WEBVTT - Selects: How Mindfulness Works 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:03.800 Hi, everybody. Since self improvement is kind of in the 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.360 air this time of year, I thought I would choose 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:10.400 our twenty twenty two episode on mindfulness. We cover its origins, 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:12.880 how it became a thing in the West, and the 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.000 upsides and yes, drawbacks. I hope it changes your life 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:23.000 for the better. Enjoy. 0:00:24.040 --> 0:00:31.840 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.320 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.239 Chuck and Jerry's here ish and this is stuff you 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:46.040 should know Ish. This is full on stuff you should know. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.080 Charles, remember that point. I feel like it was about. 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.960 Ten eight to ten years ago where everyone was just 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:59.400 saying ish on the end of things instead of saying, like, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.560 you know, finding the real word that they were looking. 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.800 For, so so like an approximation of the word or 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:10.440 of the thing they were describing. So like I'm say forty. 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.440 Ish, No, not even that, like when there's like a 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.240 real word that could be used and they would just 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:17.640 throw ish on another word. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:18.880 I don't know what you're talking about. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:21.720 No, yeah, it was it was the thing it swept 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:22.080 the nation. 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:23.040 When was it? 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:25.720 Or maybe I'm thinking of the macarena. 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:30.560 That's what you're thinking, okay, all right, man really did 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.199 sweep the nation? Remember that who let the dogs out? 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:34.479 It was like a. 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:36.520 One dogs out? Did they ever find that out? 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.360 No? I think it was a rhetorical question. 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:40.720 Ish. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.520 It's the kind of rhetorical question you could ask yourself, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:48.360 Chuck while you're meditating. Yeah, my first, thanks, thanks, But 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:50.960 I'm going to step all over the segway because before 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:52.800 we get started, Chuck, I want to do, if you'll 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:58.360 allow me, another shout out for my little niece, Mila's movie, 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.440 big time movie called No Exit that's coming out as 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:06.400 far as when this episode drops tomorrow, so February twenty four, 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.360 twenty twenty two. No matter when you hear this, just 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.919 immediately go on to Hulu subscribe it you haven't yet, 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.800 and check out my niece Mela in No Exit because 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:19.120 she is me the trailer amazing. What'd you think? 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:24.440 It looks like a taut thriller. She looks fantastic from 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.799 what you can tell from a trailer. I you just 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.480 saved all the bad parts for the movie. 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.520 I don't think they did. I was reading an interview 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:32.440 with the director and he was saying like she was 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.040 doing such an amazing job of being terrified and freaked 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.520 out and everything that, like after in between takes, like 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.320 the other cast, Memers would be like are you okay? 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.320 And she'd be like, yeah, are you okay? And I'm 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:50.120 acting right yeah exactly. She's like, it's acting like John Lovegrad. Yeah. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.000 So on Hulu, No Exit, February twenty fifth, my niece 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.000 Mela just kills it. 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:58.560 There you go, can't wait. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:02.320 Thanks again for that, So let's get started. Thank you 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.119 for not passing judgment on that. Either way. 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:12.440 You're resegueing, because we're trys passing judgment, it means I'm 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.120 not being mindful because a big part of mindfulness you 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:16.519 just did not judge. 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.639 Yeah, So that's like, this is one of those ones, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:21.919 you know, those episodes where we just start talking about 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.720 the thing without defining it. This is not gonna be 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:27.480 one of those episodes because I think it would be 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:29.440 kind of rough otherwise, you know. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:34.080 Yeah, And I guess if you're gonna define mindfulness, you 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.040 need to kind of go back in time. I mean, 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:38.680 I guess we could hop in the way back machine. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:41.040 We haven't done that way it's been a while. 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:43.760 Let's pull the old cover off. It's quite dusty in 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.360 here and a little bit of mildew, A little mildew. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:50.120 There's some old crystals boxes. Those are yours? 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.120 Remember you had them accidentally delivered to your house? 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:55.480 Right, and then we went back to the Old West 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:56.040 to celebrate. 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.560 You're thinking of back to the future. Three? 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:05.920 Oh right, right? Right? 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:10.280 I called Mary steam Virgin if I get to play her, 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:11.480 not date her or anything. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.880 Oh date may steam Virgin. A big crush on. 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:20.640 Her, isn't that really? That's a ted Danson's old squeeze, right. 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:22.839 It's his current squeeze. I'm not going to fight any before. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:24.599 Are they still together? Yeah? 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:25.040 I think so. 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:26.880 Gosh, they've been together for a while. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:28.279 Yeah, good couple. 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:30.120 Okay, great, good stuff. 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:32.960 So who knew we were gonna be talking about ted 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:35.279 Danson at the beginning of mindfulness? 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.039 Richard Gear, But ted Danson's a big surprise. 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.080 If we get in the way back machine and go 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:47.120 back uh in time to sort of the beginning of Buddhism, 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.680 you'd have to look at the the the language polly 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.800 and the word sati. Polly is p a l i, 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.160 Sati is s a t i. There are a lot 0:04:57.160 --> 0:04:59.839 of different words for mindfulness, but the one that we 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:01.840 can kind of identify with It's kind of been used 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:08.479 most from Polly, which is a Middle Indo Aryan liturgical 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.480 language from the early branches of Buddhism. