Speaker 1: Don't ever let anybody in your head say anything to
Speaker 1: you that you wouldn't say to a four year old
Speaker 1: that you love. Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Sherry Huber,
Speaker 1: who is the author of many books including There's Nothing
Speaker 1: Wrong with You When You're Falling Down, Dive, and Sweet Zen.
Speaker 1: Sherry founded the Mountain View Zen Center in mountain View, California,
Speaker 1: and the Zen Monastery Practice Center in Murphy's, California. She
Speaker 1: also teaches in both communities. She's traveled widely and often
Speaker 1: leading workshops and retreats around the United States and abroad.
Speaker 1: Her new book is I Don't Want To, I Don't
Speaker 1: Feel Like It. How resistance controls your life and what
Speaker 1: to do about it. And here's the interview with Sherry Huber. Hi, Cherry,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you on. I've been familiar
Speaker 1: with your work for a long time time, probably at
Speaker 1: least I don't know, fifteen twenty years, so I'm excited
Speaker 1: to get a chance to talk to you on the show.
Speaker 1: And one of your more recent books is a great title,
Speaker 1: particularly for this show, because we talk so often on
Speaker 1: this show about how important our behavior is to live
Speaker 1: the life we want. We kind of have to sometimes
Speaker 1: act our way into thinking. And I love this title,
Speaker 1: I Don't Want To, I Don't Feel Like It, How
Speaker 1: resistance controls your life and what to do about it.
Speaker 1: So we will get into that book in more detail,
Speaker 1: but before we do, let's start with the parable, like
Speaker 1: we normally do. There's a grandfather who's talking with his
Speaker 1: grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 1: inside of us that are always at battle. One is
Speaker 1: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second.
Speaker 1: He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which 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. It's kind of everything. So
Speaker 1: we have this notion of what you do is what
Speaker 1: you have. What you give is what you get. And
Speaker 1: the idea behind that is that one process doesn't lead
Speaker 1: to another, which is completely counter to all of the
Speaker 1: conditioning that we've all had. Right, So, if you do this,
Speaker 1: then you'll get that. If you do this, then that
Speaker 1: will happen. Now, if you do this, then this will happen.
Speaker 1: So one of our little catchphrases is the process is
Speaker 1: the outcome. Nothing is leading to anything. Everything is here.
Speaker 1: It's all happening here, and here is the only place
Speaker 1: there is, and now is the only moment there is.
Speaker 1: And this is becoming very buzzy in our culture now.
Speaker 1: But the fact that we're familiar with those little phrases
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we actually know what they're saying. So what
Speaker 1: what are you going to get? You're going to get
Speaker 1: what you're doing. And so if you want to be happy,
Speaker 1: the only way to be happy is to be happy, right,
Speaker 1: doesn't have anything to do with money or relationship or
Speaker 1: job or location or anything else. Nothing leads to anything else.
Speaker 1: So if we want to be happy, we have to
Speaker 1: be happy. If we want to live in a kind world,
Speaker 1: we have to be kind. So that's the That's what
Speaker 1: that parable is pointing at, right, that, uh, whatever we're
Speaker 1: giving attention to. So another one of our little phrases
Speaker 1: is the quality of your life is determined by the
Speaker 1: focus of your attention. So if we're attending to goodness,
Speaker 1: goodness is what we experience. That all makes sense. I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you about that phrase. One process does
Speaker 1: not lead to another because in reading your books, I
Speaker 1: fully understand kind of what you're saying, which is that
Speaker 1: we get ourselves into this mindset that says I'm going
Speaker 1: to think or do this, and then later it will
Speaker 1: give me this, and that those things don't necessarily connect.
Speaker 1: I'm interested because connect at all. Yeah, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's talk through that because you come from a
Speaker 1: zen Buddhist tradition, right, And one of the things that's
Speaker 1: very much in the heart of Buddhism, right is that
Speaker 1: idea of dependent origination. Everything kind of comes out of
Speaker 1: something else. So I'm just curious how you reconcile those
Speaker 1: are what I'm not understanding. Yeah, I wouldn't phrase it
Speaker 1: that way. It's not that everything comes out of something else.
Speaker 1: It's so I was just talking about this at the
Speaker 1: monastery last night. People will say to me, because we
Speaker 1: are ostensibly a Judaeo Christian culture, um, and I'm a Buddhist. Uh.
Speaker 1: They'll say, so that means you don't believe in God, right,
Speaker 1: And what I always respond is, I don't believe there's
Speaker 1: anything that is not God. So it's not that that
Speaker 1: something comes out of something else. It's that everything comes
Speaker 1: into being together. So it's a non separate reality. The
Speaker 1: world of ego is dualistic. So, um, I get caught
Speaker 1: in a conversation about well, should I or shouldn't I?
Speaker 1: You know, what is the right thing to do? What
Speaker 1: are the pros and cons about this, and that's the
Speaker 1: dualistic mind orientation. Uh. That leads us to feel, whether
Speaker 1: we're thinking this way or not, it leads us to
Speaker 1: believe that we are somehow separate from life. So I'm
Speaker 1: over here and you're over there, and this is I
Speaker 1: mean mine and uh, this is the world that I
Speaker 1: live in, and things happen to me. Uh, and it's wrong.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be happening because I did everything right and
Speaker 1: what's happening to me is not what's supposed to be
Speaker 1: happening to me. That's a dualistic separate from life orientation.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to point out that your your cat better.
