog out
Speaker 1: of a billion dogs, and but I would just still go,
Speaker 1: I have to take care of the dog. Like it
Speaker 1: would just be clear to me that it mattered, that mattered,
Speaker 1: But I couldn't explain it. I couldn't put it into
Speaker 1: words because again, if you ask me, I go, ah, yes,
Speaker 1: it is one dog out of ten billion dogs. And
Speaker 1: you know, we're here for one one billion of the
Speaker 1: time of the plan, you know, like whatever. But yet
Speaker 1: in that moment I would feel it and it would
Speaker 1: mean something to me. And that's how I most closely
Speaker 1: approximate meaning is when as I immerse into life without
Speaker 1: all the dialogue, all the thoughts, meaning sort of emerges
Speaker 1: naturally for me. That's right, that's exactly it. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: no meaning in life. There's meaning that we create through
Speaker 1: our actions. Each of us assign these symbols and squiggles
Speaker 1: to all of the elements of our existence, and in
Speaker 1: the assigning of those things, they represent stuff of value
Speaker 1: to us, and not a physical value in most case,
Speaker 1: but in in personal value. And as you so beautifully put,
Speaker 1: if you are creating that meaning through the choices that
Speaker 1: you make they all come from the heart mind, then
Speaker 1: you are going to experience a beautiful image, a beautiful
Speaker 1: abstraction of what life can be. If one goes through
Speaker 1: life making self focused decisions and it is not consumed
Speaker 1: with others, does not have the empathy that you described,
Speaker 1: then the meaning that they create within their their lives
Speaker 1: is going to be one that's unpleasant. That's what's so interesting.
Speaker 1: About it is that subjectively the world and the way
Speaker 1: that we see it often to some degree begins to
Speaker 1: reflect our actions. Because the more that we make kind
Speaker 1: of choices and decisions and live from the heart, the
Speaker 1: more that we can see the compassion and kindness in
Speaker 1: the world. There's a greater appetite for possible things and
Speaker 1: for love and for potential of all of us and ourselves.
Speaker 1: And you know, the counter to that is also true.
Speaker 1: We're getting close to being at a time. But I
Speaker 1: want to talk about a couple practical things in your
Speaker 1: book that I thought were really useful, and one of
Speaker 1: them is you talk about we can become more mindful
Speaker 1: and start to become more focused, but there are moments
Speaker 1: where we get stuck in a thought loop where our
Speaker 1: thoughts are excessive. You say, extreme mental states can make
Speaker 1: us obsessive. A jolt of fear, excitement, confusion, or stress
Speaker 1: can narrow or awareness with ease when we're in one
Speaker 1: of these thought loops. That's often because our emotions peaked
Speaker 1: too fast. So let's talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: do we break these sort of emotional or mental obsessions
Speaker 1: when it's really strong and we're just in it and
Speaker 1: we try and go, oh, it's just a thought. I'm
Speaker 1: going to just see it as a thought and it's
Speaker 1: still it's just got it's hooks in us. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great one. There are two ways I would suggest
Speaker 1: doing that. One is by bringing in, you know, other things,
Speaker 1: positive things, kind of a longside of your life. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you're in this moment at home or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be, or you're in work or wherever, and you're
Speaker 1: feeling this this rumination of negativity, of anxiety or whatever
Speaker 1: it might be, soothe yourself, you know, bring in a
Speaker 1: couple of different good things. Turn on something that brings
Speaker 1: you joy, some you know movie or something that you
Speaker 1: really dig that brings you joy, read a book that
Speaker 1: you you really enjoy, have a bite to eat, is
Speaker 1: something going to walk, whatever it is that really just
Speaker 1: kind of will help you self soothe a bit and
Speaker 1: not trying to erase the thing that's in your mind,
Speaker 1: but you can flood that thing and move the trajectory
Speaker 1: of your thinking into a better way and in a
Speaker 1: different area by bringing other threads and through lines of
Speaker 1: positivity into that moment. Another great way to do it
Speaker 1: is to get active, you know, with your hands literally
Speaker 1: start tending to something. And so you could look at
Speaker 1: this as you know, gardening or go do your grocery
Speaker 1: shopping or whatever it is that get your hands and
Speaker 1: your mind going. And what happens is that like tears
Speaker 1: your attention away from the rumination onto the active practice
Speaker 1: of doing something else. It's a great way to get
Speaker 1: out of like these extreme kind of obsessive thought groups. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that because I think sometimes we have a
Speaker 1: tendency to feel like, well, I should just apply mindfulness,
Speaker 1: or I should feel my feelings, or I should which
Speaker 1: are all great ideas to start with, but there are
Speaker 1: times I've found it's like, Okay, it's time to do
Speaker 1: something else. I love the way you put it, like
Speaker 1: bring other good things in. You say you can dilute
Speaker 1: this strong feeling or these negative thoughts. You dilute it
Speaker 1: by putting more other things into the mix. And and
Speaker 1: I think there's just times that's the right thing to
Speaker 1: do when the rumination train is full steam ahead. It's
Speaker 1: like distract, you know, find something that will turn the
Speaker 1: mind a different direction for a little while, to try
Speaker 1: and break that cycle. That's right. Yeah, we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about emptiness or emptiness type practices. And one
Speaker 1: of them that you talk about being sort of the
Speaker 1: primary meditation can you do anymore, is called the watcher
Speaker 1: And I was wondering if you could describe how that
Speaker 1: type of meditation works, what you actually do in that
Speaker 1: type of meditation. Oh sure, yeah, this is, as you said,
Speaker 1: very close to uh, you know, an emptiness type of meditation.
