Speaker 1: Everybody knows that happiness doesn't come from things, except the
Speaker 1: people who have the bumper sticker that says the person
Speaker 1: who dies with the most stuff winds. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: 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 m Thanks for joining
Speaker 1: us today. Our guest on this episode is Kevin Griffin,
Speaker 1: Buddhist author, teacher, and innovator in the field of addiction treatment.
Speaker 1: He teaches around the world and is the author of
Speaker 1: two books, One Breath at a Time and A Burning Desire.
Speaker 1: He also recently released a CD of original music called
Speaker 1: laughing Buddha. Hi Kevin, Welcome to the show. Our podcast
Speaker 1: is based on the parable of two wolves. And in
Speaker 1: the Parable of two wolves, there's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson and he says, in life, there is
Speaker 1: a great battle going on inside of us. There are
Speaker 1: two wolves who are always fighting. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents kindness and love and peace and justice, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents greed and
Speaker 1: hate and self pity. And name your name your negative emotion.
Speaker 1: And the grandson thanks for a second, and he says, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So this podcast is really about how people feed that
Speaker 1: good wolf in their own lives. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start the interview off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in both your life and in your work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful, wonderful parable and um and quite relevant
Speaker 1: to Buddhist and recovery principles. A certainly, addicts are pretty
Speaker 1: much all about feeding the bad wolf, the destructive wolf
Speaker 1: and um and from the you know, the Buddhist teachings
Speaker 1: are so much about karma, about what actions we take,
Speaker 1: and that that things happen as a result of actions.
Speaker 1: That that's not you know, as in the story that
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the grandson was thinking that there was
Speaker 1: some magic going on or some intervention from some you know,
Speaker 1: spirits to to sort of control the outcome of that battle,
Speaker 1: and what the what the grandfather is saying is that, no,
Speaker 1: it's really your own actions, your your thoughts, words, and
Speaker 1: deeds that cultivate whatever qualities, um, you know are going
Speaker 1: to become dominant in you, in you and your character
Speaker 1: in your life. And so that that's exactly what the
Speaker 1: Buddha taught and um, you know, there's a famous teaching
Speaker 1: where he says something like, whatever we think and ponder
Speaker 1: upon repeatedly, that will become the inclination of our mind.
Speaker 1: So in the same way, whatever whatever, if we focus
Speaker 1: on negative, hateful or selfish thoughts, we will become selfish
Speaker 1: and hateful people. If we focus on generous and loving thoughts,
Speaker 1: we will become generous and loving people. So, yeah, the
Speaker 1: same teaching. One of the things in your in your
Speaker 1: most recent book that you were sort of discussing was
Speaker 1: very much that sort of same idea. I think you
Speaker 1: said something about, you know, when our mind is filled
Speaker 1: with thoughts of anger, we feel terrible. When we are
Speaker 1: filled with thoughts of love. We feel wonderful. When we
Speaker 1: let our minds go off into dreams and fantasies, we
Speaker 1: feel empty lacking. When we focus on what we're doing
Speaker 1: right now, we feel connected and complete. So I think
Speaker 1: you know that does align very much. My question to
Speaker 1: you would be what are some of the ways that
Speaker 1: you you go about doing this, because the other thing
Speaker 1: that you talk about in the book that really resonated
Speaker 1: with me was the the idea of that as you
Speaker 1: think these thoughts over and over, they create a pathway
Speaker 1: in the mind, and the longer that goes on, that
Speaker 1: gets pretty easy to fall into. And so for most
Speaker 1: of us who would be interested in the show like this,
Speaker 1: it's obviously because we have some challenge in keeping the
Speaker 1: good wolf fed and maybe have a history in in
Speaker 1: feeding the bad wolf. So I'd be interested in how
Speaker 1: you go about sort of undoing that that you know,
Speaker 1: groove in the record or or karma as they would say.