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.880 Yeah, I want to take in the reason that Polly 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.760 is so important is because they say that it was 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.480 the language of the Buddha, and at the very least 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:22.920 it was the first language that the Buddha's words which 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.240 have been passed down orally were written down in. So 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:30.480 it's like legit old school Buddhist thinking and teachings. And 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.520 one of the basic parts of that is, like you said, sati, 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:38.279 which has been translated to mindfulness, but it was translated 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:40.600 by a British colonial administrator, wasn't it. 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.600 That's right, And it kind of more accurately is translated 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.200 as memory of the present, which I think is a 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.919 really kind of a cool way to look at mindfulness. 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:50.640 Yeah. 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.160 Absolutely, it really kind of reveals what's going on. Especially 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:55.599 once you kind of learned a little more about it, 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.159 you're like, that actually works about as perfectly as can be. 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:04.760 But it got translated into the word mindfulness, sati into 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.680 mindfulness by a British colonial administrator in Ceylon which is 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.920 now Sri Lanka. Back in the eighteen eighties, so as 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.159 some British guy who said sati means mindfulness and actually 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:18.280 kind of gave it to us today, although there was 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.880 a long period where it had been forgotten. But I 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.480 think you can't really talk about mindfulness, even though it's 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:27.400 changed so dramatically, especially in the last decade or so, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.680 without kind of describing what it was originally meant to describe, 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.600 or what it still describes if you're a practicing Buddhist, 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.080 and that is that you are not only like paying 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:47.600 attention to the moment and like experiencing this moment without 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:50.080 letting your thoughts wander to the past or the future 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:53.719 or anything like that, but that whatever you're experiencing in 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.400 the moment, no matter what it is, you're experiencing with equanimity, 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.520 which means that you're not passing judgment on it, good 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.000 or bad or anything else. It just is And it 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.440 sounds easy to describe, but if you've ever tried it, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.880 it's one of the hardest things a human being can 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:10.680 ever set out to do. 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.880 Yeah, I mean, I think it's very very natural for 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:21.200 a human to seek out and contemplate and think about 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:24.280 the things that feel good and please them and to 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.040 try and stuff down and get rid of and avoid 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:33.080 things that either hurt literally hurt or emotionally hurt, or 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:37.760 things that are painful or unpleasant. And boy, see, that 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.560 is a tough thing to overcome, my friend. Just the 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.800 condition of being human makes that very difficult. 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:45.880 But yeah, and you just nailed it on the head, 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.760 not once, but twice, Chuck when you said that it's 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.560 a very human condition. And part of sati. The point 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.040 of sati as far as like Buddhists are concerned, is 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.360 that it's a step that you take on the path 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.640 to enlightenment to free yourself from the cycle of life 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.400 and death and rebirth and to become like a truly 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.840 enlightened being that's freed from all of that. And so 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.240 you have to free yourself from that human condition, and 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.160 a big part of that is to free yourself from 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.960 yearning from wanting. Because yearning and wanting or being repelled 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.400 by something and wanting to get away from it, there 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:21.240 are two sides of the same coin as far as 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:26.600 sati is concerned, which is you are wishing that something 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.640 is different or was different than it actually is. And 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.200 then that's the basis of suffering. And suffering is the 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.160 thing that keeps you in that cycle of life and 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.600 death and rebirth. So meditating to become mindful and non 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.680 judgmental about your present experience is one step toward relieving 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.439 yourself with suffering and then freeing yourself from that shackle 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:51.079 of being born and reborn and reborn again. 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:53.960 Well, you and my friend have just spoken about the 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:58.640 noble truths in part because craving is the cause of 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.920 suffering is the second noble truth, and to cease that 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.360 craving will bring about the ceasing of that suffering, which 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:10.600 is the third noble truth. And basically, experiencing the moment 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.040 without and everything about the moment without judgment is sort 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:19.560 of the goal. And you know, for modern you know, 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.240 we're going to talk a lot about sort of the 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:25.959 beginnings of mindfulness and kind of how it's become kind 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:27.720 of a hip thing to do here in the United 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:32.359 States starting in about the nineteen seventies and on especially today. 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:36.800 But we're kind of talking in American modern terms about 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.960 stress and de stressing. And the Buddhists have a term 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.640 for that, which is duka d u kk h a, 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:49.680 and that is, you know, again, to avoid or destroy 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.400 something that we don't like, and what we usually don't 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:54.160 like is something that's going to put a stress on. 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.160 Us, right exactly, And they're saying, like, dude, this is 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.480 part of the point of life. This really amazing book 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:04.960 by Tick not Han right now rereading it. Actually, it's 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:06.240 one of those ones you just kind of go back 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:10.920 and reread, very like easy slim volume. It's called No Mud, 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.080 No Lotus, and it basically says like, without suffering, you 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:18.320 can't have happiness and vice versa. Pretty basic stuff, but 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.280 like he really gets into explaining how to confront suffering 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:26.920 and understand that it's just part of life. And that's 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.920 a huge part of the Buddhist approach to mindfulness. It's 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.679 not to get away from suffering. It's to recognize it 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.360 as it is and also simultaneously not make a bigger 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.960 deal out of it than it is, because suffering is enough. 