Speaker 1: You'll find if you google or read a book about meditation,
Speaker 1: or find all sorts of different practices and goals. And
Speaker 1: really what's happening is that in a lot of those
Speaker 1: books or those videos there they sort of think about
Speaker 1: them as little like gem workout practices. They're trying to
Speaker 1: get you into a particular discipline to have one of
Speaker 1: the many elements of mind exercised so that you can
Speaker 1: really ultimately build the muscle of your focus, your attention,
Speaker 1: and gain control of your consciousness. So those are what
Speaker 1: a lot of meditation practices will take to do. Of course,
Speaker 1: in session with breathing practices and so forth. Ultimately, if
Speaker 1: you go deeper into practicing meditation, and no matter which
Speaker 1: pathway you enter, it will all culminate in simple emptiness
Speaker 1: and awareness practice where there is no goal there is
Speaker 1: no visualization, There is no particular breathing style you're trying
Speaker 1: to do. It's really just being and observing and becoming
Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, becoming that awareness mind and
Speaker 1: so that watch your practice looks like sitting down, taking
Speaker 1: you know, about five minutes to get situated in the
Speaker 1: sense that you need to kind of blow off some
Speaker 1: of the steam of the day. You will begin slowly
Speaker 1: inhaling and just feeling and observing your chest rise, exhaling,
Speaker 1: feeling your chest fall. One of the things I stress
Speaker 1: in the book is to just don't make breathing performative,
Speaker 1: don't make it theatrical, don't feel like you have to
Speaker 1: turn it into some big thing. Because you breathe perfectly
Speaker 1: every night when you're sleeping. The trick is just doing
Speaker 1: that while you're awake. So think of how you breathe
Speaker 1: while you're sleeping. That's because you're breathing without any resistance.
Speaker 1: You're breathing without any intention or distraction in the mind.
Speaker 1: Your body is just automatically, slowly and deeply taking the
Speaker 1: natural breaths that it needs in that moment. So trying
Speaker 1: to just allow your body to do that and then
Speaker 1: simply just observe your awareness, close your eyes, and you
Speaker 1: begin to become more aware of your body and the
Speaker 1: sensations and some of the sounds in the room. Where
Speaker 1: you just continue inhaling and then slowly exhaling and relaxing
Speaker 1: the muscles and the face and shoulders, getting a sense
Speaker 1: of this kind of light that's in your mind. There's
Speaker 1: just observing watching, not senses, not sounds, not feelings per se,
Speaker 1: but just the very essence of its existence at all.
Speaker 1: And then your mind will wander and you'll start thinking
Speaker 1: about your lunch or you know, a conversation you had earlier,
Speaker 1: or something that you need to do. And whenever that happens,
Speaker 1: allow that script that arises in your brain to be
Speaker 1: the reminder to point your attention back towards your practice.
Speaker 1: So you'll go down this random tangent of thought and
Speaker 1: then say, oh, okay, I remembered. Let me go back
Speaker 1: to just focusing on observing the simple act of being
Speaker 1: just the light and awareness in your mind, with no effort,
Speaker 1: no attempt to do anything, just feeling the camera turned on.
