Speaker 1: Maybe it's just my heart that believes in it, not
Speaker 1: my mind, but my heart. I know that being kind
Speaker 1: and being just and compassionate is freedom. I just know it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: 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 Spring Washam,
Speaker 1: who was also our guest on episode one Way Back
Speaker 1: in the Day. Spring is a well known meditation and
Speaker 1: dharma teacher based in Oakland, California, and she's the founding
Speaker 1: member and core teacher at the East Bay Meditation Center.
Speaker 1: She is the founder of lotus, fine journeys, and organization
Speaker 1: that blends indigenous healing practices with Buddhist wisdom. On this episode,
Speaker 1: Eric and Spring discuss many things and cover a lot
Speaker 1: of ground, including her book, A Fierce Heart, Finding Strength,
Speaker 1: Courage and Wisdom in Any Moment. Hi Spring, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hi Eric, It's so great to talk with
Speaker 1: you again here. Yeah, it's such a pleasure to have
Speaker 1: you back on again. And your latest book, which is
Speaker 1: called A Fierce Heart, Finding Strength, Courage and Wisdom in
Speaker 1: Any Moment, is wonderful and Goodness knows we can use
Speaker 1: some strength, courage and wisdom collectively right now. So we'll
Speaker 1: jump into all that in a minute. But let's start
Speaker 1: like we always do, with a parable. There's a grandmother
Speaker 1: who's talking with her grandson and she says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second. He looks up at his grandmother.
Speaker 1: He says, grandmother, which one wins, and the grandmother says
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that parable. I've used it in talks and
Speaker 1: it's just so relevant, I think from my life right now.
Speaker 1: It really is, especially during these times. Is every day,
Speaker 1: what are you using to focus on? You know, there's
Speaker 1: so much fear and anxiety around us, and you know,
Speaker 1: but yet we can focus on our practices, we can
Speaker 1: focus on helping people, we can focus on positive energy.
Speaker 1: It's really a choice. You know, Heaven and hell's right
Speaker 1: there and it's just a mind state away for most
Speaker 1: of us. So choosing to practice and to follow a
Speaker 1: path that leads to happiness. So that's really what the
Speaker 1: parable is about. Who wants to be a bad wolf?
Speaker 1: In a way? It's kind of suffering in that path actually,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, I want to jump right in kind
Speaker 1: of with a little bit of what's happening in the
Speaker 1: world right now. And I'm always really interested in I'm
Speaker 1: just framing this up for kind of the overarching ideas.
Speaker 1: I'm always really interested in the role and the balance
Speaker 1: between action and contemplation, you know, between our our internal
Speaker 1: practice and our outer work in the world. Right, And
Speaker 1: you give a really compelling story near the end of
Speaker 1: your book where you talk about very shortly after Trump
Speaker 1: was elected at your sanga in Oakland, which is primarily
Speaker 1: a sanga that has a lot of people of color,
Speaker 1: a lot of people who probably felt very disenfranchised by
Speaker 1: the results of that election, and that you've got two
Speaker 1: d people in the room and you guys are working
Speaker 1: on your practice, and outside, you know, people are starting
Speaker 1: to riot and protest. And I thought that was a
Speaker 1: really powerful encapsulation of these two energies in us, the
Speaker 1: energy to practice to do our internal work as well
Speaker 1: as the external work that happens out in the world.
Speaker 1: And so I just kind of would like to start
Speaker 1: there with you and how you balance and think about
Speaker 1: those two aspects of life. Yeah, I mean that's really
Speaker 1: a very powerful question, and I think in spiritual communities
Speaker 1: people don't know how to balance that all the time.
Speaker 1: Right there, They maybe take a stance of, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm being a quantum is so I'll just stay here
Speaker 1: and meditate and um, you know, I sort of ignore
Speaker 1: the relative reality. I'll go to the cosmic reality, ultimate reality,
Speaker 1: which is true. Right, we have these two truths that
Speaker 1: we have to navigate, which is this conventional karmic level,
Speaker 1: and then we do have we are made of stars,
Speaker 1: we are just energy, so we really have to balance
Speaker 1: that and I think that that's really key. And in
Speaker 1: the British tradition they talk about these two great truths
Speaker 1: and you have to live in that paradigm of this earth,
Speaker 1: experience this relative level social security, numbers, police brutality. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't escape that if you live too much and
Speaker 1: ultimate reality, you tend to be like, well, you know
Speaker 1: everything's changing, why try to do anything? You know, who
Speaker 1: cares about the polar bears? You know, everything is everything,
Speaker 1: and you get actually you lose a certain amount of compassion.
Speaker 1: It's not really integrated. And then if you're too much
Speaker 1: in the relative karmic level reality, um, you can get
Speaker 1: be too bitter and attached and you forget that where
Speaker 1: the space too. You know that this is just a
Speaker 1: moment in time, and we get too attached and to
Speaker 1: fixated on that being the only truth. So in some
Speaker 1: ways I try to have my foot in both worlds
Speaker 1: here and often my motivation to go out into the
Speaker 1: world and do things. Is often motivated by compassion, this
Speaker 1: desire that I have to alleviate suffering. And when it's
Speaker 1: internal and myself and when it's in the community or
Speaker 1: something's happening, you know, so I have to say I'm
Speaker 1: not doing anything. It's compassion that wakes up every day
Speaker 1: in moves. It's an energy that it tends to itself.
Speaker 1: It's like if you're sitting there and somebody fell down
Speaker 1: in front of you, your immediate response w might be
Speaker 1: to go grab them, right, like like a child or something.
Speaker 1: You don't have to think about that, right, It's just
Speaker 1: it's an energetic response to something that's about to happen.
Speaker 1: And so for me, that's really how I experience the
Speaker 1: work that I do in the world. It's like I
Speaker 1: just wake up and the movement is there. It's going
Speaker 1: in that direction, you know, to help others or to
Speaker 1: provide support. I care about the suffering around and I
Speaker 1: want to try to alleviate it, even though it's enormous
Speaker 1: right now. It's like, oh, I'll just get my little
Speaker 1: scoop and start digging in, you know, and I just
Speaker 1: it's just how I am. It's just how I'm made.