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:42.319 It's bad enough as it is. But another part of 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.200 the human condition is to make it way worse by 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:50.559 anticipating it, worrying about it, like focusing on it after 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:52.520 it happens. There's a lot of stuff we do to 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.680 our own suffering that explodes it, and part of mindfulness 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.000 training is to is to stop doing that as well too. 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.040 You ain't kidding. And the lack of judgment is a big, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.240 big part of all of this. And we're going to 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.679 talk quite a bit here and there about John cabot Zen, 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.840 who is as easy, far and away the sort of 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:16.280 leader of the modern American mindfulness movement in a lot 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:17.760 of different ways, and we'll get to him in more 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:21.120 detail later, but he says that awareness that arises through 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.120 paying attention on purpose, and that's another big part of it. 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:25.600 It's a very purposeful practice. 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.720 Yeah, but not meditation, which we'll get to that as well, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.600 because meditation is a true physical practice that you in 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.400 mental practice, whereas mindfulness is more of a state of 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.000 being that you're trying to get to, right. But he 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.480 says on purpose in the present moment and non judgment only, 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.320 they always have to kind of hammer home the lack 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:45.920 of judgment being a key part. 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.559 Right exactly. And he's a proponent in kind of one 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.640 of the founders of what you can refer to as 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:58.200 secular mindfulness, which is this current incarnation of mindfulness that's 0:11:58.200 --> 0:12:00.840 sweeping the West. It's like you said, hip that's been 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.480 kind of like removed deliberately, as we'll see, removed from 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.840 its Buddhist roots and Buddhist contexts to make it more 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.720 palatable and scientific seeming. Yeah, secular, secular. 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.600 Strip it of all the religion and maybe we can 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:17.920 sell it to Americans exactly and then that. 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:21.880 But the yeah, the upshot of all this, though, Chuck, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:24.800 is that no matter who you are, where you're coming from, 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.680 if you're talking about mindfulness, you're talking about paying attention 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:29.920 to the present moment and doing the best you can 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:34.240 at not judging anything that's going on in that present 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.080 experience and just taking it on its face value and 0:12:37.120 --> 0:12:40.480 engaging in it fully. That's mindfulness in a nutshell. 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:44.560 Yeah, And it's not anything that the Buddhists had a 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.080 corner on. They just probably did it better because all 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.000 different kinds of religions throughout antiquity had you know, chanting 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.800 or some kind of mindfulness practice, maybe prayers or through 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:59.719 songs or dance. You know, that kind of thing has 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.959 been around as long as people have been practicing religion. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:05.480 So the Buddhists did not invent it, but I think 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:06.920 they got it fairly right. 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:10.520 So let's talk a little more about how we got 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.719 here today. Historically speaking after a break. What do you 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:15.600 think about that? 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:17.600 It sounds great. I'm gonna breathe in the meantime. 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.280 Hey, let me teach you something I've been using that 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.760 tik not Han taught me, not personally but through his 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.680 writing in a book that was published that I purchased 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:52.480 with MONI. 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:53.720 Smash your hand with a hammer. 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.280 Yeah, he said, try to focus on anything else. Chump. 0:13:57.840 --> 0:13:58.040 Right. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.640 There's a bunch of different mantras you can say, and 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.400 I don't not even sure that's the right word, but 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.400 one that I keep using is And it's just striking 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.000 what taking a breath and deliberately focusing on that breath, 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:13.880 just breathing in once and breathing out once can do 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:16.800 to like just suck you right out of wherever your 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.640 mind is in the past or the future. It's it's 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:24.120 really striking how it can do that. But his was 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:30.880 it's a breathing in I noticed that I'm alive and 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.560 then breathing out. I'm happy to be alive, and just 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.680 doing it at once like immediately brings me back into 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.360 the present moment. It's really cool. I like it. It's 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.520 all very new for me, but I think it's it's 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:43.040 pretty cool. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.400 Yeah, there's a lot of value there. And you know 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.760 you can like practice something like this and those breathing techniques. 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:55.960 It's not exclusive to mindfulness or meditation or Buddhism. I 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.480 you know, that's a great technique if you have kids. 0:14:59.200 --> 0:14:59.720 I found that. 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.480 You know, if my daughter is having a bad time, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:04.640 just kind of get her to slow down and take 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:06.000 a couple of good deep breaths. 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.720 Always a good thing to do. Yeah. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.520 And Emily, who you know, someone who has a lot 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.800 of anxieties in her life as a struggling small business owner. 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.440 We will do this thing where we have hug breathing, 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.000 where I will go up to her and we will 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.240 have a good tight bear hug embrace and will breathe 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:29.120 in together, and it sort of like doubles the power 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:29.400 of it. 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:31.880 Wow, that's neat, Chuck, Is that your own? Did you 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:32.520 come up with that? 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:33.240 Yeah? 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:35.240 I mean I'm sure, I mean I didn't get it 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:37.080 from anywhere, but I'm sure I didn't invent that. 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:43.200 It sounds like a Viking mindfulness. 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:43.160 Like Hell's Angels. 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.800 Sure, Yeah, that's the Hell's Angels technique you came up with. 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:50.120 You can call it whatever you want. It's your invention. 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:50.680 It's a good one. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:54.280 Yeah, there's something about breathing together that close physically. It's 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:55.040 pretty powerful. 