Speaker 1: The starting point of meditation is to sort of try
Speaker 1: to ground yourself in your present moment experience, which we
Speaker 1: use the breath, which means connecting with the body, because
Speaker 1: that allows us to kind of detach a little bit
Speaker 1: from the mental process and and be in a place
Speaker 1: of something real, which is our physical experience. It's not
Speaker 1: not something we're making up and then starting to uh
Speaker 1: observe thoughts that arise and to kind of question them
Speaker 1: or or look at them, um, you know what, see
Speaker 1: what they are saying, whether there's they're credible or whether
Speaker 1: they are destructive with uh, whether there's wisdom there. And
Speaker 1: this is a I mean to to develop this capacity
Speaker 1: takes time. It's a practice. We don't just sit down
Speaker 1: and close our eyes and all of a sudden start
Speaker 1: to have insights. But we have to kind of develop
Speaker 1: this quality of observing, which is it's a capacity we
Speaker 1: all have, but it's kind of underdeveloped in most of
Speaker 1: us because most of the time what we're doing is
Speaker 1: just following our habitual patterns uh and are conditioned ways
Speaker 1: of being the ways we've always been, in the ways
Speaker 1: we've been taught to be and learned how to be,
Speaker 1: and all of that has to be kind of deconstructed.
Speaker 1: So in a way, the meditation practice is a deconstructing
Speaker 1: of reality to try to see what is rather than
Speaker 1: what we believe is there's also practices that are specifically
Speaker 1: geared towards kind of cultivating positive mind states. So the
Speaker 1: loving Kindness meditation is very much focused on that and
Speaker 1: kind of kind of seeing the negative tendencies and trying
Speaker 1: to really let go of them and intentionally bring the
Speaker 1: mind back to a more compassionate, uh kind thoughts. The
Speaker 1: Buddha also taught a lot about just um behavior, So
Speaker 1: the five precepts not to kill, not to steal, not
Speaker 1: to harm with our sexuality, not to harm with speech,
Speaker 1: not to use in toxics. Just following the precepts can
Speaker 1: have a very transformative effect on our lives. UM. So
Speaker 1: that's more in line with the recovery approach, which is
Speaker 1: kind of I'm going to stop doing the things I'm
Speaker 1: doing because the things I do, the actions I take,
Speaker 1: actually then affect my mind, so they're there in a
Speaker 1: certain way. The Buddhist approach and the recovery approach are
Speaker 1: coming from different directions but kind of arriving at the
Speaker 1: same place. Um, the recovery is more of a behavioral approach.
Speaker 1: Buddhism is more of a cognitive approach. I would agree
Speaker 1: that that that idea, you know, in in in recovery,
Speaker 1: you hear the idea that you, um, you can't think
Speaker 1: your way into right acting, you have to act your
Speaker 1: way into right thinking. And then you know, as you said,
Speaker 1: the Buddhist approaches is a little bit different. Um, I
Speaker 1: would be curious about. So the mindfulness piece is really
Speaker 1: about sort of just becoming aware of what's going on
Speaker 1: your head and and sort of seeing what's what's happening
Speaker 1: sort of day to day, moment to moment. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm walking, uh, you know, from one appointment to
Speaker 1: the next one, and I find myself in a you know,
Speaker 1: a negative spot or or you know, what sort of
Speaker 1: thing do you recommend in you know, I like to
Speaker 1: look for things that are bite sized that I can do, uh,
Speaker 1: just kind of as the day goes on and and
Speaker 1: I can do in real quick increments. Do you have
Speaker 1: any any thoughts on how to apply some of those
Speaker 1: Buddhists and recovery principles in you know, and again in
Speaker 1: bite sized pieces. What's somewhat under emphasized in meditation teaching,
Speaker 1: but really is that the heart of meditation is connecting
Speaker 1: with the body and connecting with emotions through the body.
Speaker 1: So feeling what's going on. Sometimes just observing thoughts doesn't
Speaker 1: really tell us that much, and it doesn't It can
Speaker 1: be very difficult to detach from a thought because they're
Speaker 1: the beliefs are so sort of uh, deeply programmed, and
Speaker 1: we've sort of got a logic that convinces us that
Speaker 1: they're true. Um, but if we can so, I've find
Speaker 1: that just connecting with the physical experience of a mood,
Speaker 1: for instance, allows me to release that in a way
Speaker 1: that sometimes just seeing a thought doesn't. So what I
Speaker 1: do is I breathe a little more deeply. I kind
Speaker 1: of softened my belly and kind of let out the
Speaker 1: breath in a slow, kind of almost like a side ah.