Speaker 1: I don't even question it anymore. You do a really
Speaker 1: great job in the book, and I think it's important
Speaker 1: to frame up, like as a person of color. I
Speaker 1: think you do a really good job of framing up
Speaker 1: these challenges of racism, sexism, homophobia, all these things that
Speaker 1: are out there. You've got a couple of lines here.
Speaker 1: You said, we can do our to this work by
Speaker 1: calling on the forces of truth and love. That is
Speaker 1: what we are for. And you really talk about in
Speaker 1: that sense about being for something instead of against everything.
Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about that, you know. I founded
Speaker 1: the East Bay Meditation Center, co founded it with some
Speaker 1: friends almost fourteen years ago, and now we're in downtown Oakland.
Speaker 1: That center filled up with the activist movement, right so
Speaker 1: we had people of all, you know, feisty and a
Speaker 1: social justice you know place. Oakland has always been a
Speaker 1: sort of a catalyst for social change, social movement historically,
Speaker 1: you know, over the last decades. And so I had
Speaker 1: many years working with communities of color and activist communities,
Speaker 1: and I saw the high levels of burnout and being
Speaker 1: so rooted in the Buddhist tradition. I realized that unless
Speaker 1: you you know, you saved the world. Are you say
Speaker 1: you're an environmentalist. You help the world because you love it.
Speaker 1: You want to say the trees, love the trees. You're
Speaker 1: moving from that place, not against what's happening. It's it's
Speaker 1: like a different frame of mind how we approach our work.
Speaker 1: Because if we do it in a dualistic way, if
Speaker 1: I believe everyone's my enemy, and I move with this
Speaker 1: aggression out on the streets or online or in the
Speaker 1: world for a just cause, I'm part of the problem
Speaker 1: of it in an unconscious way, and myself suffer. And
Speaker 1: I saw the level of sadness and burnout. Many people
Speaker 1: came to retreats or to meet with me or classes,
Speaker 1: and they were just at the brink, you know, of
Speaker 1: breaking down. And then that does no one good, you know,
Speaker 1: so challenging in that way. Yeah, you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about forgiveness. I'll just read a short section here, he said,
Speaker 1: as an African American woman, practicing forgiveness keeps me from
Speaker 1: being consumed by anger. People die from hatred. I beg
Speaker 1: you not to become one of them. Forgiving every everyone,
Speaker 1: for everything is my only practice these days. The heart
Speaker 1: wants to be free, and the only way is by
Speaker 1: letting go of the resentments we carry from the past,
Speaker 1: and so that's a beautiful sentiment. How does forgiveness also
Speaker 1: blend with still fighting for change? Well, again, I really
Speaker 1: have to rely on so many years of studying Buddhist psychology,
Speaker 1: Buddhist philosophy, following his holiness at Dalai Lama and many
Speaker 1: Buddhist teachers Tick not Han that we're also great spiritual practitioners,
Speaker 1: but great activist. You know, his holiness leading the people
Speaker 1: out of Tibet a genocide, right or I can look
Speaker 1: at Nelson Mandela in South Africa, or Tick not Han
Speaker 1: being kicked out of this country over you know, the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War and the communism and the suffering of the
Speaker 1: government inflicting on people, innocent people, various types of human
Speaker 1: rights abuses. And so for me, I really model myself
Speaker 1: after those rate elders. The fight really within the Buddhist
Speaker 1: tradition is against greed, hatred, and delusion. We are uprooting
Speaker 1: that in all of its forms, and that's what we
Speaker 1: have right now, an epidetic of greeds. You know, hatred
Speaker 1: is kind of like whoa, it's unleashed. Here we are
Speaker 1: back in the Civil war times, we've gone totally back
Speaker 1: in time. I mean, we're debating Confederate flags soldiers, you know,
Speaker 1: we're back in it. And and then just delusion. And
Speaker 1: I mean, look at how much delusions out there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just conspiracy stories, you know. So those are the
Speaker 1: things that as a dharma practitioner, as someone who's looking
Speaker 1: to heal my heart and mind, I'm trying to uproot
Speaker 1: those out of the mindstream so I can see the
Speaker 1: truth of the reality, how it is right. And I
Speaker 1: also could say that in my many years of practice,
Speaker 1: I've had many spiritual experiences um on the Buddhist tradition
Speaker 1: in South America, studying with Shamans, that I have had
Speaker 1: a very profound experience of interconnectedness that when so deep
Speaker 1: that I saw myself as you know, we're selves in
Speaker 1: the mind of a great being. Where do you call
Speaker 1: it energy or the the field or quantum theory? Right,
Speaker 1: and so we come from a single source. So I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that people appreciate about me
Speaker 1: that's a little bit different voice is that when I'm
Speaker 1: talking to people, I feel the interconnectedness, even if we're
Speaker 1: coming from very different perspectives, even if one of my
Speaker 1: brothers wants to hurt me in some way because they
Speaker 1: don't recognize me as connected to them. Right, It's somewhat
Speaker 1: easier for me to have a dialogue or hold the
Speaker 1: complexity of it because I see it whereas mind states
Speaker 1: it's not so much an individual. It's a movement of greed,
Speaker 1: a movement of hatred, a movement of delusion. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, people are just responding to their minds. So
Speaker 1: I guess in some ways those experiences have fundamentally changed
Speaker 1: how I have these conversations. And I think it helps
Speaker 1: because I take things far less personally. Even though it's painful,
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it's not painful. It just means that I
Speaker 1: don't have that attack back like I might have when
Speaker 1: I was a lot younger. Yeah, I love that and
Speaker 1: that idea of greed, hatred and delusion. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty serious Zen practitioner, and we do the Great Vows
Speaker 1: for all and and the second one. You know, various translations,
Speaker 1: but greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly. You know, they're
Speaker 1: going to goes on to say and I vowed to
Speaker 1: abandon them, but I love that idea that they rise
Speaker 1: endlessly because it just gives me like, yep, that's what
Speaker 1: happens in me and in others. Greed, hatred, It just
Speaker 1: it just keeps coming, you know, and we can transform
Speaker 1: it in ourselves to a certain degree, but it's just there.
Speaker 1: And I just I always find that a helpful, helpful reflection.