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:59.440 So if you went back a few hundred years, a 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.320 couple hundred years even, and you spoke to any Buddhists 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.160 around the world and said, hey, how often do you 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.920 do mindfulness meditation? They would look at you like they 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:10.960 had no idea what you were talking about. And if 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.760 you said, you know, sati, they'd say, oh, that's not 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:15.880 for us, that's for like the monks and the nuns 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.920 up in the caves in the mountains, Like, we don't 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.240 do that kind of stuff where we're super Buddhists. We 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.480 care about morality and we worship local deities and all 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.440 that stuff. But that's that's kind of advanced. That's more 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.120 than the average Buddhist does. And it wasn't until I 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.280 think the late nineteenth century in Burma that that was 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:39.040 finally kind of broken up and meditation and mindfulness together 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.240 were kind of introduced for the first time to like 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.960 lay Buddhists, like just the normal, everyday, average Buddhists living 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:46.560 their life. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:48.760 Yeah, this is pretty cool, Like, I know, we love 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.760 it when we can kind of pinpoint when things happen 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.520 or when things change, and this is one of them. 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.760 On November twenty eighth and eighteen eighty five, this is 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:02.840 when the British Imperial Army conquered Burma and said, King, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.000 we're gonna mispronounce some of these Thibal Maybe I think 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.639 that's right, you're out of here. And that king was 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:16.520 promoting mindfulness and promoting Buddhist institutions throughout the nation. The Brits, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:18.040 of course, said now we're not going to. 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:18.640 Really do that. 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.639 So it fell to the lay people to get organized, 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:25.760 to find new places to meet, to find their own 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.400 you know, gathering grounds, and a lot of times these 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.359 were monasteries and it would go through monks, but they 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.840 would it basically went to them to kind of figure 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.760 it out because it wasn't I don't want to say 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.560 state sponsored, but it kind of state sponsored. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:42.120 Yeah, or state supported or something like that. 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:42.639 Yeah. 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.399 Yeah. But so rather than being like, oh, well, I 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.359 don't know who, I guess we're not Buddhists anymore, they 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.159 took it by the horns and like they did something 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.000 with it. But one of the outcroppings of that was 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.200 that like these monks who used to just go meditate 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.600 out in the like in the mountains or the hills 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:02.720 or in the woods. Now had audiences of like everyday 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.280 people who were practicing Buddhists that they were teaching this 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:08.280 stuff too, And it was it was one of these guys, 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:13.040 Letty Sayadao, who was a Buddhist monk, who said, you 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.880 know what, this isn't just for us, this is for everybody. 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:21.640 And closely in Letty Sayadow's footsteps came Minga and Sayao 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.400 s a yaw say yao. I think that's right, and 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:31.840 that monk was the first one to actually teach mindfulness 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:36.040 and meditation to regular people, I think around nineteen eleven. 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:38.119 Yeah, I mean it's cool stuff. 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:41.480 Like I love the idea that Letty Sayadal kind of 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.679 put forth, which was you don't have to go to 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.120 a monastery, even like we've set these up for you 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:47.280 and you can. 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:48.960 You don't have to retreat to a cave. 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.000 You don't have to you don't even have to go 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.280 into a deep meditative state or anything like. Just momentary 0:18:56.200 --> 0:18:59.399 bits of mindfulness are very helpful, right, and that's a 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.080 good way to reach each regular lay people. And I 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.280 think through practice is when Sayel came along and said, hey, 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:08.320 that all sounds great, and buddy, I'm going to teach 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:09.240 it right. 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:14.320 So the people in what is now Miamar are the 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:19.040 ones who kind of broke out, broke mindfulness of meditation 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:24.200 out of its little slumber sure cage or something like that, 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.680 and democratized it a little bit. But it was as 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:29.719 far as the people in the West are concerned, it 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.920 was the Japanese in their development of Zen Buddhism that 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.480 we have to thank because this is you can pretty 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.879 much trace a direct line between the mindfulness and the 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:43.760 meditation and the approach to Buddhism in the West today 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:49.760 back to the twentieth century Japan and specifically a guy 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:56.320 named die Setsu Tei Taro dt Suzuki. So dt Suzuki 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.879 was kind of a what's called a Buddhist modernist thinker 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.720 who said, there's different things we can do with this, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:05.960 but let's approach us a little more rationally, a little 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.399 less dogmatically, and open it up to people like our 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.560 friends and what's soon to be me and mar and 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.480 not only that, let's start relating to the West a 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.440 little more. And dt Suzuki actually kind of carried this message, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:24.080 this idea of Zen Buddhism with him over to America 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.800 in Europe and it just started to catch on like wildfire. 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:27.800 Yeah. 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:29.960 I think it's really interesting too that it was another 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.240 act of war that led to you know, that helped 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.760 give rise to someone like Suzuki, just like when the 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.919 Brits overthrow Burma. When the US Navy attacked Tokyo Harbor 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.760 in eighteen fifty three, though was you know, basically Japan 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:47.840 was like, you know, we got we got to start 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:49.880 relating to the West a little bit more and sort 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.720 of modernize, and this was known as the Meiji Restoration. 