Speaker 1: And in that releasing a lot of times I find
Speaker 1: that I can actually release mood or emotion or soften
Speaker 1: it anyway, give it more space by just kind of
Speaker 1: softening the body around it. There was something else you
Speaker 1: said in your most recent book that sort of really
Speaker 1: applies to what we were just talking about, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was a very interesting, interesting piece. You know,
Speaker 1: you said the Buddha applied to penetrating intellect of the
Speaker 1: problem Andy apply to penetrating practice, And I think that's
Speaker 1: very interesting because it's it's kind of both, right, It's
Speaker 1: a it's I mean, I've spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: in my life reading books about meditating, which is not really,
Speaker 1: by any shot, the same thing as actually doing it.
Speaker 1: And yet there is also an element of, you know,
Speaker 1: retraining how we think. And so I thought that was
Speaker 1: a really succinct way to sort of sum up that.
Speaker 1: It's it's sort of a combined approach. You can't have
Speaker 1: just one or the other. I think that sometimes meditation
Speaker 1: is portrayed as this, oh, just empty your mind, and
Speaker 1: first of all, that's very difficult to do, and most
Speaker 1: people you can only do it for brief periods. But
Speaker 1: it also sort of misses the point. Um. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: yeah that you know quote you're referring to was in
Speaker 1: the context of saying, you know, the Buddha wasn't just
Speaker 1: walking around with an empty mind. He was a brilliant thinker,
Speaker 1: and and so bringing I don't think spirituality should be
Speaker 1: anti intellectual. Um, but as you say, there needs to
Speaker 1: be a balance. If all we're doing is thinking about it,
Speaker 1: we're not really getting insight in the Buddhist sense. Is
Speaker 1: not actually intellectual in some ways, it's more physical, but
Speaker 1: fundamentally it's um experiential. So we experience, for instance, the
Speaker 1: truth of impermanence, or we experience the truth of suffering,
Speaker 1: or we experienced the emptiness of self, and in that
Speaker 1: experience there's a knowing, and that's what we call insight.
Speaker 1: I practiced early in my practice, I sort of had
Speaker 1: this idea that at some point some great, brilliant thought
Speaker 1: was going to come to me because I was doing
Speaker 1: insight meditation. But it's another one of those kind of
Speaker 1: problems of translation that that in Western language when we
Speaker 1: say insight, were talked about thought, but in Buddhist teachings
Speaker 1: that we're talking about an experience and an understood experience. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that that kind of blend of intellect and
Speaker 1: experience and practice is really what I think makes for
Speaker 1: a mature practice. One of the things that you know,
Speaker 1: you hear in you hear in recovery programs is about
Speaker 1: having you know that that the key to recovery is
Speaker 1: to have a spiritual practice or two to be spiritual.
Speaker 1: And certainly for a lot of people that's pretty straightforward,
Speaker 1: but you're certainly writing or an audience that is most
Speaker 1: likely struggling with with that concept of what, well, what
Speaker 1: does spirituality mean if I don't believe in a in
Speaker 1: a intervention this God, what does that mean? And one
Speaker 1: of the things you said was that, um, the first
Speaker 1: aspect of spirituality is the understanding that happiness doesn't come
Speaker 1: primarily through the material world, which is a very very
Speaker 1: practical way of sort of defining what that is. Do
Speaker 1: you do you want to expand upon that a little bit, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean to start with I, I, you know, talk
Speaker 1: about that. I start I sort of define those that
Speaker 1: idea because because I do think that the idea of spirituality,
Speaker 1: people make it into too mysterious and exotic, uh an idea,
Speaker 1: and you know, people are like, I'm spiritual and or
Speaker 1: I'm not spiritual and that. You know, it's just one
Speaker 1: of those again sort of language gets in the in
Speaker 1: the ay, everybody knows that happiness doesn't come from things
Speaker 1: except the people who have the bumper sticker that says,
Speaker 1: the person who dies with the most stuff winds. But
Speaker 1: everybody else knows this. I mean, this is I really
Speaker 1: don't think that's a surprise for most people. It's not
Speaker 1: that we don't know that. But the problem isn't what
Speaker 1: people believe, but rather how we actually live. Many people
Speaker 1: have good values and good beliefs that they're not able
Speaker 1: to live by. Desire is a survival mechanism. If humans
Speaker 1: didn't have desire, they wouldn't reproduce and they wouldn't survive. Right,
Speaker 1: so survivals desire is not a bad thing in and
Speaker 1: of itself. The desire for stuff isn't a bad thing.