Speaker 1: And I think you've done a nice job of articulating
Speaker 1: just now and in the book that piece that I'm
Speaker 1: always trying to hold both in mind, which is the
Speaker 1: absolute view that says, hey, things are perfect, and perfect
Speaker 1: doesn't mean all good. It just sort of means, at
Speaker 1: least in the way it's often used, they're complete, they
Speaker 1: are as they are, you know, but there's a deep
Speaker 1: underlining reality that is okay, And we have this really
Speaker 1: screwed up reality that a lot of us existing and
Speaker 1: holding both those things I find such an interesting practice.
Speaker 1: But it's the people that can hold both that attract me,
Speaker 1: you know. It's the people that can hold both that
Speaker 1: I look at and I go that that's the wisdom
Speaker 1: I want, because if I just have one, I think,
Speaker 1: like you said, if you only have the absolute, people
Speaker 1: do they get very callous to me, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: you just seem to not care like, well, yeah, of
Speaker 1: course that awful thing is happening to that person, but
Speaker 1: that's just you know, that's just God and God in
Speaker 1: costume playing out the drama. I'm like, well, maybe yes,
Speaker 1: but also still hurt, you know. And then people on
Speaker 1: the other hand go to the other extreme and only
Speaker 1: see the problems. I feel like, well, there's a big
Speaker 1: part of wisdom they're missing. So I think you do
Speaker 1: a think you do a really nice job of integrating
Speaker 1: and talking about both those things that I find really inspiring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, being compassionate and being understanding doesn't be
Speaker 1: less active. It means actually you're more effective in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways because people can hear you. This has
Speaker 1: to be a revolution of the heart right now. And
Speaker 1: I keep reminding all these people involved in the civil rights,
Speaker 1: this new evolution of civil rights, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of attacking of even teachers, and it's like, you, guys,
Speaker 1: this is a heart felt revolution. We cannot beat someone
Speaker 1: into being anti racist, you know, it does It's never
Speaker 1: It has to be a deep shift in the heart.
Speaker 1: And so I think hopefully we'll will move into that
Speaker 1: sort of second level of this experience that we're all
Speaker 1: have been collectively as we grow, you know, I hope
Speaker 1: so too. I see the same sorts of things, and
Speaker 1: I just think hatred and despair and anger they're just
Speaker 1: not energies that lead to healing of any sort. And
Speaker 1: they they and ultimately, you know, they consume us, you know,
Speaker 1: they destroy us. And so I do think, you know,
Speaker 1: very very similar to you. I think it's we've got
Speaker 1: to find our way to come from a strong, centered,
Speaker 1: heartful place, you know what matters to us. You know,
Speaker 1: like you said, what are we fighting for? Not always
Speaker 1: what are we fighting against? Yes, and that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that means you could stand fully out a protest line,
Speaker 1: but your experience is different, right. I like to some
Speaker 1: of the footage I saw yesterday. It was of Oregon,
Speaker 1: a group of mothers out there. They were very calm, right,
Speaker 1: They're like, well, the moms are here, you know, and
Speaker 1: they're they you know, and they weren't, you know, hitting
Speaker 1: things or yelling, but they were just present. You know.
Speaker 1: That kind of movement is what will stop things. And
Speaker 1: I understand all the emotion. I do understand all the emotion.
Speaker 1: It hurts to see what's happening, It really really does.
Speaker 1: We want a just world. In our hearts want justice
Speaker 1: and we want everyone to have a sense of equality
Speaker 1: and safety and living lives of prosperity and freedom. And
Speaker 1: so it does hurt to see what's happening, so we
Speaker 1: hold that as well. You know, you were mentioning some
Speaker 1: of the elders that that you have learned from, But
Speaker 1: there's an elder who is a great inspiration to you
Speaker 1: right now that I thought we could spend a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes on who is Harriet Tubman. Yes, you know,
Speaker 1: I have this magic going on right now with Harriet Tubman.
Speaker 1: I started a couple of months ago, maybe just two
Speaker 1: months ago, where it was right before George Floyd was killed.
Speaker 1: It was like maybe two days before that, and my
Speaker 1: sister and I had this really weird experience so similar
Speaker 1: to a lot of people were out walking in a
Speaker 1: neighborhood here in California and West Merin and a woman
Speaker 1: where I just hiking walking down a road and she
Speaker 1: really started harassing us, telling us there has been breakings
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. And here my sister are like laughing
Speaker 1: walking and was like, whoa we were Actually, I can't
Speaker 1: believe this racism, you know, we were just so, I mean,
Speaker 1: we knew it, but it was like and I right
Speaker 1: after that, I had this dream where a soul powerful
Speaker 1: I was running down a dark road. And you know
Speaker 1: how we always have in dream analysis, there's always like
Speaker 1: we're being chased, 're falling, very classic, right, So I'm
Speaker 1: being chased and um, I'm running down a road and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm holding onto the back of Harriet Tubman's jacket
Speaker 1: and I could tell we're being chased, right, is that
Speaker 1: sense of Harriet get me out of here. I remember
Speaker 1: saying that and holding onto the back of her jacket
Speaker 1: and she's leading me down this road and it's all dark,
Speaker 1: I can't see anything. We're at night, and I'm just
Speaker 1: trusting her with every ounce of my being, like she
Speaker 1: was navigating, and she says, I'm gonna get you out
Speaker 1: of here. And then I had a series of feeling
Speaker 1: her spirit constantly around me like I would I would
Speaker 1: see images in my mind. I was constantly thinking about her,
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, I feel like Harriet Tubman
Speaker 1: Is spirit is with me. And so you know, for
Speaker 1: me being also a shamanic practitioner, that's not that bar fetch.
Speaker 1: But so I was talking to a friend and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I feel so inspired by Harriet Tubman and
Speaker 1: the Underground Railroad. I'm gonna do a five week class
Speaker 1: called the Dharma of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Right,
Speaker 1: and we Buddhism, you know, Saidharta Gtanama leading to freedom,
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman leading people out of you know, down the
Speaker 1: underground railroad. And I just started studying and the class
Speaker 1: was such a big deal. Hundreds of people were on
Speaker 1: the zoom, people were forwarding it, loving it. And then
Speaker 1: so I decided to continue. So I have a Sunday
Speaker 1: class and I named it the Church of Harriet Tubman
Speaker 1: bringing together Dharma and social justice, right. And I talk
Speaker 1: about Harriet Tubman in a way that is uplifting because
Speaker 1: what I feel is that people that Harriet we can embody.