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.479 And part of that was saying, hey, Shinto is going 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:00.880 to be our religion, our main religion, and not Buddhism, 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.000 which led the Buddhists to say, hey, maybe we should 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.800 modernize our religion as well, to you know, so we 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:08.960 don't get left by the wayside, and that gave rise 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:10.080 to someone like DT. 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:14.760 Suzuki, Right. So it was from that modernization that Buddhist 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:18.880 modernism came about, and it's basically what you would recognize 0:21:18.920 --> 0:21:24.760 as Buddhism today, like very thoughtful, very interior dwelling, the 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.280 idea that the universe is all connected. All these were 0:21:27.320 --> 0:21:30.720 like Buddhist thoughts before, but it was it was Buddhism 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:35.000 allowing itself to be influenced by Modernism and by other 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.119 groups like the Romantics and the Transcendentalists, right. 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:40.880 So they jumped on a big time. It was pretty 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:44.480 It was like a confluence of perfect timing as far 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.120 as coming to the United States and like the counterculture 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:47.720 ready for this. 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.480 But in a weird way, it was like the United States, 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.040 unbeknownst to the counterculture Beats and then later the Hippies, 0:21:55.040 --> 0:22:00.560 that their predecessors, like the Transcendentalists, had pre influenced what 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:03.600 was coming back to them. So it was already in 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.960 a very palatable form for Americans who were open to 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.080 the idea of like mind expansion and taking acid and 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.560 you know, and meditating and were just open to the 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.080 ideas of other cultures of becoming like more in tune 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:20.000 with the universe. It was they were just waiting for it, 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.879 and it came to them in the in the briefcase 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:27.359 I guess of DT Suzuki and it just kind of 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.360 took off from there. So the idea everything we understand 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:33.359 about mindfulness and meditation you can trace back to like 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:35.440 DT Suzuki in those beats. 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:40.000 Absolutely, And there were three people in particular in the 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:44.400 seventies and sixties and seventies practicing this, Joseph Goldstein, Jack 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:49.320 Cornfield and Sharon Salzberg who were not together but they 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:53.080 studied separately meditation in Burma, and then the mid seventies 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:58.040 founded the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts, which became sort 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:03.119 of the center of the uh VI Pasana meditation movement 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:05.120 here in the United States. And they're they're still around, 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:06.240 they're still doing their thing. 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:10.919 Right, So it was from that same group. There was 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:14.600 actually a time where John cabot Z in the guy 0:23:14.880 --> 0:23:16.320 we mentioned earlier. 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.680 Z I by the way, not that would be too 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:20.359 far on the nose. 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.840 Oh wait, what if his name was spelled z E 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:27.679 n Oh, I got. 0:23:27.600 --> 0:23:33.640 You, boy. I was not the current experience very well, 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:35.240 I'm sorry, Oh that's okay. 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.600 That'd be like a boxer being named boxer. Yeah, it 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:40.960 would be differently, right. 0:23:41.520 --> 0:23:43.800 I was for some reason, I was going more toward 0:23:43.920 --> 0:23:46.560 the cabernet Zen play on. 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:48.320 Well because you're eyes in there. 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:53.399 Yeah. So he's known as the godfather of modern mindfulness 0:23:53.480 --> 0:23:56.720 according to The Guardian at least, which is a pretty 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.520 legit newspaper. And by the way, they thank you also 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:02.639 to Olivia for helping us out with this one. Chuck 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:06.000 one to wrangle very great, Josh, she did, she did. 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.200 But John cabot Zen was among those people Jack Cornfield, 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:14.320 great name, Sharon Salzburg, and Jason Joseph Goldstein. He actually 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.639 taught at their Insight Meditation Society, and he was a 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:22.480 big time practitioner of Zen Buddhism and he had he 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:25.840 was on like a I guess a meditation retreat and 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:28.800 he had a bit of insight well, I guess an 0:24:28.800 --> 0:24:31.399 epiphany is probably what you'd call it. That he was 0:24:31.480 --> 0:24:36.520 meant to help apply Buddhist techniques to help people who 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:39.840 are in pain. He had either a microbiology or molecular 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:43.440 biology degree and he ended up applying it to medicine 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:47.879 and figuring out how to join Buddhist practices and medicine 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:52.040 to help people in the seventies and it really started 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:53.120 to take off from there. 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:54.359 Yeah. 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:56.440 I mean, he sort of had the same idea as 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:01.359 previous cultures, which was, hey, if we want to and 0:25:01.400 --> 0:25:03.879 not sell for money, but if we want to popularize this, 0:25:04.600 --> 0:25:07.960 we should get a little bit away from the religion part, 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:10.879 the sort of hippie dippy New Age part, and he 0:25:10.960 --> 0:25:14.640 really wanted to start talking in concrete terms about things 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:17.240 that everyone worried about, which was stress, and like, if 0:25:17.280 --> 0:25:21.600 you want to make your life less stressful, here's a 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:23.880 way to do it, and more on mindfulness and less 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:28.600 on meditation, which was still a tough sell to mainstream 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:30.160 America and still is today. 0:25:30.200 --> 0:25:32.879 I think, yeah, but it's gotten less and less. I 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:39.280 feel like he finally overcame the threshold that was, you know, 0:25:39.600 --> 0:25:43.040 keeping it back in the last like five ten years, 0:25:43.119 --> 0:25:45.080 and achieved what he was looking for. I mean, think 0:25:45.119 --> 0:25:50.760 about mindfulness is everywhere today and it is almost totally 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:54.480 divorced from any kind of religious connotations. It seems like 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:57.120 a neuroscience tool more than anything, the way that it's 0:25:57.119 --> 0:26:00.600 totally did in the West, and that was his goal. 0:26:01.240 --> 0:26:04.800 He was trying to get it to the most people possible, 0:26:05.720 --> 0:26:09.320 study it scientifically, and then apply it to help people. 0:26:09.560 --> 0:26:12.919 And specifically again, he was initially looking at how it 0:26:12.960 --> 0:26:17.119 can help people with pain, and he came up with 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:22.160 mindfulness based stress Reduction MBSR, which is still very much 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:24.719 in use today. And then there was an offshoot too, 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:31.600 Chuck Mindfulness based cognitive therapy, and that takes CBT, which 0:26:31.640 --> 0:26:36.280 is a proven type of talk therapy used extensively in 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:42.040 psychology and applies John cabot Zin's approach to mindfulness to it, right. 