Speaker 1: Yet your dog doesn't have that experience because the dog
Speaker 1: doesn't have that same ability, that unique ability that human
Speaker 1: beings have to experience themselves as separate from life. So
Speaker 1: the dog is just living in the present right, Uh.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have ideas about getting old, about getting sick, about
Speaker 1: what if nobody feeds me tomorrow? What is his pain
Speaker 1: in my leg? Mean, it just doesn't have the ability
Speaker 1: to do that. And so it's happy having the experience
Speaker 1: that it's having. It's happy to be alive. Happy, my
Speaker 1: you know, we're I'm projecting that obviously, but um, because
Speaker 1: it doesn't have the ability to think of anything to
Speaker 1: compare it to. It's just here with what is. And
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about in jen Zen is a
Speaker 1: direct experience of life not being identified with a someone
Speaker 1: that is experiencing life. Yep. And you know, we've talked
Speaker 1: to fair amount on this show and explored that idea
Speaker 1: of their not being a separate self in the way
Speaker 1: that we think there is. And I want to dig
Speaker 1: into that a little bit deeper before we get too
Speaker 1: far away from the wolf parable though you actually have
Speaker 1: you use the parable in one of your books, and
Speaker 1: then you go on to describe something you call the
Speaker 1: feed the good wolf practice. Can you share what that is,
Speaker 1: because that's you know, all right. I can't, Eric because
Speaker 1: because that would require me to remember, I have no
Speaker 1: idea perfect Well, you've got lots of practices in your
Speaker 1: books and and they are there. There's lots of great
Speaker 1: ways to look at the world differently. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the ego. So you use lots of different words
Speaker 1: for the ego. You call it egocentric, karmic conditioning. We
Speaker 1: talk about it is the conditioned mind, the separate mind.
Speaker 1: What is it that we're talking about here when we
Speaker 1: say ego or any of those various different words. Well,
Speaker 1: for me, it is that again, that unique ability that
Speaker 1: human beings have to experience themselves as other than life. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, there are lots of people who speculate
Speaker 1: about that, about why that is and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: If you're a religious type, then a very good explanation
Speaker 1: for that is that it gives us the ability to
Speaker 1: identify with a small, separate me that's kind of against
Speaker 1: the world. So I'm going to survive because the ego
Speaker 1: is a survival system, right, I'm going to survive at
Speaker 1: all costs and uh, and there I am. And then
Speaker 1: as a human being, I have the ability to wake
Speaker 1: up to that, to question that, to see that there's
Speaker 1: something more, something else available to us, to move all
Speaker 1: along that continuum and identification with again the words the
Speaker 1: ground of being, the universe, that which is the intelligence
Speaker 1: animates God. However, we want to talk about that. So
Speaker 1: we moved from my will be done to thy will
Speaker 1: be done. We moved from wanting to be separate from
Speaker 1: life to uh, actually being dissolved into life. And when
Speaker 1: you say that we are separate from life. On one hand,
Speaker 1: believe we are right, so we have the experience that
Speaker 1: we are, we're not. We can't be right. So I
Speaker 1: just like to ask probing questions in this area. And
Speaker 1: so you know, clearly I am not you and you
Speaker 1: are not me. I am over here having an experience
Speaker 1: that you know you are not having. Right. I've got
Speaker 1: an apple in front of me, and you may or
Speaker 1: may not. And there's a variety of different things. And
Speaker 1: my dog, regardless of what he thinks or doesn't think,
Speaker 1: is kind of over there. That's not what we're saying
Speaker 1: here exactly in that, you know, And I think I
Speaker 1: think the way you phrase it, believing that we are
Speaker 1: not connected to life or or one with life, is
Speaker 1: really key to this idea. So help me wrap my
Speaker 1: head around that. On one hand, I'm clearly a separate being,
Speaker 1: if at least as at least as a physical Yeah,
Speaker 1: the way it looks right, well, yes, so there are
Speaker 1: a couple of things about it. So I I talked
Speaker 1: to Christians a lot, right, So, um, the image that
Speaker 1: I would use there is that a person can believe
Speaker 1: that they are outside the presence of God, but it's
Speaker 1: not possible to be outside the presence of God because
Speaker 1: God is everything. So in that same way, we we
Speaker 1: believe usually as a result of the conversation that's going
Speaker 1: on in our head, that is conditioned. You know, if
Speaker 1: I believe God is good and I'm bad, Uh, then
Speaker 1: God is going to reject me, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: be judged and punished and all of that sort of nonsense.
Speaker 1: And so I will experience myself as rejected by God.
Speaker 1: Am I being rejected by God? No, I'm being rejected
Speaker 1: by a voice in my head? Yes, okay, but I
Speaker 1: believe that that voice in my head is God. So
Speaker 1: if we then take it into kind of a more
Speaker 1: scientific realm imagine, now we know everything in our universe
Speaker 1: is atoms, right, so what if they were all pink?