Speaker 1: But the spirit of being conductors. Isn't that what we
Speaker 1: have to be right now? Either you're a conductor in
Speaker 1: your living room with your family, or maybe you're leading
Speaker 1: a class, but how do we become conductors? So it
Speaker 1: was a very uplifting way to to share information about
Speaker 1: how to stand up with dharma, with embodying the quality
Speaker 1: of courage you want to talk about a fierce heart.
Speaker 1: My god, I cannot believe the stories about Harriet's life
Speaker 1: are I mean, I would have thought they were made up.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really don't. I can't imagine a more
Speaker 1: powerful body slide. But actually so I've been very inspired
Speaker 1: by Harriet, and I get letters from people telling me
Speaker 1: their kids are dreaming about Harriet and there and there's
Speaker 1: a whole wave of her energy. You know, she was
Speaker 1: supposed to be on the twenty dollar bill. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, yeah, maybe we'll get our twenty dollar bill,
Speaker 1: which seems weird and cool at the same time. When
Speaker 1: you look at the actual bill you can google it
Speaker 1: and you can see the mock up. It's like, wow,
Speaker 1: that is a mine vendor right to love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'm encouraging people to connect to their ancestors and
Speaker 1: these great ancestors of ours because there's so many people
Speaker 1: I'm learning about, you know, right now, we're studying history,
Speaker 1: right we're learning about who is that statue over there? Wait? Why? Who?
Speaker 1: Why do we have a slave trader on the top
Speaker 1: of the library, and you know, Minnesota or whatever, And
Speaker 1: it's just something very joyful. So it's full of gospel music,
Speaker 1: great dharma. We're evoking the power of Harriet, and everyone's
Speaker 1: feeling in power. So that's the idea, not to feel deflated.
Speaker 1: Send me the link and we'll put it in the
Speaker 1: show notes for sure, because I feel like there's a
Speaker 1: mission and right now to stop people from falling into despair, yes,
Speaker 1: and to give the mind something positive. Even my mind
Speaker 1: needed this. And then my publisher got on the call
Speaker 1: just to come on the class and said, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you've got to write a book about this. So now
Speaker 1: I'm writing this book about me and Harriet, and that's great.
Speaker 1: That's great. So it will continue on my journey with
Speaker 1: this great ancestor that everyone should just check out and
Speaker 1: be inspired by. So transitioning more to our interior lives
Speaker 1: a little bit. You use a phrase in the book
Speaker 1: often that one of your core teachers, Jack Cornfield, uses
Speaker 1: all the time, which is one of my favorite phrases
Speaker 1: to reflect upon, which is the ten thousand joys and
Speaker 1: the ten thousand sorrows. And you say none of us
Speaker 1: is free from either. Yeah, I mean it's so true.
Speaker 1: No matter who you are, if you're rich, you've got
Speaker 1: rich people's sorrows of your poor, You've got more people's sorrows.
Speaker 1: No one is exempt. We're all living these lives that
Speaker 1: are impermanent and material. Reality will never lead to freedom.
Speaker 1: We know that. So now how much you buy or
Speaker 1: surround yourself with. You know, we have these experiences. People
Speaker 1: we love die. There's change, you know, times of loss,
Speaker 1: times of gain, times of being attacked, times of being worshiped.
Speaker 1: You know, we have this complexity, don't we. It's never
Speaker 1: just all good. Yeah. I just find that such a
Speaker 1: helpful reflection, like, yeah, we all get the ten thousand
Speaker 1: joys in the ten thousand sorrows. Like it just normalizes
Speaker 1: it for when we're struggling. It just goes, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what happens. Yeah, and it it humanizes us.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have one seven billion people on the planet,
Speaker 1: all just trying to be happy, and we all have
Speaker 1: similar setbacks. Some deal with way more though, I will
Speaker 1: be honest, the challenges are enormous and sometimes somebody could
Speaker 1: have everything in the world and have the most suffering mind.
Speaker 1: You know. It's again you get this bird and by
Speaker 1: being born and living this experience. And that's why I
Speaker 1: always say it's school to deal with it whole life
Speaker 1: is school, you know. And these hard chapters that were
Speaker 1: on right now, um, you know soon they'll be joyful chapters.
Speaker 1: And some are having joy in the midst of all
Speaker 1: of this, you know, some feel excited. You know, I
Speaker 1: can see that position very much. Your book is called
Speaker 1: A Fierce Heart, and one of the things that you
Speaker 1: say is that cultivating a fierce heart is about learning
Speaker 1: to embrace it all, even the most painful aspects of
Speaker 1: our lives, and that we have to open up to
Speaker 1: everything in order to transform it. And so I wanted
Speaker 1: to spend a little bit of time talking about that
Speaker 1: because one of the questions I'm always so interested in is, really,
Speaker 1: difficulty tends to do one of two things to people
Speaker 1: a lot of difficulty. It tends to either transform them
Speaker 1: into more powerful, more compassionate, and better people, or it
Speaker 1: makes them bitter and mean and broken. And I'd love
Speaker 1: to talk about in your mind, what causes somebody to
Speaker 1: be able to go down that path of transformation versus
Speaker 1: the path of sort of being defeated by our difficulties. Well,
Speaker 1: I have one word for that that I've seen in
Speaker 1: a lot of people, because often I'm very interested in
Speaker 1: that because don't We love a hero story. We love
Speaker 1: the story of the beating down the one against all
Speaker 1: the odds that you know, shot up out of the
Speaker 1: you know, mud kind of thing, and we love that.
Speaker 1: That's very archetypal in our Western mythology, you know, and
Speaker 1: we love that. Faith, to me is a determining factor
Speaker 1: in how you deal with challenges. If you have faith
Speaker 1: that your life, that the universe is a loving place,
Speaker 1: that everything is for your growth, that there's a law,
Speaker 1: that we're surrounded in love and compassion. If you have
Speaker 1: some faith in that, you will grow from the experience.