Speaker 1: The desire for stuff comes out of the fundamental desire
Speaker 1: that I need to have food, clothing, housing. Those are
Speaker 1: just natural human cravings for comfort that allowed me to survive.
Speaker 1: But evolution and survival are just powerful forces that don't
Speaker 1: actually have any restraint on them. Civilization and spirituality are
Speaker 1: the things that we bring to those instincts to restrain
Speaker 1: them so that they don't you take over. Um, I
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think if we went out and
Speaker 1: pulled people, they would all say, yes. You know, happiness
Speaker 1: is an inside job, right. It's kind of a it's
Speaker 1: sort of a cliche. But if you look at us,
Speaker 1: by and large, might throw me into the boat too.
Speaker 1: It's not. The default mechanism of most of us in
Speaker 1: our culture is not the way we live, and that's
Speaker 1: one of the things with this podcast. That I'm interested
Speaker 1: in is is how do we sort of remember or
Speaker 1: become mindful, as you would say over and over again,
Speaker 1: of of what our intentions are. You know, the root
Speaker 1: of the word that's translated as mindful is remember birth.
Speaker 1: So sati is the word we translate as mindful s
Speaker 1: A t I. This is in the Poli language, the
Speaker 1: language of the earliest Buddhist scriptures, and the root of
Speaker 1: that word is in memory and remembering. So I absolutely
Speaker 1: agree with you and see the challenges being that very thing,
Speaker 1: which is to remember. It's the starting point is to
Speaker 1: remember to be present, you know, from a loftier idea
Speaker 1: is to remember who we are, but to remember your intention.
Speaker 1: I'd like to just touch on a couple more things,
Speaker 1: and then I think we can we can wrap up
Speaker 1: one of the ones. And this is again sort of
Speaker 1: getting back to creating our own reality and using thoughts
Speaker 1: that are beneficial or skillful towards us. In your in
Speaker 1: your book, you tell a story about you were a
Speaker 1: guitar player when you were younger. You're still a guitar player,
Speaker 1: but when you were younger, you were a guitar player.
Speaker 1: You learned to play some chords, and then you saw
Speaker 1: somebody play lead guitar and you somehow in your mind
Speaker 1: thought that you would be unable to learn to play
Speaker 1: guitar like that, like it was, it was, it was,
Speaker 1: it was a state, and you didn't even try because
Speaker 1: your mentality was that you were not a lead guitar player.