Speaker 1: How would you experience your dog probably is some sort
Speaker 1: of pink thing. Yes, well, probably as an differentiated I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so that gives us a little sense of how
Speaker 1: all of these things that we believe are are true
Speaker 1: and real are actually conditioned experiences in the mind. So
Speaker 1: the way it it helps us, I think from a
Speaker 1: spiritual or an awareness perspective is, Uh, if you were
Speaker 1: sitting here with me, we would both look out through
Speaker 1: the window and we would see a tree. Now because
Speaker 1: we share a conditioning, right, we we we've been trained.
Speaker 1: If you have kids tree tree gay, and when the
Speaker 1: child points at the dog and ghost tree no dog. Dog.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people, if they if they're aware
Speaker 1: of it, when they go to when they encounter another
Speaker 1: language for the first time, there's a shock when they
Speaker 1: find out every and he doesn't call that thing a dog,
Speaker 1: and everybody doesn't experience that thing the same way. Some
Speaker 1: people have it as a pet, other people have it
Speaker 1: as something tied up at the end of a chain
Speaker 1: in their yard. And some people eat them. I was
Speaker 1: gonna say some people have them for dinner, which is
Speaker 1: a horrifying thought to me. But that's just me because
Speaker 1: your conditions. Of course it's not. It's not horrifying to them.
Speaker 1: In fact, they would think you let dinner sleep on
Speaker 1: your bed. I mean, that's just that is just bizarre.
Speaker 1: It's like having a cow sleep on thet of your bed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Who pets chickens? Yeah, well my grand Well yeah, I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, actually, I'm I'm going to get all
Speaker 1: kinds of chicken lover emails here. Feel free to pet
Speaker 1: your chickens as much as you like. Yes, yeah. So
Speaker 1: the point of that is what we're interested in from
Speaker 1: an awareness practice perspective, is how are you in relationship
Speaker 1: to that treat? Is that tree beautiful? Do you love it?
Speaker 1: Do you think it's annoying? Is it in the way
Speaker 1: it would be better off if it were cut down
Speaker 1: because it's drop and leaves on the roof as I'm
Speaker 1: as I'm looking at it, right, So it's looking at
Speaker 1: our own process that leads us to awakening. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not what we see, it's not what we hear,
Speaker 1: it's not what we do, it's how that happens. In
Speaker 1: the Appanashad, I think it's Appanish, it says it's not
Speaker 1: what we see. We're not seeking anything about what we see.
Speaker 1: It's how what makes us able to see. That's what
Speaker 1: we're seeking. That's what we want to focus on. Yep, agreed.
Speaker 1: And you talk about life a lot, right, and and
Speaker 1: thats being connected with life, and you've got to I
Speaker 1: don't know if you mean it is a definition, but
Speaker 1: a great a great phrase here that I'm going to read.
Speaker 1: And you say that life is dynamic movement coming and
Speaker 1: going out of appearance. Really I said that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: very good. Yeah, there's a joke in Zen. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a joke of the person who
Speaker 1: said it. I don't know why they were saying it,
Speaker 1: but a zen master was given a copy of the
Speaker 1: the New Testament of the Bible and and read it
Speaker 1: and said, the person who wrote that was very near
Speaker 1: to enlightenment. So we always have that as a joke.
Speaker 1: You know that the person who said that is very
Speaker 1: close to enlightenment. So there we have it. That's very nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just think that's an interesting way of looking at
Speaker 1: what life is. And the other phrase I've heard that
Speaker 1: that really resonates with me and I think is a
Speaker 1: very useful is we tend to look at everything as
Speaker 1: being a noun versus you know, things really are you know,
Speaker 1: what we think is a thing is really is a verb. Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything is a Jarrand so if we realize that and
Speaker 1: back to the you know, there's nothing that isn't God,
Speaker 1: then it all makes perfect sense. You know, it is
Speaker 1: our experience. It's just that we have that pesky conditioning,
Speaker 1: that ability that has been reinforced by conditioning to believe
Speaker 1: that I am a me that looks out. I'm the subject.
Speaker 1: Everything else is the object, and we forget that that
Speaker 1: we actually experience ourselves as an object of life. In
Speaker 1: talking about ego, you say, ego rejects what is it
Speaker 1: is the process of dissatisfaction. Talk to me about this
Speaker 1: idea that it is the process of being dissatisfied, which
Speaker 1: kind of keeps ego going. Yes. So another way we
Speaker 1: talk about it is ego the illusion of being separate
Speaker 1: from life. Now, remember this, this survival system that I've
Speaker 1: got going over here is the no to life's yes.
Speaker 1: So life unfolds the UH you mentioned earlier, the UH
Speaker 1: interdependent origination um that life manifests. It unfolds in a moment. Okay,
Speaker 1: And so here's life manifesting I identified with ego. Look
Speaker 1: at it and go no, I don't want that. I
Speaker 1: don't like that strong color. I don't need that. I
Speaker 1: don't feel like it. I don't want to and we watch. Okay.