Speaker 1: If you find that you have no faith, maybe someone
Speaker 1: doesn't believe in anything, non existence, nothing matters, love doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: then that experience will turn you very bitter. You'll follow
Speaker 1: the bad wolf path, and you will act out and
Speaker 1: create more pain and suffering. But if you can use
Speaker 1: that trauma or that abuse as something and you believe
Speaker 1: that there is a loving force, I think that's the
Speaker 1: key to it. When people really believe that they can
Speaker 1: all often not all the times, but click into using
Speaker 1: that difficulty, overcoming that difficulty, and then actually using that
Speaker 1: as a catalyst to create change in their community themselves.
Speaker 1: How they see themselves the work they do. So for me,
Speaker 1: that's a big factor that I see in people up
Speaker 1: all face any you know, Buddhism, Hindu, Muslim, Christian. If
Speaker 1: you can find that, you will rise out of it
Speaker 1: and you will learn, and you will grow, and you'll
Speaker 1: be better for that difficult experience. No matter how bad
Speaker 1: it was, even if it takes you twenty years to
Speaker 1: heal from it, you'll see it as an experience that
Speaker 1: was important. Even if it was traumatic, you'll see it
Speaker 1: as a it was a shifting moment. The life changed
Speaker 1: in that moment, and there was a road and we
Speaker 1: go left or we go right. Very clearly, from that,
Speaker 1: we spiral down or we spiral up, you know, and
Speaker 1: maybe we go down and then up. You know, that's okay,
Speaker 1: it's okay to go rock bottom. Sometimes that's a beautiful
Speaker 1: road to right. We have to bottom. All there's only
Speaker 1: one place from the bottom, right, And a lot of
Speaker 1: people go down the dark path. There's there's important teachings
Speaker 1: on the dark path too, you know, the path of
Speaker 1: you know, suffering and pain. You you can learn there.
Speaker 1: But faith for me, faith and something bigger that's good.
Speaker 1: You know, that is a huge motivation, and I have
Speaker 1: tremendous faith. And you know what, as Dr King says,
Speaker 1: the long arm of the universe bends towards justice, a
Speaker 1: long arc bends towards you know, and so we just
Speaker 1: have to hang in there. And faith also gives us patience.
Speaker 1: When I have faith, I'm going to to be patient
Speaker 1: and try to take it slow and be patient with
Speaker 1: my difficulties and my suffering and the burdens that are,
Speaker 1: you know, the things that happen that we don't want.
Speaker 1: We have patience knowing things will change. That is the
Speaker 1: nature of this experience. Nothing stays the same. So we
Speaker 1: have this divine patients that faith brings with that. I
Speaker 1: think faith is a really interesting thing. And you said
Speaker 1: something just there, and you say it several times in
Speaker 1: your book, and every time I hear it, there's an
Speaker 1: instant sort of rebellion against it, right, And it's this
Speaker 1: idea that the universe is for us, because when we
Speaker 1: look at the world, we see lots of really awful things, right,
Speaker 1: and we can see lots of instances like they were,
Speaker 1: you know, serially abused as a child and murdered at nine,
Speaker 1: Like okay, it doesn't seem like they got the chance.
Speaker 1: So I also know I think in a lot of
Speaker 1: Buddhist cosmologies there is a there's the idea that this
Speaker 1: goes on over and over through lifetimes. And is that
Speaker 1: where part of your feeling of good and faith comes from?
Speaker 1: Is that if we only see it through this very
Speaker 1: short window of time, we might go, well, it's hard
Speaker 1: to see how any things are working for the good
Speaker 1: for us. But if we look at it with the
Speaker 1: longer timeline, and that timeline might even encompass multiple life lines,
Speaker 1: is that sort of where you get that faith? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I do. You know, I really do believe that the
Speaker 1: universe everything unfolds lawfully, and i've and deeply the core
Speaker 1: of the dorma is this lawful unfolding of seeds we plant,
Speaker 1: grow and who we can't really understand for all of us,
Speaker 1: who can fathom an eight year old being born and
Speaker 1: being abused a whole life in dying? Right? What causes that?
Speaker 1: And then what causes an eight year old to be
Speaker 1: born in a beautiful home and given all the opportunities, Well,
Speaker 1: I really think it does have to do with the
Speaker 1: lawful unfolding seeds brout. Now, this doesn't mean that we
Speaker 1: don't care about the eight year old karma unfolds as
Speaker 1: it should due to causes and conditions. How do I
Speaker 1: know that the president is supposed to be the president
Speaker 1: right now? That's what's happening right It's like there's a
Speaker 1: way in which we rest back and we trust that
Speaker 1: things are unfolding. Doesn't mean we don't stand up though.
Speaker 1: And I do believe in the concept of Buddha nature.
Speaker 1: I remember I was at my first dharma retreat I
Speaker 1: ever had with Jack Cornfield. I was like, this was
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago or something. He gave a dharma
Speaker 1: talk the first night at a ten day retreat and
Speaker 1: he said, you know, he came out and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: nobly born. Those of you don't know Jack Cornfield, maybe
Speaker 1: look him up. He's a great Buddhist based teacher here
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area and just wonderful in so many ways,
Speaker 1: psychologist and kind of like a shaman in his own way.
Speaker 1: He said, oh, nobly born, remember who you are. You're
Speaker 1: the daughters and sons of the awakened ones. And he
Speaker 1: gave a talk on Buddha nature, and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I love that view of we're all awake
Speaker 1: we forgot though you know, it's not like kind of
Speaker 1: like original sin. You're born bad and you could crawl
Speaker 1: on your knees for a thousand years, it will never
Speaker 1: be enough, right, But it was this idea that, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm asleep because I could see those moments
Speaker 1: of Buddha nature every now and again, like this expanse
Speaker 1: of love or this, you know, but then it gets obscured.
Speaker 1: So I do believe because of that innate quality, even
Speaker 1: though it's so buried in some people and all there
Speaker 1: is this great hate and delusion, right, we know that
Speaker 1: gets in a way. But because of Buddha nature and
Speaker 1: because of things happening, I believe lawfully. And that's why
Speaker 1: I think I'm okay with what's happening, even though it's painful,
Speaker 1: even though I'm trying my best to help, I see
Speaker 1: that it's due to causes and conditions far greater, vast time.