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:46.840 Yeah, And I think one of the big tenets here 0:26:46.960 --> 0:26:50.800 is to interrupt automatic thoughts, right, And the automatic thoughts 0:26:50.800 --> 0:26:54.920 that can lead to an automatic behavior. So the automatic 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:58.520 thought might just be your propensity to feel that stress 0:26:58.640 --> 0:27:02.879 and reach for drink immediately and not even think like, 0:27:02.960 --> 0:27:04.719 oh boy, I need a drink because I'm stressed out 0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:07.719 and that'll help out. It becomes this automatic thing. And 0:27:08.160 --> 0:27:10.520 he was all about and the practice of mindfulness is 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:15.040 all about disruption and disrupting that flow without judgment. 0:27:15.400 --> 0:27:18.200 Yeah, Because one of the big things in cognitive behavioral 0:27:18.240 --> 0:27:21.480 therapy is that you have a thought, your thought leads 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:23.960 to a feeling, and your feeling leads to a behavior. 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:26.560 And oftentimes it's, like you said, it's very destructive and 0:27:26.600 --> 0:27:30.720 you don't even realize it's going on until your life 0:27:30.760 --> 0:27:33.159 is kind of falling apart or it's certainly not as 0:27:33.200 --> 0:27:34.879 good as it could be. And it doesn't even have 0:27:34.920 --> 0:27:37.000 to be a drink. It could be a donut, it 0:27:37.040 --> 0:27:42.359 could be yelling at a cashier at a grocery store, 0:27:42.600 --> 0:27:44.960 like all sorts of different things, and you are totally 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:48.760 out of control of it. The idea behind this mindfulness, 0:27:48.920 --> 0:27:52.880 adding mindfulness to cognitive behavioral therapy is that you are 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:58.040 training yourself to detach yourself from all thoughts and emotions 0:27:58.040 --> 0:28:00.680 so that you can evaluate them clearly, so that none 0:28:00.720 --> 0:28:03.200 of them can jump out of nowhere pounce on you, 0:28:03.520 --> 0:28:05.359 and the next thing you know, you've eaten a dozen 0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:07.919 donuts and had six s gotches and you have no 0:28:08.000 --> 0:28:10.760 idea why. You do have the idea why, and you 0:28:10.840 --> 0:28:13.439 probably haven't gotten to that point because you've stopped the 0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:17.719 whole process by recognizing it the moment it began ideally, 0:28:18.160 --> 0:28:23.680 theoretically on paper. That's the purpose of using mindfulness to help, 0:28:23.800 --> 0:28:25.680 especially with mental health. 0:28:26.480 --> 0:28:30.200 Yeah, there's a journalist named Robert Wright, and he kind 0:28:30.200 --> 0:28:31.600 of put it in a way that I kind of like, 0:28:31.680 --> 0:28:35.160 which was to think of your thoughts and emotions as transient. 0:28:35.960 --> 0:28:38.480 So it's not like that kind of goes back to 0:28:38.520 --> 0:28:41.760 the no judgment thing. You can have these bad feelings 0:28:41.840 --> 0:28:45.520 and bad emotions and bad tendencies, but if you allow, 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:47.520 if you allow them to just flow through you, they 0:28:47.600 --> 0:28:52.400 become transient. They don't stick around the same sort of 0:28:52.440 --> 0:28:56.280 ideas that you can't why worry about things that you 0:28:56.320 --> 0:28:57.040 can't control? 0:28:57.840 --> 0:28:58.480 But not in. 0:28:58.480 --> 0:29:03.479 A an office poster kind of way, you know what 0:29:03.480 --> 0:29:07.040 I mean. Sure it runs a bit deeper than that. 0:29:08.400 --> 0:29:09.760 It's not like a Pollyanna thing. 0:29:10.200 --> 0:29:11.760 No, And as a matter of fact, like if you 0:29:11.800 --> 0:29:13.440 want to trace it all the way back to its 0:29:13.480 --> 0:29:17.240 original Buddhist roots, it's that like, we have very little, 0:29:17.280 --> 0:29:21.840 if any control over life, and that recognizing that will 0:29:21.880 --> 0:29:25.360 free us from all of our desires and the idea 0:29:25.440 --> 0:29:27.120 that like we have to have things that we want 0:29:27.120 --> 0:29:29.080 to hang on to. It like it just lets you 0:29:29.200 --> 0:29:32.880 let things flow by and you can enjoy them and 0:29:33.000 --> 0:29:35.719 experience them as they come. Rather than hoping for the 0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:40.400 next one, needing the next doughnut, or fearing the next loss. 0:29:41.480 --> 0:29:44.560 You just experience life as it comes. It's kind of 0:29:44.600 --> 0:29:48.080 the point of that of understanding that everything is transient 0:29:48.120 --> 0:29:51.800 and impermanent, including your own your own life, Like you're 0:29:51.800 --> 0:29:55.120 going to die one day. There's ultimately the big like 0:29:55.440 --> 0:30:01.160 you know, like bingo number, Yeah, Like that's ultimate is 0:30:01.320 --> 0:30:04.280 you're going to die. You you yourself are impermanent and 0:30:04.320 --> 0:30:08.960 so understanding that through getting there through meditation. Daily meditative 0:30:09.000 --> 0:30:11.680 practice is kind of the goal. 0:30:12.600 --> 0:30:16.760 Yeah, and it's interesting they found that it's even though 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:20.000 something like MBSR is more rooted in that sort of 0:30:20.040 --> 0:30:25.480 neuroscience y thing and not spirituality or religion, they found 0:30:25.560 --> 0:30:27.560 it's sort of a chicken in the egg deal where 0:30:27.840 --> 0:30:32.120 once you do participate in MBSR, you may become more 0:30:32.160 --> 0:30:34.600 spiritual as a result, even though you weren't going in. 0:30:35.240 --> 0:30:37.480 But I think the reason why is because even if 0:30:37.480 --> 0:30:39.480 these people don't know it, even if they're at a 0:30:39.600 --> 0:30:46.280 corporate mindfulness retreat, they're engaging in a deeply spiritual practice. 0:30:46.800 --> 0:30:49.360 That that it's they're kind of doing it wrong is 0:30:49.400 --> 0:30:52.320 we'll see, But there's still it's still, you know, part 0:30:52.320 --> 0:30:55.680 of this very long established tradition that's that actually has 0:30:55.800 --> 0:30:59.320 like legs. It's not it's not mumbo jumbo like. It 0:30:59.360 --> 0:31:03.800 actually has pronounced effect on the human brain, the human psyche, 0:31:03.920 --> 0:31:07.600 the outlook that we have on life. And so depending 0:31:07.640 --> 0:31:09.440 on the context, you're doing it, and it can be 0:31:09.560 --> 0:31:12.160 very useful, it can be harmful, or it can be 0:31:12.240 --> 0:31:15.160 totally useless in some cases too. But it is a 0:31:15.200 --> 0:31:17.440 spiritual act. So it makes sense that it would make 0:31:17.480 --> 0:31:19.440 you more interested in spirituality. 0:31:20.520 --> 0:31:23.640 Well, I say we take our second break, if that's good. 0:31:24.720 --> 0:31:27.160 And because we're stuff, you should know, we have to 0:31:27.200 --> 0:31:29.880 talk about whether or not this works and if there 0:31:29.880 --> 0:31:32.520 have been studies that tell us one way or the other. 0:31:32.640 --> 0:31:58.200 So we'll get into that right after this. All right. 0:31:58.280 --> 0:32:01.320 It's fun to sit around and talk about mindfulness, So fun, 0:32:01.720 --> 0:32:06.080 and to just sort of zen out and lose ourselves, 0:32:07.120 --> 0:32:09.360 become one with each other through these headphones. 0:32:09.680 --> 0:32:13.440 Yeah, man, you sound like Rory cochrane and days. 0:32:13.160 --> 0:32:15.800 And confused, Marthan new Man. 0:32:16.000 --> 0:32:16.800 What was his name? 0:32:17.360 --> 0:32:18.560 Oh Slater? 0:32:19.280 --> 0:32:23.440 Was he Slater? Maybe you give me drugs man, Yeah, 0:32:23.480 --> 0:32:26.720 it's later. You're right, get some from your mother. Man. 0:32:28.640 --> 0:32:29.080 It's funny. 0:32:29.120 --> 0:32:31.040 I've seen him and he's been in a bunch of 0:32:31.040 --> 0:32:34.000 stuff since then. It's always impossible to see him as 0:32:34.000 --> 0:32:35.120 anyone other than Slater. 0:32:35.280 --> 0:32:38.160 I mean, have you he was on CSI Miami. I 0:32:38.200 --> 0:32:40.160 think for years and years and years. 0:32:40.000 --> 0:32:41.680 You're just waiting for her whip out of Dubie. 0:32:41.800 --> 0:32:44.160 Yes, and he's all clean cut and everything and just 0:32:44.360 --> 0:32:46.760 still can't not see it. I totally agree with. 0:32:46.720 --> 0:32:51.280 He's not fooling anybody, all right? So does this stuff work. 0:32:51.440 --> 0:32:54.240 There have been plenty of studies, of course, and there 0:32:54.320 --> 0:32:58.920 is a lot of evidence that mindfulness programs can help 0:32:58.960 --> 0:33:03.080 people through emotional problems, through mental problems. They've done control 0:33:03.160 --> 0:33:07.800 trials of MBSR programs and clinical settings and non clinical settings, 0:33:08.240 --> 0:33:11.360 and they generally found that they do. And this is 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:15.840 self reported stuff obviously, but they reduce self reported anxiety, depression, 0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:20.280 and stress and increase well being as opposed to people 0:33:20.320 --> 0:33:22.360 who've got no treatment at all. 0:33:22.480 --> 0:33:25.440 Yeah, so yes, I mean it does seem to be effective. 0:33:26.520 --> 0:33:30.480 There's also, especially with self reporting, Chuck, that seems to 0:33:30.480 --> 0:33:32.760 be like the big one that if you look at 0:33:32.800 --> 0:33:35.800 studies where they're using self reporting, like it has the 0:33:35.800 --> 0:33:40.600 most pronounced effect. Objective tests there does seem to register 0:33:40.760 --> 0:33:44.520 some sort of effect like on the objective experience of 0:33:44.560 --> 0:33:48.520 say like pain or something like that. But social psychology 0:33:48.560 --> 0:33:50.200 has jumped all over this. It's like we're going to 0:33:50.240 --> 0:33:54.480 study this. And there's this one study from twenty twenty 0:33:54.520 --> 0:33:56.840 one which I have to give a hat tip to 0:33:56.960 --> 0:34:00.560 Umi because she turned this one up. But it was 0:34:00.600 --> 0:34:04.520 a study of white people who some of whom received 0:34:04.920 --> 0:34:11.240 mindfulness training and a control group who received sham mindfulness training, 0:34:11.280 --> 0:34:14.520 which is hilarious, and the effect that it had on 0:34:14.600 --> 0:34:17.640 their willingness to help black people that they saw who 0:34:17.640 --> 0:34:20.840 they saw in need and not like you need, like 0:34:20.960 --> 0:34:23.600 you know, homeless or something like that. Like they would 0:34:23.600 --> 0:34:26.680 be they would be subjected to a test unwittingly where 0:34:26.680 --> 0:34:28.600 they'd be in a room and like a black person 0:34:28.640 --> 0:34:31.600 would come in and like drop their papers, and their 0:34:31.640 --> 0:34:34.239 willingness to help that person pick up the papers, or 0:34:34.400 --> 0:34:36.200 if a black person entered the room and they were 0:34:36.239 --> 0:34:38.480 on crutches, their willingness to give up their seat. And 0:34:38.480 --> 0:34:41.919 apparently black people tend to help black people more, White 0:34:41.920 --> 0:34:44.040 people tend to help white people more, or spanning people 0:34:44.120 --> 0:34:46.880 tend to help Hispanic people more. They people help their 0:34:46.960 --> 0:34:51.000 in group more. But this mindfulness group actually kind of 0:34:51.120 --> 0:34:54.560 crossed lines way more than was expected. 