Speaker 1: So there's nothing that can keep a person at the
Speaker 1: center of the universe more effectively then negativity. So in
Speaker 1: my little conditioned mind, all day long, the conversation is
Speaker 1: about what's wrong, what's missing, what's wrong, what's wrong with them,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you, what's wrong with him, what's wrong
Speaker 1: with her, what's wrong with me? And it just it
Speaker 1: just circles around, Okay, what's lacking, what's missing, what's wrong,
Speaker 1: what's lacking, what's missing, what's wrong? And in that way,
Speaker 1: it keeps me as that ego at the center of
Speaker 1: the universe. So the attention is always focused on that conversation.
Speaker 1: It tells me what to do um, when to do it, with,
Speaker 1: whom to do it, what I did wrong about it.
Speaker 1: It's constantly critiquing, and it is doing that split second
Speaker 1: behind life. It's happening so quickly that unless people are
Speaker 1: really present, they have no idea that it's happening. It
Speaker 1: seems like they are relating directly to life. But we're not.
Speaker 1: We're that one beat behind. Yeah, you've said that appreciation
Speaker 1: is a life process, while comparing and judging is an
Speaker 1: ego process. And I certainly can relate strongly with that.
Speaker 1: And you know, we've talked on the show many times
Speaker 1: about sort of the negativity bias that's sort of wired
Speaker 1: into us to some extent. I don't think it is. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that at all. I know it's a
Speaker 1: very popular idea, but I don't believe it. Um If
Speaker 1: we go back to that, that ability to experience ourselves
Speaker 1: as separate, what keeps that illusion of separation in place
Speaker 1: is negativity. That's not the same as being hardwired towards it.
Speaker 1: It is deeply conditioned. Yes, it is karmic, yes, but
Speaker 1: hardwired no, I don't think so. Fair enough my experience,
Speaker 1: I'll just put it that way. It's not my experience.
Speaker 1: So certainly then a lot of the evolutionary psychology ideas
Speaker 1: aren't really in alignment with what you're thinking. I think
Speaker 1: that if people go to, let's just put it this way,
Speaker 1: the deepest place they can get to, they will be
Speaker 1: something different than what we assume by looking at a
Speaker 1: fairly surfaced level of something. For instance, if we just
Speaker 1: picked two popular religious types, the Buddha and Jesus, there
Speaker 1: was no indication of that in things. It's that right.
Speaker 1: They talked a lot about what happens to human beings
Speaker 1: and how we are and the choices we make and
Speaker 1: why we make them, and what we're up against, but
Speaker 1: there was no uh and God designed you to be negative,
Speaker 1: and so that's what you're going to have to overcome.
Speaker 1: And so I think I trust both of those guys, uh,
Speaker 1: to have looked very very deeply at how we are
Speaker 1: constructed and how life itself is constructed, um, and to
Speaker 1: report back to us about what is so. So it
Speaker 1: doesn't look that way, yeah, UM, But it looks that
Speaker 1: way because we're conditioned to see it that way. We
Speaker 1: see what we're conditioned to see until we get to
Speaker 1: the point of questioning, deeply, deeply questioning what we're seeing
Speaker 1: and what is seeing it? Yes, seen from conditioning makes
Speaker 1: it difficult to see around it for sure, exactly. And
Speaker 1: one of the things so one of our books that
Speaker 1: came out a hundred years ago, UM is called How
Speaker 1: You Do Anything is How You Do Everything, and it's
Speaker 1: a it's actually a workbook, and we're doing that now
Speaker 1: is a year long retreat which is super fun. We
Speaker 1: you know, we do the exercises in it and then
Speaker 1: we talk about it every morning. And what people are
Speaker 1: really getting a chance to see is process and exactly
Speaker 1: what we're talking about getting to watch how those beliefs
Speaker 1: and assumptions appear in the mind and questioning not just
Speaker 1: the truth of what is assumed and believed, but questioning
Speaker 1: the process itself. So if I can watch the activity
Speaker 1: of the mind that I have been conditioned to believe
Speaker 1: is me, the one thing I can know is I'm
Speaker 1: not watching that from inside it. So where am I
Speaker 1: if I am able to watch that? And of course
Speaker 1: what we quickly get to is it's awareness that is
Speaker 1: able to watch that conditioned mind. So what we actually
Speaker 1: identify at the deepest level, what we identify as ourselves,
Speaker 1: is the awareness that is not only doing all of this,
Speaker 1: but is aware of all of this. That is our deepest,
Speaker 1: moment by moment experience of ourselves. But we're taught to
Speaker 1: believe that it's this superficial kind of on the surface
Speaker 1: of the water stuff that's going nick nip nip yandy,
Speaker 1: dandy yandy in condition to mind all day long. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love how in one line you say, and I
Speaker 1: just thought this was such a way to paraphrase something
Speaker 1: that I'm often talking about and trying to explain to people,
Speaker 1: which is you are not your thoughts, But you say
Speaker 1: the logic goes I hear it in my head. It
Speaker 1: sounds like me. It must be me, it must be
Speaker 1: who I am, And that is the way it works.
Speaker 1: And I was having a conversation with somebody the other
Speaker 1: day where I said, I think the fundamental teaching of
Speaker 1: my life that did more to change me than anything
Speaker 1: else was just recognized saying that that voice and whatever
Speaker 1: it's chattering on about is not who I am now.