Speaker 1: This is one chapter and a great book. The matrix
Speaker 1: has been here forever, I think, right, and so here
Speaker 1: we are. So I'm sorry the matrix circling again and
Speaker 1: again and again. I mean, I I don't think in
Speaker 1: some level of people can resonate with that been here
Speaker 1: done that feeling, you know, like have we doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like we've been dealing with the racism for return. I
Speaker 1: mean we're just looking at history. It's like, oh, yeah
Speaker 1: we have. You know, we've gotten hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 1: years now and here we are in this moment, same place. Wow,
Speaker 1: full circle. So I do have faith because of that.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's just my heart that believes in it,
Speaker 1: not my mind. It's just like with my heart, I
Speaker 1: know that being kind and being just and compassionate is freedom.
Speaker 1: I just know it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a
Speaker 1: great way to say it is that my mind also
Speaker 1: can get very lost in looking at all the problems
Speaker 1: and going well, wow, can that be? And you know,
Speaker 1: I've told this story not it's not a story, but
Speaker 1: I've given this analogy on the show before. It always
Speaker 1: works for me because when I try and think about,
Speaker 1: like what's the meaning of life? If you try and
Speaker 1: approach it intellectually, you can't because you're like, well, I'm
Speaker 1: one speck of a dust on a speck of a
Speaker 1: dust that exists for you know, a flash of a second.
Speaker 1: How could any of that matter? And you made this
Speaker 1: analogy a little bit earlier. But like I walked outside
Speaker 1: my door and there was a dog laying there who
Speaker 1: had been hit by a car, Like I would know
Speaker 1: I had to take care of that dog. And no
Speaker 1: intellectual argument, no amount of philosophy, no amount of anything
Speaker 1: could convince me that it didn't matter to take care
Speaker 1: of the dog. And so that meaning for me has
Speaker 1: to come from a deeper place, the sense that it matters,
Speaker 1: that things matter. Yes, And I think that so many
Speaker 1: of our troubles in this Western world. You know, I
Speaker 1: spend half the year in South America. Mostly I would
Speaker 1: be living there now had all this not happened. But
Speaker 1: I'm happy to be here in this time working on
Speaker 1: what I'm working on. It's a joy for me to
Speaker 1: do that. But one of the problem is is that
Speaker 1: I think in the US we're very disassociated from the heart. Right.
Speaker 1: We live in our mind full of ideas and concepts
Speaker 1: and who's doing what, and we're monitoring everyone else. We
Speaker 1: don't live in the body here, you know. Like I
Speaker 1: was talking to some friends in Ecuador and they look
Speaker 1: on our news and they see, you know, the protests
Speaker 1: of people against masks, and they said, but isn't it
Speaker 1: just the kind thing to do, even if you don't
Speaker 1: believe it, you just it's just like you just do
Speaker 1: it because you care about others, you know, because they
Speaker 1: care about it, or you know, it's just it's like
Speaker 1: a lack of connection. And I feel that even in
Speaker 1: the Buddhist communities that can be this coldness where we
Speaker 1: just it becomes intellectual study, but it's not going into
Speaker 1: the deeper layers of the body. For a real change
Speaker 1: to happen right now, for people to stand up to
Speaker 1: what's happening, for people to feel empowered, the heart has
Speaker 1: to feel it. You know. That's what takes you out
Speaker 1: into the world. You feel that push. It's not a thought,
Speaker 1: it's just a movement. The body has it. It just
Speaker 1: gets up and there you are. You're helping the dog.
Speaker 1: You didn't even have to think about it. You're getting
Speaker 1: the dog. You're moving. We have to be moved more
Speaker 1: from that place than all these head games that the
Speaker 1: eco mind plays endlessly. Now, it's sad. It's like we're
Speaker 1: lost in the story. That's the delusion part. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like there's so much delusion and it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, when let's just take care of each other.
Speaker 1: That's so basic. Why is it so hard? That's the ego?
Speaker 1: It's so hard to just be kind, you say. Whenever
Speaker 1: I feel hurt or triggered, I get down on my
Speaker 1: knees and ask to see the lesson. What is this
Speaker 1: painful situation showing me? And when I inquire with sincere
Speaker 1: interest in knowing, things that have been hidden reveal themselves
Speaker 1: and circumstances change. And I just love that because I
Speaker 1: do think that that's another one of the things that
Speaker 1: helps us transform difficulty and to grow is to really,
Speaker 1: at least without using the idea that we're growing as
Speaker 1: a way to bypass the difficult situation, but if we
Speaker 1: can at least orient that way a little bit, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, are suffering has some meaning. And when
Speaker 1: it has meaning, it seems to have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: be transformative. Absolutely. I mean, I really believe that when
Speaker 1: I'm the most triggered by someone something has happened and
Speaker 1: I just feel crushed or or a very emotional or angry,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, wow, what is that? I get curious
Speaker 1: and I have a curiosity about my own mind, you know,
Speaker 1: when there's something that's just caught you know, and I'm
Speaker 1: just playing it again, and I did that, and I
Speaker 1: did that. And if I just settle into the body again,
Speaker 1: out of the mind, but into the body, and I
Speaker 1: can listen and feel the energy, feel the rage, feel
Speaker 1: the fear, feel the outrage or the sadness that can
Speaker 1: accompany that. If I can drop into the body and
Speaker 1: become mine, feel of the energy of my body and
Speaker 1: keep inquiring what is the nature of this pain, like
Speaker 1: where what is being not seen here? I will find
Speaker 1: usually a huge attachment to something, and then I'd love
Speaker 1: to find these blocks in my heart. I celebrate it,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like get a tangle out, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm attached at this and I want that,
Speaker 1: you know, and I can find it, and then usually
Speaker 1: I can really investigate that through inquiry, like what do
Speaker 1: I think that's going to get or and I can
Speaker 1: usually see some big piece of just me, me me,
Speaker 1: I I I That's what I want, you know. So
Speaker 1: it's like if you're willing to investigate. And but I'm
Speaker 1: also not so afraid of difficult emotions as much as
Speaker 1: I used to be. Some people are terrified of feeling anything, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, is that what we're most scared of Eric
Speaker 1: is our emotions seem to be I mean, the worst
Speaker 1: thing that happens to us is thoughts and emotions for
Speaker 1: most people, and we're terrified. I don't want to feel that. No,
Speaker 1: And I think I understand that you have to get
Speaker 1: used to it. You have to get used to feeling.