0:34:54.160 --> 0:34:57.439 Right, Yeah, I mean I think that kind of says 0:34:57.440 --> 0:35:00.279 it all. You do help your in group more, But 0:35:00.719 --> 0:35:05.040 the people that received the real mindfulness training were definitely 0:35:05.280 --> 0:35:07.359 far and away more willing to step outside their end 0:35:07.360 --> 0:35:09.319 group and help someone of another race. 0:35:10.239 --> 0:35:11.360 Yeah, you know they're. 0:35:11.160 --> 0:35:12.680 Going to be said for that, Yeah, And I mean 0:35:12.719 --> 0:35:17.000 it was significant. Three times more is really significant statistically 0:35:17.000 --> 0:35:19.120 speaking for a study and it seems like it was 0:35:19.120 --> 0:35:21.040 a pretty good study. Like the fact that they had 0:35:21.640 --> 0:35:26.960 sham mindfulness training ruled out the possibility that the group 0:35:27.000 --> 0:35:29.840 that got mindfulness training was behaving a certain way because 0:35:29.840 --> 0:35:32.360 they they thought like that's what was going to be 0:35:32.440 --> 0:35:36.200 the result of it, almost like a placebo effect. So 0:35:36.280 --> 0:35:39.440 the group that received sham training thought they were getting 0:35:39.480 --> 0:35:40.240 mindfulness training. 0:35:40.239 --> 0:35:40.960 What they like? 0:35:41.000 --> 0:35:42.400 They still that's what I want to know. 0:35:42.680 --> 0:35:45.400 I would love to know what sham mindfulness is. Right. 0:35:45.520 --> 0:35:50.400 It's like breathing, really concentrate on all the anger, really 0:35:50.440 --> 0:35:52.200 feel it. 0:35:52.320 --> 0:35:55.080 They or they'd let them in like a lama's breathing 0:35:55.080 --> 0:35:58.640 where they're like, I don't think that's right. 0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:01.120 That doesn't feel right, started to float away. 0:36:02.239 --> 0:36:04.520 It's really funny, And shout out to cal State San 0:36:04.560 --> 0:36:07.799 Marcos and Professor Daniel Berry and I guess you. 0:36:07.800 --> 0:36:08.480 Me for all that. 0:36:08.640 --> 0:36:13.239 Yeah, sure, the trifecta, Yeah sure, what's a cal State 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:18.719 San Marcos's mascot? Geez, I'm gonna bet five dollars on 0:36:18.880 --> 0:36:19.640 the Lobos. 0:36:20.680 --> 0:36:21.319 That sounds good. 0:36:21.400 --> 0:36:24.920 Okay, let's go with that, all right, Los Lobos even. 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:27.799 Yeah, that's the the banless Lobos is their. 0:36:27.719 --> 0:36:34.480 Mak and not coincidentally, they're halftime entertainment as well. 0:36:35.239 --> 0:36:39.400 But we do need to say that there's another school 0:36:39.400 --> 0:36:42.320 of thought, and it's not a competing school of thought, 0:36:42.320 --> 0:36:46.080 it's just a hey, be aware that it's not always 0:36:46.120 --> 0:36:49.480 great for everyone. They there's this one article you sent 0:36:49.520 --> 0:36:53.080 about people that experience trauma in their lives, that have 0:36:53.120 --> 0:36:55.560 buried it and it sits in their body as unconscious 0:36:55.600 --> 0:37:00.600 trauma that mindfulness practices and meditation practices can dredge that 0:37:00.640 --> 0:37:03.160 stuff up. Yeah, And so they found that when these 0:37:03.200 --> 0:37:06.040 people they're studying them and they're doing these mindfulness practice 0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:10.680 they're experiencing like rage and anxiety, and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. 0:37:10.719 --> 0:37:12.520 This is the opposite of where we're supposed to be 0:37:12.600 --> 0:37:15.239 edded here. And I think they had figured out in 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:17.799 a lot of these cases it's people that are uncovering 0:37:17.840 --> 0:37:18.840 these bary traumas. 0:37:19.320 --> 0:37:22.719 Yeah, and here's where we reach like the first initial 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:25.680 part where the West has kind of screwed this up, 0:37:26.360 --> 0:37:30.719 because it is unexpected when somebody in America goes to 0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:33.880 a meditation retreat and tries to become more mindful and 0:37:33.880 --> 0:37:37.319 they're confronted with trauma or they're confronted with rage or 0:37:37.360 --> 0:37:40.120 self hatred or something like that, and they're not expecting it. 0:37:40.680 --> 0:37:42.960 If you went and talked to like an actual like 0:37:43.040 --> 0:37:45.759 Buddhist monk, they'd be like, well, somebody probably should have 0:37:45.800 --> 0:37:48.520 told you that that's a real possibility, right that you're 0:37:48.560 --> 0:37:50.520 not This isn't all. This isn't like you know, it's 0:37:50.560 --> 0:37:53.680 like an acid trip. It's not always like flowers and sunshine. 0:37:54.040 --> 0:37:57.080 Sometimes it's like the darkest thing you'll ever be confronted with. 0:37:57.239 --> 0:38:00.920 Kind of thing, same thing. The good thing about mindfulness 0:38:00.960 --> 0:38:04.719 meditation is that you can stop immediately, but it supposedly 0:38:04.880 --> 0:38:08.080 in some retreats, in some situations they're like, no, you 0:38:08.120 --> 0:38:10.239 got to press through. You got to press through. And 0:38:10.320 --> 0:38:14.280 people are kind of enticed or forced into staying in 0:38:14.760 --> 0:38:20.400 really uncomfortable trauma experiences way beyond their comfort zone. And 0:38:20.440 --> 0:38:23.680 it can actually be damaging. And it's very rare from 0:38:23.719 --> 0:38:27.920 what I can tell, for there be to like lasting harm, 0:38:27.960 --> 0:38:30.920 but there are reports of people having to go to 0:38:31.000 --> 0:38:34.560 therapy for years after having gone on basically a bad 0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:38.560 trip at a meditation retreat for years years of therapy, 0:38:39.560 --> 0:38:43.719 so it can happen. And I guess, like I think, Chuck, 0:38:43.760 --> 0:38:46.319 there's a twenty nineteen study that found like twenty to 0:38:46.360 --> 0:38:52.120 twenty five percent of people who meditate reported experiencing unwanted effects, right, 0:38:52.360 --> 0:38:55.960 like negative effects that they were not planning for. And 0:38:56.080 --> 0:38:59.719 that's that's the big problem. There's no there's nowhere, very 0:38:59.760 --> 0:39:02.960 little warnings about this stuff. It's all treated in a 0:39:03.040 --> 0:39:07.440 very pollyannish naive manner, as if like you know, America 0:39:07.440 --> 0:39:11.120 in Europe got its hands on unlike the the Secret 0:39:11.239 --> 0:39:13.880 the Cube from Hell Raiser is just like, this is awesome, 0:39:13.960 --> 0:39:16.879 Let's figure out how to be more productive using this thing. 0:39:17.120 --> 0:39:18.400 That's kind of what's going on. 0:39:19.080 --> 0:39:21.359 Yeah, And I think another thing that can happen is 0:39:22.960 --> 0:39:25.799 it can lead to a spiral of anxiety if you're 0:39:25.840 --> 0:39:28.399 not able to get to that place that you think 0:39:28.440 --> 0:39:31.000 you should be getting to by practicing it. Yeah, So 0:39:31.040 --> 0:39:34.520 it becomes like this cycle where you know you're thinking, like, well, 0:39:34.520 --> 0:39:36.840 I'm practicing this meditation doesn't seem to be doing anything 0:39:36.840 --> 0:39:39.600 for me. Why can I not even do this right? 0:39:39.640 --> 0:39:42.400 And all of a sudden, that is building upon itself 0:39:42.400 --> 0:39:45.400 and creating anxieties because you feel like you're supposed to 0:39:45.440 --> 0:39:49.480 reach this sort of moment of like floating bliss that 0:39:49.719 --> 0:39:52.640 is I mean that's really hard to maintain. Yes, yeah, 0:39:52.840 --> 0:39:54.760 I mean not maintained, but like even touch. 0:39:54.640 --> 0:39:57.440 Even reach sure, and it's been packaged like that, it's 0:39:57.440 --> 0:39:59.919 been marketed is something that you will just reach some flow, 0:40:00.120 --> 0:40:02.279 he blissed with, And yeah, I can totally see being 0:40:02.320 --> 0:40:04.760 stressed out because you don't reach it because it hasn't 0:40:04.760 --> 0:40:06.840 been explained to you even what you're doing. Right. So 0:40:07.719 --> 0:40:10.759 there's it's a good little short read. It's called Mindfulness, 0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:14.000 Meditation and Trauma, Proceed with caution. I found it on 0:40:14.080 --> 0:40:17.680 good therapy dot org. And it doesn't say like, don't 0:40:17.719 --> 0:40:20.240 do this even if you know your trauma, don't meditate, 0:40:20.320 --> 0:40:23.440 don't try to become mindful. It says some you know, 0:40:23.640 --> 0:40:26.160 make sure you find like a good coach, a good guide, 0:40:26.200 --> 0:40:29.000 a good teacher who understands how to deal with trauma 0:40:29.200 --> 0:40:31.319 and can prepare you for it and can pull you 0:40:31.400 --> 0:40:34.480 back and be like, don't forget life's actually good. You're good, 0:40:34.719 --> 0:40:36.799 and now let's try a little more and just kind of, 0:40:36.840 --> 0:40:39.600 little by little expose yourself to it rather than like 0:40:40.000 --> 0:40:42.000 you know, ripping your shirt off and standing in front 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:44.359 of like the baseball pitching machine. 