Speaker 1: I still think that in moment to moment way more
Speaker 1: often than I would like. You know, I I am
Speaker 1: identified with it, but at least knowing when I when
Speaker 1: I remember to think about it, I can step away
Speaker 1: from it and go, oh, yeah, that's just a voice.
Speaker 1: It's just to your point condition. Yeah, it's just a
Speaker 1: condition program that is carrying on. And um, I don't
Speaker 1: have to I don't have to believe it in the
Speaker 1: same way that if you told me something, I would go, well,
Speaker 1: is that true? Let me think about that. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: but in our own minds there there doesn't tend to
Speaker 1: be that sort of degree of question. And I and
Speaker 1: I think that's I just love the way you say that,
Speaker 1: Like I hear it in my head. It sounds like me.
Speaker 1: It must be me. And so Eric. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I talked to people about a lot is
Speaker 1: imagine that all that stuff that's going on in there,
Speaker 1: somebody standing next to you saying it. That's what we
Speaker 1: need to learn to do. And with the image that
Speaker 1: you were just offering, we need to approach that stuff
Speaker 1: that's going on inside the head as if it were
Speaker 1: being said by the person standing next to us. We'd
Speaker 1: be horrified. First of all, we would we would quickly
Speaker 1: conclude there's something a myth in that person because they
Speaker 1: just keep repeating the same over and they never shut up.
Speaker 1: Why does this person never shut up? Yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be that would be the exact reaction I'd have. I'm like, sorry,
Speaker 1: we are not going on any more long drives together, right,
Speaker 1: you need to stay before we finish this, Eric, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about recording and listening. If it's right
Speaker 1: in here, let's do it. If I can make a
Speaker 1: little commercial break, let's let's do it. Because it was
Speaker 1: on the list, So okay, good. So, because I think
Speaker 1: you're familiar with what we practice is what we have,
Speaker 1: which I think is the one that's all about recording
Speaker 1: and listening. Um, so what years ago when we that
Speaker 1: came up with the uh, you know, trying to help
Speaker 1: people see what self hate is and get people to
Speaker 1: recognize it and that it is not the voice of God.
Speaker 1: That voice it's always telling you what you're doing wrong
Speaker 1: and comparing you to other people unfavorably. Um. We had
Speaker 1: as part of that a recording element where people would
Speaker 1: record different information for themselves. And I actually had this
Speaker 1: little fantasy of making recordings for people that about what's
Speaker 1: true about them and then they would listen to it, right,
Speaker 1: And then I quickly got to, oh, if you want
Speaker 1: to be called a cult, uh, that would be a
Speaker 1: really good pathway to that. So what I started doing
Speaker 1: then is trying to get people to do it for themselves,
Speaker 1: and it has evolved into what I think is uh,
Speaker 1: the most revolutionary contribution to spirituality and psychotherapy that's come
Speaker 1: along in a long time, and that is uh, simply
Speaker 1: this the two things I like best about it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't cost anything and you don't need anybody else to
Speaker 1: do it, okay, which I think in the world of
Speaker 1: religion and psychotherapy are great contributions. Um. So here's what
Speaker 1: you do. Uh. Now, we're familiar with that YadA YadA
Speaker 1: that goes on, that repetitious, uh incessant negative conversation in
Speaker 1: the head, and even if people are saying, well, mine
Speaker 1: isn't always negative. Watch what starts out positive is gonna
Speaker 1: turn negative because it is its um way of existing
Speaker 1: to remain negative. So just pay attention, it will turn
Speaker 1: negative on you. So, um, that's what people are listening to.
Speaker 1: And it's the source of dissatisfaction, suffering, unhappiness, and wasting
Speaker 1: a life. And so what is possible for us is
Speaker 1: to turn our attention to what is true, not what's positive.
Speaker 1: So this is not affirmations. We're not talking about that.
Speaker 1: Not I'm tall and young and thin and gorgeous. That's
Speaker 1: not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is recording.
Speaker 1: It's not I don't think any of those things are
Speaker 1: actually true. But I see, okay, So what we're actually
Speaker 1: recording is what is true. So I make recordings about
Speaker 1: what I appreciate, what I enjoy, what I love, what
Speaker 1: makes me happy. And I listened to that instead of
Speaker 1: that incessant negativity in the head. Now, because we can
Speaker 1: only attend to one thing at a time, the way
Speaker 1: that I can end the focus of attention on that
Speaker 1: negativity is to turn it to what is So what
Speaker 1: is true for me? And I like to compare it
Speaker 1: to you know, a pendulum. So the pendulum has been
Speaker 1: way out on the negativity, and and so we're going
Speaker 1: to go all the way over here to listening almost
Speaker 1: constantly to what is so for me, what is true
Speaker 1: about me in my life, and eventually we slide back
Speaker 1: to here where I can just be here without needing
Speaker 1: to be in a conversation about anything. But it's a
Speaker 1: process to get here. Yeah, I love that idea. When
Speaker 1: I read it, I was sort of struck by how
Speaker 1: useful it would be to hear things that I know
Speaker 1: are true for me in my own voice. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: thank you for that. It doesn't help us somebody else
Speaker 1: says it. It's not the same as journaling exactly what
Speaker 1: you were just talking about. Right, I'm hearing it in
Speaker 1: my head. It's in my voice. It must be me,
Speaker 1: it must be true for me. Okay, let's have that
Speaker 1: same voice tell us what is really true for us?