Speaker 1: Where you are not the camera, you're not the lens,
Speaker 1: you're not even the film. You're simply the light moving
Speaker 1: through the aperture and you just sit with that feeling
Speaker 1: and that's all there is to it. The more you
Speaker 1: practice that, you'll get these little feelings is a little
Speaker 1: cracks in the wall between the thoughts, the actions, the self,
Speaker 1: and you'll almost start feeling kind of like I don't
Speaker 1: want to say four dimensional because that's become such a
Speaker 1: sort of way to describe it. But you you feel
Speaker 1: so in sync with the present moment that you feel
Speaker 1: intoxicated with the potency of now, and you can slide
Speaker 1: in and out of that feeling and you'll forget yourself
Speaker 1: for just a second, and then you'll remember that you're there,
Speaker 1: and you'll forget the eye, you know, just be this
Speaker 1: kind of spacious, boundless cloud of presence, and then a
Speaker 1: thought will arise, will draw you back into now, back
Speaker 1: into the mind, and you can just move into that.
Speaker 1: And the more we practice it, the longer and more
Speaker 1: simple and easy. If it comes to exist in that
Speaker 1: awareness state, awesome, Well, thank you for leading us through that.
Speaker 1: I agree with you ultimately, that seems to be where
Speaker 1: all meditation practices lead to. And certainly, and then you know,
Speaker 1: talk about chinkin Taza just sitting, you know, what should
Speaker 1: I do? Just sit? But hang on a second, like well,
Speaker 1: you know, I find those practices so interesting because sometimes
Speaker 1: they're deeply profound and other times I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: just like what my mind does all the time. And
Speaker 1: so I I find for me like that, I'm always
Speaker 1: on this like Okay, I'm open, I'm aware, and I'm
Speaker 1: doing Okay. I see a thought come in and I
Speaker 1: see it go. And there's other times I'm like I
Speaker 1: try that and it's just chaos, and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I need to go back more towards the steadying type
Speaker 1: of practice. Pay closer attention to the breath, or pay
Speaker 1: more attention to sounds, or to use your thing. I
Speaker 1: need to narrow the aperture a little bit so that
Speaker 1: I can focus a little bit more. Okay, now I'm
Speaker 1: a little steadier. Now I can open it back up
Speaker 1: a little bit and take my hands off the wheel
Speaker 1: a little bit more. And and so for me in
Speaker 1: my practice lately, there's been a lot of that sort
Speaker 1: of need to steady it a little bit, or now
Speaker 1: I can open up. Nope, opening up has gotten a
Speaker 1: little chaos, that sort of back and forth movement that
Speaker 1: I've been experimenting with or learning to play with a
Speaker 1: little bit beautiful. Yeah. And also people, you know, everyone
Speaker 1: beats themselves up so out about meditation or about any
Speaker 1: type of contemplative practice or even what's going on in
Speaker 1: their mind on any given day. But it's so important
Speaker 1: to remember that we're all just humans, and we all are,
Speaker 1: you know, facing an immense amount of stimulation and distraction
Speaker 1: and pressure and and all these things. And some days
Speaker 1: are easier, some days were really wound up for even
Speaker 1: environmental reasons. You know, your allergies could be giving you
Speaker 1: tweaked out or whatever, and so you know, just the
Speaker 1: random chance of life will service a variety of different
Speaker 1: ways of feeling. And that's just a byproduct of being human.
Speaker 1: And so, as you said, whenever you are feeling particularly
Speaker 1: wound up, just kicking it back to the basics, you know,
Speaker 1: and not trying to do anything fancy, not that you
Speaker 1: should be anyway, but you know, I just remembering the
Speaker 1: remembering the basics. And then some days, if you're feeling
Speaker 1: particularly clear minded and deep really and you want to
Speaker 1: get in there and explore, and as I said, take
Speaker 1: the self off the coat rack and drop it on
Speaker 1: the floor for a minute. Then you can do that too.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I think it's a great
Speaker 1: place to end, which is that, Yeah, this stuff is challenging.
Speaker 1: That's why it's a practice, you know. And there are
Speaker 1: times that it's easy, and there's times it's really hard.
Speaker 1: And there's times that our brain just runs and runs
Speaker 1: and runs, and there's other times it's a little more
Speaker 1: peaceful and and that's being human. So very well said.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. It's been such a pleasure to talk
Speaker 1: with you again, and I greatly appreciate it. And it's
Speaker 1: nice to see you. Yeah, thank you so much, Jack,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the invitation. Man, If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly
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