Speaker 1: You won't grow unless you're unless you start to be
Speaker 1: willing to feel. And you know so many people are
Speaker 1: so numb, you know, Yeah, And you talk about that
Speaker 1: in a really helpful way, because you know, my bigger
Speaker 1: challenge that I've experienced through my adult life has probably
Speaker 1: been more depression, and depression is more of a numbness, right,
Speaker 1: And and I love that you talk about I've got
Speaker 1: the actual quote here. You said numbness has to be
Speaker 1: met with the same loving self care with which we
Speaker 1: meet anything else. This is a powerful practice. You're learning
Speaker 1: to feel embody and open. And I love that idea
Speaker 1: of how do I meet numbness? What is that? Actually? Like?
Speaker 1: Investigating it more closely, I find it a harder one
Speaker 1: to work with because strong emotion is easy for me
Speaker 1: to sort of just I'm like, okay, I've got a
Speaker 1: lot of colors to work with. Here. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: like doing at painting and I'm like, okay, I've got
Speaker 1: a lot of good colors, and then numbness. I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I have gray. I've got to make this painting out
Speaker 1: of gray. That's a harder painting to make. I loved
Speaker 1: what you said about that. The way to deal with
Speaker 1: it is the same loving self care. Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to be able to develop compassion, you know, And numbness
Speaker 1: happens in a lot of places. It comes out a
Speaker 1: lot of relationships, right, and we marry someone and then
Speaker 1: we feel numb. We don't we don't feel anything, we
Speaker 1: see things going. We become desensitized to everything, and it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know what it is is. It's just
Speaker 1: a defense of the heart and mind. It comes a
Speaker 1: lot from people who have had trauma. They just disassociate.
Speaker 1: They're just not there, They're numb, they're disassociate, can't feel what.
Speaker 1: They have a hard time with empathy in those moments.
Speaker 1: That's when people like that are harsh on others for
Speaker 1: feeling right, and so they are learning. You have to
Speaker 1: be willing to explore your spiritual life. You have to
Speaker 1: be willing to put yourself out there you can't as
Speaker 1: listen to other people's spiritual lives. You've got to put
Speaker 1: it in a practice. You gotta get on your road,
Speaker 1: you know, getting your boat and start you know, navigating
Speaker 1: down the river, and can be hard. It will you'll
Speaker 1: face emotion and you'll face the parts that are um
Speaker 1: and if you can develop compassion, that's when things get
Speaker 1: really interesting. You know, self compassion. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: compassion for other people. It has to be rooted in
Speaker 1: how you respond to yourself. More and more I find
Speaker 1: that lesson so important, and it's one that I feel
Speaker 1: like somewhere along the line I learned fairly well self compassion.
Speaker 1: And as I work with a lot of people through
Speaker 1: coaching programs and different things, and I just more and
Speaker 1: more I just keep seeing how important that element is.
Speaker 1: You know how important self compassion is in not just
Speaker 1: because it feels better because it does, but also in
Speaker 1: actually being able to transform and change. It's a really
Speaker 1: key element. I mean, I didn't understand how deep compassion
Speaker 1: was when I was very My Tibetan teachers, you know,
Speaker 1: that is a core practice. My teacher means you're rimpoche
Speaker 1: did two three or compassion retreats, you know, and they
Speaker 1: used always like a bag and a passion, and you know,
Speaker 1: first we don't know what it means, and we're just
Speaker 1: kind of imitating, right, We're like, okay, I have compassion. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. But over time you
Speaker 1: start to see that it's a skillful response, that it
Speaker 1: is the most skillful response. Now again, it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that action is not required. No, you can feel tremendous
Speaker 1: compassion and then immediately follow through with actions that need
Speaker 1: to happen internally and externally again but internally to be
Speaker 1: able to meet your pain with some degree of friendliness
Speaker 1: or care. You know, this is unbelievably hard for people.
Speaker 1: Eric I taught, you know, retreats on compassion and loving
Speaker 1: kindness meta, and it was an all owed battle for
Speaker 1: some people. It was like, I can't feel anything. Bring
Speaker 1: day after day, you know, I'd be meeting with students.
Speaker 1: I'm just frozen. I can do it for my cat,
Speaker 1: but not me. It's a little alarming, actually, when you
Speaker 1: look into someone's eyes and you know they have all
Speaker 1: those symptoms anxiety, depression, not despaired, not wanting to live,
Speaker 1: you know, and so how do we get that movement happening?
Speaker 1: Because people don't grow up with these teachings on compassion
Speaker 1: at all. This is I can't really blame them. That's
Speaker 1: not what you're learning as a child. Most people, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't learn that in high school compassion class, you know,
Speaker 1: seventh period. Let's practice that really comes through search. It's
Speaker 1: not something we medicate people here. We you know, doctor
Speaker 1: them in other ways, but we don't know emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1: And I think that that is coming. I have a
Speaker 1: feeling a mental state of these people in this country
Speaker 1: is going to get so much more fragile. And how
Speaker 1: do we meet that? How do we help that? I
Speaker 1: agree you say that as wisdom grows, we see that
Speaker 1: we can't control life's unpredictability, no matter how hard we try.
Speaker 1: People who crave control have the hardest time on this
Speaker 1: path because the whole journey is about letting go. It's
Speaker 1: so true. Control freaks can't meditate. There's not a lot
Speaker 1: of faith. I have to do it. Nothing's gonna just
Speaker 1: happen on its own. There is no flow to this,
Speaker 1: there's no intelligence behind anything. I'm the intelligence. I'm the doer,
Speaker 1: you know, and that mind is the most difficult on
Speaker 1: a spiritual path and the most difficult to break through,
Speaker 1: you know, to see that, you know, there is this
Speaker 1: profound intelligence happening right now in our bodies. There's incredible
Speaker 1: intelligence happening. Right. It's like it's everywhere. It's well at
Speaker 1: the spheres intelligence right, how the sun rises in the
Speaker 1: moon and rises in the time, and everything's connected, working together,
Speaker 1: But people don't feel connected to that. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest core wounds is this separation from source,
Speaker 1: a separation from the tribe on some level, right, this
Speaker 1: constant feeling of I don't belong, I'm not included. You know.