Speaker 1: M M. So give a couple of examples of something
Speaker 1: that someone might record in the book. What you practice
Speaker 1: is what you have, um it. You know you've got
Speaker 1: probably you know, ten pages of different ideas of things
Speaker 1: we could record. But let's give an example, because I
Speaker 1: do think it's important to realize these aren't affirmations, These
Speaker 1: are not statements of truth. And so another way to
Speaker 1: describe it, I think, is that you describe it as
Speaker 1: how you speak when you speak from your center, or
Speaker 1: you also use the term of mentor, like your your
Speaker 1: inner mentor. So this is the voice of if you
Speaker 1: think about yourself when you are most grounded, when you
Speaker 1: are most in at least for me, what I would
Speaker 1: consider my right mind, it's the thoughts that come then,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's having those being able to repeat
Speaker 1: them to myself when that doesn't happen to be the
Speaker 1: soundtrack that's playing that day. That's exactly it. That that
Speaker 1: is perfectly it. Um. So, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: ways that I talk to people about self hate is
Speaker 1: don't ever let anybody in your head say anything to
Speaker 1: you that you wouldn't say to a four year old
Speaker 1: that you love. Now, that would end the conversation in
Speaker 1: most people's heads right there, okay, because the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff they hear all the time, they would never say
Speaker 1: to a child that they love, probably wouldn't say to anybody,
Speaker 1: even somebody they don't love but have no reason to dislike.
Speaker 1: And so exactly that. So there you are with your
Speaker 1: best friend, somebody, your child, somebody you love unconditionally, um,
Speaker 1: and and you are talking with that person, UM, who
Speaker 1: is having a hard time. That's the one that you
Speaker 1: just described. So I'm having a hard day. You know.
Speaker 1: The voices are beating me up. I I you know,
Speaker 1: I blew that presentation at work, or I said that thing,
Speaker 1: or I started a fight with my person or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. And the voices, You're just on me, right,
Speaker 1: And so I turned to the to the mentor and
Speaker 1: say to the mentor in essence, so, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the voices are really beaten on me. What UM, help
Speaker 1: me out here? Okay? And in the same way that
Speaker 1: I would say it to you if you told me
Speaker 1: that story, it would be Hey, it's okay, It's it's
Speaker 1: all right. You know. This is this is how we learn.
Speaker 1: We we do stuff. Sure we look back on it
Speaker 1: and wish that we hadn't done it that way. But
Speaker 1: what did you learn? What did you see about this?
Speaker 1: Are you more committed than ever not to not to
Speaker 1: say those kinds of things? Or can you can you
Speaker 1: use this as an opportunity to find compassion for yourself?
Speaker 1: Because who are you as a person. Do you get
Speaker 1: up in the morning and and think I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go out there and I'm going to ruin as many
Speaker 1: lives as I can. No, You're a kind, thoughtful, caring person.
Speaker 1: You're trying to be the very best person. Okay. So
Speaker 1: that's one. That's one form of it. Um. Somebody was
Speaker 1: talking as it was a particularly beautiful place where we live,
Speaker 1: and she drove across the state and uh, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it's spring and everything is in bloom and
Speaker 1: the hills are all green, and the sky is blue
Speaker 1: and the white puffy clouds, and she's just having an
Speaker 1: ecstatic you're rubbing that California thing. And again our genes
Speaker 1: on us Midwesterners that nice to day, though area, it's
Speaker 1: not that nice to day. Okay. So she was recording that,
Speaker 1: She was recording how it felt to be aware of
Speaker 1: so much duty, to feel so alive and present and grateful. Okay.
Speaker 1: So then on that day when things are not going
Speaker 1: that way, either because something awful happened or just because
Speaker 1: Jim feel good, Uh, then she can turn that on
Speaker 1: and that conversation will take her right back to that experience.
Speaker 1: And we know that that's true. If we pay attention.
Speaker 1: We know that it's true because it's been happening to
Speaker 1: us all of our lives. You know, you're out somewhere,
Speaker 1: you're having you're having a good time. You're on the
Speaker 1: drive home, and this negative voice in your head starts
Speaker 1: replaying the evening and the things that you said and
Speaker 1: how that might have sounded to somebody else, and how
Speaker 1: somebody looked at you. And by the time you get home,
Speaker 1: that good time of the evening is gone and it's
Speaker 1: replaced by So we are constantly being talked into by
Speaker 1: that voice in our head. We're talked into whatever our
Speaker 1: life experiences. And so if we're going to be talked
Speaker 1: into a life experience, let's be talked into a life experience.
Speaker 1: That's true. Yep, I agree. I often have that thought, like,
Speaker 1: if I'm making it all up anyway to some extent, right,
Speaker 1: why not? Why am I? If you know, if that's
Speaker 1: what's happening here, If I'm just constructing this reality or
Speaker 1: these stories, I might as well make it a useful one.