Speaker 1: So I'd like you to maybe spend a minute and
Speaker 1: explain a little bit more about that. Yeah, obviously it's
Speaker 1: not really about playing the guitar. It's about beliefs and
Speaker 1: limiting beliefs, and and you know that there's this whole
Speaker 1: sort of idea, and it's sort of a new Age
Speaker 1: idea that we create our own reality and that can
Speaker 1: turn into magical thinking, right, and that if I just
Speaker 1: think about it enough, it will happen. You know, I'll
Speaker 1: just win the lottery because I think about it. And
Speaker 1: I don't really go to that school of thought. But
Speaker 1: it's the idea that we create our own reality is
Speaker 1: coming out of I think some spirits as I would
Speaker 1: call this spiritual principle, but it's not even that spiritual
Speaker 1: in a way, which is just that if we believe something,
Speaker 1: then we act on that belief. If I believe i'm
Speaker 1: not capable of something, then I don't try to do it,
Speaker 1: and in that way, I create my reality because I'll
Speaker 1: never learn if I don't try. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of one of those things your grandmother probably
Speaker 1: tells you. You You know, hey, you're never gonna get any
Speaker 1: if you don't try. But but yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that I think, again, we need
Speaker 1: to and I need to investigate in myself to see
Speaker 1: what my beliefs are. You know, our beliefs are don't
Speaker 1: come with signs and you know, lights around them. We
Speaker 1: live out our beliefs and unconsciously a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: So we have to really investigate ourselves to see what
Speaker 1: what is that we're believing and then question that and
Speaker 1: is that a helpful belief or not? You know, And
Speaker 1: it can go the other way too, you know that. Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean I also had this kind of delusional belief
Speaker 1: that I was going to be a rock star, but
Speaker 1: I didn't really do anything to make it happen, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's not enough to have a belief. We need
Speaker 1: belief in action, right, which gets back to that earlier
Speaker 1: discussion sort of about you know, insight and practice, and
Speaker 1: you had to. You had a quote that made me
Speaker 1: laugh where you said, you know, to think that sitting
Speaker 1: on a pillow will make you a rock star, get
Speaker 1: you lots of money, solve your drug and alcohol problem,
Speaker 1: and cure you of depression is to be very confused
Speaker 1: about cause and effect. And I think that you when
Speaker 1: you're talking about the guitar is sort of you were
Speaker 1: saying that that's the lack of a lack of a
Speaker 1: belief in really in cause and effect, because cause and
Speaker 1: effect would say if I work at this, I will
Speaker 1: get better at it. That's a fairly you know, it's
Speaker 1: sort of a fairly straightforward rule that that is true.
Speaker 1: And and to sort of say, well, I could never
Speaker 1: do that is simply a sort of denying that that
Speaker 1: basic piece. And it think a lot of it just
Speaker 1: simply has to do like you said earlier about putting
Speaker 1: in the effort. It's a lot of magical thinking is
Speaker 1: a whole lot easier than um, than than true practice
Speaker 1: and discipline. People have the same problem around meditation, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I tried meditating, but my mind kept wondering I can't
Speaker 1: do it, and you know, I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it actually takes a lot of work to become. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll just use the term a good meditator, although I
Speaker 1: don't particularly care for that term, but you know, to
Speaker 1: become a successful meditator and to play lead guitar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take a few years of practicing hard. We're
Speaker 1: not very patient, you know. We want it now. That's
Speaker 1: why we get loaded, because you know, I can have
Speaker 1: the same experience that I have on marijuana by meditating,
Speaker 1: but it takes a lot more work, you know, Um,
Speaker 1: And and addicts are impatient and we want it now,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, we really don't want to put
Speaker 1: in the work. Plus probably a lot of addicts do
Speaker 1: have sort of self esteem issues and don't really think
Speaker 1: they can do it whatever it is anyway, So you
Speaker 1: might as well just get loaded and imagine it. You
Speaker 1: know it'll be just as good. Well, UM, Kevin, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. UM. I really enjoyed talking with you
Speaker 1: and you know, learning about about sort of how you
Speaker 1: approach different things. Is there any last things you'd like
Speaker 1: to leave us with? Um, mostly you know, self promotion. Uh.
Speaker 1: If people are interested in my books or my music
Speaker 1: or my teaching, my website is Kevin Griffin dot net
Speaker 1: and uh, there's links to all of that stuff there.
Speaker 1: I have my schedule, you know, I teach pretty much
Speaker 1: year round. People are interested, they should check those things out.
Speaker 1: And uh, thank you, thank you very much, really nice
Speaker 1: to talk with you, all right, take care of thanks,
Speaker 1: all right, you guys. Bye. You can find out more
Speaker 1: about Kevin Griffin and this podcast in our show notes
Speaker 1: at one you feed dot net slash Kevin