Speaker 1: I was talking to my friend Alberto Velodo, a shaman
Speaker 1: from Chile, written a lot of books on all these topics,
Speaker 1: and he said, we were having a conversation. I said,
Speaker 1: what do you think it is in the Western mind
Speaker 1: has so rooted in the suffering? He said, oh, it's
Speaker 1: their mythology and I was like, well, what do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? He said, well, think about the Western mythology.
Speaker 1: Where does the story start. Adam and E thrown out
Speaker 1: of heaven, and that's where the begins. We're outside of
Speaker 1: something and we feel this kind of bizarre separation all
Speaker 1: the time. That leads to the overheightened control in this
Speaker 1: despair of where do I belong? You know, this loneliness
Speaker 1: from that. Yeah, yeah, I think control is such a
Speaker 1: big thing, and you're right. This has been a big
Speaker 1: part of my journey the last really the last couple
Speaker 1: of years more so, is really like what do I
Speaker 1: trust in? What do I have faith in? You know,
Speaker 1: we really have to find that for ourselves. What is
Speaker 1: it that I trust in that I have faith in,
Speaker 1: not what somebody else trusts in, not what somebody tells
Speaker 1: me I should, And sometimes we have to start really
Speaker 1: basic with that. I remember when I came back to
Speaker 1: a the second time. I had been sober about eight
Speaker 1: years and things went really wrong in my life with
Speaker 1: a divorce, and I sort of had this fake faith.
Speaker 1: I tried to believe what people told me I needed
Speaker 1: to believe in order to get sober, and I got sober,
Speaker 1: but when things got really hard, I realized that faith
Speaker 1: that wasn't there. And when I came back, I was like,
Speaker 1: I've got to find my own faith. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I believe, and I had to start kind of small, like, well,
Speaker 1: I believe in this group of people that if I'm
Speaker 1: around this group of people, I'll do better. Oh, I
Speaker 1: believe in you know, and I just found my way.
Speaker 1: But it's a question that comes up again and again
Speaker 1: for me because I think you're right. There is this
Speaker 1: weird balance in the spiritual life of you know and
Speaker 1: Zen we talked about. We talk about great faith, great doubt,
Speaker 1: and great determination, and I find all three. I find
Speaker 1: all three of them interested. And what you're describing is
Speaker 1: a lot of people approach the spiritual path with the
Speaker 1: great determination. You've got to have that. You've got to
Speaker 1: have a determination that says I'm gonna practice, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do this, I'm as you said, I'm gonna get in
Speaker 1: my own boat and I'm gonna row. Like there's an
Speaker 1: amount we have to bring of ourselves to that. But
Speaker 1: then there's also the great faith that we have to
Speaker 1: have and what is that faith in? And I think
Speaker 1: that's such an important point because it's hard. Control is
Speaker 1: one of those things in in a we used to
Speaker 1: say all the time, you know, let go and let
Speaker 1: God and I and I would go, But I don't
Speaker 1: believe in God. I don't believe that if I let
Speaker 1: go of this, anything's gonna pick up. Like if I
Speaker 1: set the relay baton down, I don't have any faith
Speaker 1: anything is going to pick it up. And then I
Speaker 1: finally hit a point where I went, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: it's just putting it down that's important. Even if nothing
Speaker 1: picks it up, it's better than me crushing it in
Speaker 1: my hand, you know, like it's the holding on that
Speaker 1: makes me sick. And so I think that that control
Speaker 1: what you said there is so important because the whole
Speaker 1: journey is about letting go, and I think I just
Speaker 1: keep sort of learning that for myself, like more and
Speaker 1: more unlearning letting go, letting things fall away. I completely
Speaker 1: agree with you. And you know, for people who are
Speaker 1: just starting and thinking about the word faith and thinking
Speaker 1: it has a set definition, you know, that's something scary.
Speaker 1: That word is intense. You know, it's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: here comes the is gonna hit me in the head.
Speaker 1: I went through all that, you know, but I look
Speaker 1: at it as like just faith in the good of
Speaker 1: my own heart. It's also like everything you're being it's
Speaker 1: nothing outside. It's like you, if everything is you, there
Speaker 1: is nothing but you know your experience here it's all
Speaker 1: our minds, you know. But it's like faith that you
Speaker 1: that your heart is good. There's goodness there, and I
Speaker 1: believe in that. And I think that's what you said,
Speaker 1: get me up out of bed, you know. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: I believe in this love for myself and others, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to follow that. And you could just look
Speaker 1: at the intelligence of nature. Go to nature, take refuge there,
Speaker 1: like the mystery of the forest and how everything flows,
Speaker 1: and just sit by the trees and listen and you'll
Speaker 1: start to answer the question. Right, it's not going to
Speaker 1: come from outside. It comes from you. It is you,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I would take refuge and kindness
Speaker 1: like you know, because plant those seeds and they grow,
Speaker 1: because everything is about planting seeds. That's the law of causality.
Speaker 1: You plant that, you get that no matter how bad
Speaker 1: you want something else. You can't get apples and planting
Speaker 1: lemon seeds, you know, no matter how much you wish
Speaker 1: for it. You've got to have that sense that your
Speaker 1: life matters, that you're part of some cellular living system
Speaker 1: like the trees and the forests are all talking to
Speaker 1: each other in different ways. I mean, this is real now,
Speaker 1: So why wouldn't you be connected to that? You know,
Speaker 1: the great mystery you're we're woven in. How could we
Speaker 1: not be? Yeah? Yeah, well that is a beautiful place
Speaker 1: to wrap up, have faith in your own heart, in nature,
Speaker 1: and in kindness. Beautiful way to wrap it up and
Speaker 1: tie it up. You and I are going to spend
Speaker 1: a few minutes in the post show conversation because I
Speaker 1: want to talk about a line you say that the
Speaker 1: ultimate goal of the spiritual path is to uncover the
Speaker 1: ways we imprison ourselves. So I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that and listeners, if you're interested in
Speaker 1: the post show conversation once a week many episodes with
Speaker 1: me where I share a teaching, a song and a
Speaker 1: poem and the joy of supporting the show. You can
Speaker 1: go to One you Feed dot net slash joint spring.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's been so fun to have
Speaker 1: you back on and connect again. Oh it's been so
Speaker 1: great to chat with you and as always, it's an honor.
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