Speaker 1: That's right and happy? Because I bet you would tell
Speaker 1: me that you that you have a great life. Is
Speaker 1: that true? It is? Yes, And that you are grateful
Speaker 1: for your life. Indeed, you have things that you love
Speaker 1: and people that you love. You're excited about what you
Speaker 1: do and what you contribute and how you get to participate. Yes,
Speaker 1: I am. Yeah. And so if you were, if you
Speaker 1: were talking to yourself about that all the time, there
Speaker 1: would be not not a moment when you would slip
Speaker 1: into some focus. So so here's the other one that
Speaker 1: we I think we can all relate to. You know,
Speaker 1: I go to work and I have a day and
Speaker 1: it's full of all kinds of things, and one of
Speaker 1: the things is this really unpleasant interaction I had with
Speaker 1: a coworker. So I come home from work and my
Speaker 1: person says, so, how was your day? And that's the
Speaker 1: story I tell. I don't tell about all the things
Speaker 1: that went well and some things that happened and jokes
Speaker 1: that I heard, and I don't. I don't tell any
Speaker 1: of that. I tell that one negative thing. That's what
Speaker 1: we're getting away from because and in the way that
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, because that's not true, that doesn't
Speaker 1: that is not an accurate depiction of my life. Did
Speaker 1: that happen? It absolutely did, And if I look at
Speaker 1: it from that perspective of what what can I see
Speaker 1: about that? You know, there might have been a moment
Speaker 1: when I could have stepped back and not you know,
Speaker 1: added my little jab to it, or where I could have, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever I saw about that from an awareness standpoint.
Speaker 1: But the point of it is that my whole day
Speaker 1: was actually full of wonderful, life affirming good things that happen,
Speaker 1: and that's what I want to focus on. Yeah, The
Speaker 1: analogy I often use is I travel often enough, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I'll walk into a hotel room, and inevitably,
Speaker 1: in every hotel room I've been in, right, there is
Speaker 1: there's some exceptions to this, but there are lots of
Speaker 1: things that are very pleasant and enjoyable about it. And
Speaker 1: there's usually something about it also that I don't like
Speaker 1: and and those are both true. So this isn't a
Speaker 1: question of truth, right because I think people react, I
Speaker 1: react to this idea of positive thinking when it is
Speaker 1: about telling ourselves things that aren't true or you know,
Speaker 1: so you know, in my case, this isn't about it's truth.
Speaker 1: They're both true. The question is where's the attention going
Speaker 1: to go? Yes, absolutely, that is the salient point. But
Speaker 1: we also I think need to keep in mind that
Speaker 1: it's true for a conditioned perspective. Yes, so that conditioned
Speaker 1: mind comes into the room looking for what's wrong, and
Speaker 1: if we watch it, we know that that's true, right,
Speaker 1: that that's what enters the room. So is it true
Speaker 1: for me from center that? Uh? I would say it's not.
Speaker 1: What's true for me is there's a bed in here,
Speaker 1: beats on it and they look clean, and there's a
Speaker 1: bathroom and there's a that's what's true for me. For
Speaker 1: me also, it has a window that opens um. But
Speaker 1: the difference between mean when the heart gets to respond
Speaker 1: to life and when conditioned mind responds to life. So
Speaker 1: we're really going that's a really important point that you
Speaker 1: just made that we can focus on here, That it's
Speaker 1: letting the heart express it's truth rather than conditioned mind
Speaker 1: to talk about its truth. Yes. I think that is
Speaker 1: very valid and these are the challenges. That's a big
Speaker 1: one for me is letting, you know, letting the heart
Speaker 1: speak over the brain. And it's a habit, isn't it. Yes.
Speaker 1: That's why learning to direct the attention I think is
Speaker 1: really the be all end all of life because we
Speaker 1: have these habits, conditioned habits to go to negativity, and
Speaker 1: we have to actively train ourselves to bring attention to
Speaker 1: the moment, to hear two presents to what is true,
Speaker 1: that connection, that interconnected experience of life, rather than that
Speaker 1: constant story in the head. Yep, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: things you say about that that I think. And we're
Speaker 1: nearing the end of time, here will you and I'll
Speaker 1: have a post show conversation where we're going to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about resistance and depression and so listeners,
Speaker 1: you know, the usual pitch for your Patreon supporter, you
Speaker 1: get to hear the post show conversations. But let's let's
Speaker 1: wrap this part of it up. Sherry and I want
Speaker 1: to talk about a couple of things you say that
Speaker 1: are right on point with this that I thought are
Speaker 1: very valuable. One is talking about getting out of the
Speaker 1: conversation in our head. That it's it's turning the attention
Speaker 1: towards the moment or towards where we are and and
Speaker 1: not in the conversation in our head. And I agree
Speaker 1: with you about training attention is that that is one
Speaker 1: of those things that is at least for me, and
Speaker 1: I'm getting better at it after years of meditation practice, right,
Speaker 1: I'm getting better at it of of getting out of
Speaker 1: that conversation in my head, because what will happen is
Speaker 1: I'll go, okay, here it is again, I'm carrying on
Speaker 1: about this or that, and all right, let me pay
Speaker 1: attention to where I'm at and what I'm doing. And
Speaker 1: then I do that, and then I find myself yea yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I find myself, you know, a minute later,
Speaker 1: kind of back in the conversation and I you know,
Speaker 1: pull myself back out again. It's it's kind of um
Speaker 1: doing it over and over. And then there's another thing
Speaker 1: that you said, and I'll let you kind of respond
Speaker 1: to both these is. And I thought this was a
Speaker 1: great statement. You say, we transcend conditioned mind, we don't
Speaker 1: resist it. Um. At another point you said something about,
Speaker 1: you know, those voices in your head, they're just always
Speaker 1: going to sound like that. That's what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: So the key is to turn attention away from them
Speaker 1: instead of trying to convince them to talk differently. That's right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a process of ignoring, right, because uh, yes,
Speaker 1: that's it. It's they they That is what they do.
Speaker 1: That is what ego does. Ego is a process of
Speaker 1: maintaining that illusion of being separate from life. It's not
Speaker 1: ever going to be anything else. So people will say, well,
Speaker 1: self hate, you know, shouldn't you have compassion for that
Speaker 1: as well? And my resaplants always well, uh, if you
Speaker 1: want to, certainly you can. But my encouragement is ignore it.
Speaker 1: Just ignore it and turn your attention to unconditional love.
Speaker 1: It's way more uplifting, way more fun. And self hate
Speaker 1: is always going to be self hate. Those voices will
Speaker 1: always be those voices. There will always be negativity trying
Speaker 1: to pull out us. It's what you just described in
Speaker 1: meditation practice. The habit to go with the conversation is
Speaker 1: so reinforced, it's been going on forever. Now you're going
Speaker 1: to try to turn your attention to breath. So uh,
Speaker 1: fighting that that karmic pull to condition mind doesn't do
Speaker 1: any good. Once we realize, Okay, I was in the conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm not in the conversation, or I wouldn't know that
Speaker 1: I was in the conversation. I'm here, okay, thank you,
Speaker 1: all right, here, I am thank you. I don't have
Speaker 1: to have any relationship with it at all, just thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Yes, get out of the conversation
Speaker 1: in your head. And I think that is just such
Speaker 1: a sage advice over and over and over, because you know,
Speaker 1: at least from my perspective, it's not an anti thinking thing.
Speaker 1: It's just that about of the thinking I do is
Speaker 1: completely superfluous. It serves no purpose. Now, five percent of
Speaker 1: it is absolutely needed, valuable and critical, and then the
Speaker 1: other is just pretty much nonsense. Well, when we get
Speaker 1: together again, I will try to convince you that that
Speaker 1: five percent is also a necessary Okay, we'll say that
Speaker 1: for a different a different one, alright, fair enough. One
Speaker 1: of the things that goes along with what we were
Speaker 1: just talking about. You know, how do you get into
Speaker 1: the present? Right, that's what what people want to know.
Speaker 1: And this little exercise that will sound so silly, but
Speaker 1: if anybody would do it, it'll change your life. Okay,
Speaker 1: So now I want I want to get out of
Speaker 1: that conversation in my head. I want to get here
Speaker 1: into this moment. And so I look out at that
Speaker 1: tree and I say to the tree, I love you,
Speaker 1: love me, and you're here because you know what the
Speaker 1: answer is always yes. Yeah. Another one that you share
Speaker 1: in the book that I think is a really helpful one,
Speaker 1: and is or that I have found really helpful as
Speaker 1: you talk about looking for and noticing a particular color. Yes,
Speaker 1: I find that such a helpful way for me. I
Speaker 1: can be like, all right, where's all the red in
Speaker 1: my world right now? And boy that it's just sticky
Speaker 1: enough right that that my mind doesn't slip off of
Speaker 1: it quite as quickly. And um, yes, it's a it's
Speaker 1: one that's been really helpful to me. And I saw
Speaker 1: it in your book and certainly thought of it. I'll
Speaker 1: try the tree thing. Yeah, and you can do it
Speaker 1: with anything right, anything around you, because we're now we're
Speaker 1: full circle back to there's nothing that isn't God. So
Speaker 1: if you're looking for the unconditional, well it's everywhere. That's so,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for un conditional love, then look at
Speaker 1: anything that's what it is, and it'll mirror it back
Speaker 1: to you. Excellent. Well, my uh, my engineer and editor
Speaker 1: Chris is not going to be feeling unconditional love how
Speaker 1: long this show has gone on, but I have enjoyed
Speaker 1: it greatly. So um, we're going to wrap up and
Speaker 1: then share you and I'll continue talking. But thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show. Thanks for all
Speaker 1: your your great books, and I'll have links in the
Speaker 1: show notes where people can find out about you, learn
Speaker 1: more about your monastery, and get all your books. You've
Speaker 1: got Living Compassion, not share a Huber. Right. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: will go to say Huber and I think I don't
Speaker 1: know what they find there, but living Compassion, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a difference. Thank you so much, Eric, Thank you,
Speaker 1: it's been a joy. Okay bye. If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation
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