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:47.920 Uh, there's when it comes to physical pain. That's a 0:40:48.160 --> 0:40:52.400 pretty interesting area as far as the studies have been concerned, 0:40:53.360 --> 0:40:56.200 Like the idea that can it out actually help reduce 0:40:56.760 --> 0:40:59.719 physical pain or at least the subjective experience of pain. 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:03.080 And you know, in some studies, in some cases, the 0:41:03.920 --> 0:41:08.400 people who practice meditation do report lower subjective experience of 0:41:08.440 --> 0:41:13.839 pain or what they call pain unpleasantness. So this might 0:41:13.880 --> 0:41:16.040 be a little bit of a mind over matter, Like 0:41:16.400 --> 0:41:19.360 the actual pain is still there, but I've gotten my 0:41:19.480 --> 0:41:22.799 mind to in such a place that the unpleasantness or 0:41:22.800 --> 0:41:26.080 the anticipation of that unpleasantness isn't as great as it 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:29.080 would be if I weren't able to practice that mindfulness. 0:41:29.239 --> 0:41:33.200 Yeah, which ties very closely into a Buddhist tenet of 0:41:33.280 --> 0:41:37.319 the first arrow of sufferings, which is where everyone has 0:41:37.360 --> 0:41:40.160 to experience that. Let's say you're bitten by an ant. 0:41:41.080 --> 0:41:43.520 It's not a very pleasant sensation, and everybody's going to 0:41:43.520 --> 0:41:46.840 experience it roughly the same. But there's also a second 0:41:46.960 --> 0:41:50.080 arrow where you can be worried about being bitten by 0:41:50.080 --> 0:41:52.479 an ant, and it makes the actually makes the first 0:41:52.560 --> 0:41:54.880 arrow ten times worse, not just twice as bad, but 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:58.080 ten times worse. And the idea is that if you're mindful, 0:41:58.800 --> 0:42:03.640 if you practice sati, you won't really experience the second arrow, 0:42:03.800 --> 0:42:05.799 just the first arrow. And that's the best you can 0:42:05.800 --> 0:42:06.800 hope for in this life. 0:42:07.640 --> 0:42:10.400 That's right, missage Troyusa. 0:42:12.000 --> 0:42:13.479 What that's from? 0:42:13.640 --> 0:42:14.080 Uh? 0:42:14.400 --> 0:42:16.520 I always just crack up when every time I think of 0:42:16.560 --> 0:42:18.960 an arrow hitting a human body, I only think of 0:42:19.000 --> 0:42:20.000 Monty Python. 0:42:21.239 --> 0:42:24.520 When that guy takes the aero message Troyusa as he's dying. 0:42:25.719 --> 0:42:28.120 There was one study, though, in twenty nineteen, a review 0:42:28.160 --> 0:42:31.720 of studies actually that found that NBSR can reduce severity 0:42:31.760 --> 0:42:36.719 of chronic pain or improve daily functioning and depression about 0:42:36.760 --> 0:42:39.640 like associated with that pain, which is you know, that's 0:42:40.000 --> 0:42:42.080 there's something to be said for that, Like I don't 0:42:42.080 --> 0:42:44.200 think it should only be looked at as some sort 0:42:44.239 --> 0:42:48.560 of hippie dippy thing like if you have real physical pain, 0:42:49.160 --> 0:42:50.760 it could possibly help. 0:42:51.360 --> 0:42:54.520 Yes, And yeah, for sure, I mean think that that's 0:42:54.600 --> 0:42:57.080 kind of like one of the outcomes of it being 0:42:57.160 --> 0:43:00.720 exposed to westernization is that it's being studied. It's actually 0:43:00.800 --> 0:43:02.480 holding up in studies. 0:43:03.040 --> 0:43:06.359 And boy is it being exposed Because if you work 0:43:06.840 --> 0:43:10.280 for a big corporation, if you especially work in Silicon Valley, 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:15.920 chances are there are mindfulness retreats, maybe mindfulness rooms in 0:43:16.000 --> 0:43:19.680 the offices where they say, hey, we know we work 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:21.360 you to death, and it's not fair. Why don't we 0:43:21.480 --> 0:43:25.440 set up this little room that used to be a 0:43:25.560 --> 0:43:30.080 room for you know, for your kids to come to work, 0:43:30.080 --> 0:43:32.680 but we don't let that happen anymore. Used to be 0:43:32.719 --> 0:43:34.400 the nursery. But we'll put you in here and you 0:43:34.440 --> 0:43:37.800 can zen out and be cool. And here's one of 0:43:37.800 --> 0:43:39.719 the criticisms. As long as you come back and you 0:43:39.760 --> 0:43:42.160 get all that work done, we think it's a great 0:43:42.200 --> 0:43:42.759 tool for you. 0:43:43.040 --> 0:43:46.840 Right exactly. And not just corporations, but the military is 0:43:46.960 --> 0:43:52.399 using mindfulness schools. Little kids are being taught mindfulness and 0:43:52.440 --> 0:43:58.960 to meditate prisons, and there's an enormous amount of like 0:43:59.080 --> 0:44:03.080 out just out there in the culture. It's gotten really popular. 0:44:03.160 --> 0:44:06.440 I guess in twenty twelve, just over four percent of 0:44:06.480 --> 0:44:10.760 Americans meditated. Five years later it was up to fourteen percent. 0:44:10.880 --> 0:44:13.680 That's a pretty big increase in just five years, and 0:44:13.760 --> 0:44:16.839 I would propose it's probably more than that now in 0:44:16.920 --> 0:44:23.560 twenty twenty two. So it's everywhere. But it's also really 0:44:23.680 --> 0:44:27.520 kind of lost its way, I guess once it hit 0:44:27.560 --> 0:44:33.640 America and corporate America in particular, mindfulness kind of got perverted, 0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:35.000 I think, is a way you could put it. 0:44:35.560 --> 0:44:39.399 Yeah, I mean that critique is really valid. It's great 0:44:39.400 --> 0:44:42.839 that a company might take mindfulness and the consideration as 0:44:42.880 --> 0:44:47.360 something beneficial for their employees, but to ignore the root cause, 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:50.239 which is you're working too many hours a week and 0:44:50.320 --> 0:44:52.920 you're overworked and you can't possibly get done what you 0:44:52.920 --> 0:44:55.680 should get done, and that's where this anxiety is rooted. 0:44:57.120 --> 0:44:59.719 Here's a mindfulness room so you can help correct all that. Like, 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:02.680 it totally puts the onus on the employee to sort 0:45:02.719 --> 0:45:07.200 of self adjust to what's probably way too much work, 0:45:07.320 --> 0:45:10.200 instead of saying, hey, maybe people wouldn't be in this 0:45:10.239 --> 0:45:13.560 position to begin with if they didn't have to work 0:45:13.600 --> 0:45:14.480 sixty hours in a. 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:18.080 Week, right, And the same thing goes for social movements 0:45:18.120 --> 0:45:20.680 as well. Like some people say, hey, you know how 0:45:20.719 --> 0:45:23.400 like a lot of us are mentally ill these days. 0:45:23.640 --> 0:45:27.080 That's because society is screwed up. So rather than putting 0:45:27.160 --> 0:45:29.800 the onus again on the individual person just kind of 0:45:29.840 --> 0:45:32.080 suck it up and deal with it in a mindful manner, 0:45:32.719 --> 0:45:36.040 why don't we focus instead on these social problems that 0:45:36.160 --> 0:45:39.680 are causing all of these other social problems, so what 0:45:39.760 --> 0:45:42.880 we don't have to do that? And those are really 0:45:44.000 --> 0:45:50.839 valid criticisms of westernized mindfulness in twenty twenties. And there's 0:45:50.840 --> 0:45:52.960 actually a term for it that a guy named Miles 0:45:53.000 --> 0:45:56.080 Kniel coined and another guy named Ronald Purser wrote a 0:45:56.080 --> 0:45:59.680 book using that name, It's perfect mic mindfulness. 0:46:00.480 --> 0:46:01.800 Yeah. I love that word. 0:46:01.920 --> 0:46:05.000 And they're basically saying like, hey, you guys have so 0:46:05.120 --> 0:46:10.000 completely detached this from ethics and morals and religion and 0:46:10.000 --> 0:46:13.160 and kind of co opted something that had its roots 0:46:13.160 --> 0:46:15.760 there that Yeah, you've you've there. 0:46:15.600 --> 0:46:17.600 Needs to be a term for that. You've mixed micked it. 0:46:18.320 --> 0:46:19.320 Yeah, you've. 0:46:20.640 --> 0:46:24.359 You've mixed screwed it, you miffed it, You've make miffed it. 0:46:25.520 --> 0:46:28.319 I like that, Uh, and that you know, you can't 0:46:28.440 --> 0:46:34.120 ignore the theological roots, uh and have it be the 0:46:34.320 --> 0:46:34.839 same thing. 0:46:35.239 --> 0:46:39.120 And hr reps across the country say, oh, yes we can, yes, 0:46:39.400 --> 0:46:42.560 and look what happens. We're really screwing people up. So 0:46:43.680 --> 0:46:46.759 there's a there's like a couple of quotes I found 0:46:46.760 --> 0:46:48.400 that I really feel like kind of get to the 0:46:48.440 --> 0:46:52.239 heart of what happened when mindfulness came over here and 0:46:52.280 --> 0:46:55.319 got got picked up by corporate America and the military 0:46:55.400 --> 0:46:58.880 and just other surprising groups and maybe put to not 0:46:59.000 --> 0:47:02.759 the best uses. There's a really good New York Times 0:47:02.840 --> 0:47:05.120 article from back in twenty fifteen that was kind of 0:47:05.120 --> 0:47:08.080 a meditation on the idea of mindfulness or the word 0:47:08.120 --> 0:47:13.279 mindfulness and what it means by Virginia Heffernan, and she 0:47:13.440 --> 0:47:18.279 says that what commercial mindfulness may have lost from the 0:47:18.280 --> 0:47:22.400 most rigorous Buddhist tenants that it replaced is the implication 0:47:22.840 --> 0:47:26.800 that suffering cannot be escaped but must be faced. And 0:47:26.880 --> 0:47:30.280 that's that mispackaging, that miss marketing that we talked about, 0:47:30.320 --> 0:47:32.640 That the idea that if you meditate your mindful it's 0:47:32.640 --> 0:47:34.480 going to free you from all your problems, make you 0:47:34.840 --> 0:47:38.160 less stressed and more productive and just happier. And that's 0:47:38.160 --> 0:47:41.000 not necessarily the case, because we in the West tend 0:47:41.000 --> 0:47:45.160 to really like to, like you said, avoid all of 0:47:45.200 --> 0:47:48.520 the stuff that really stinks and just get as much 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:51.040 of the stuff that we like, and that's not what 0:47:51.080 --> 0:47:51.799 that's meant for. 0:47:52.920 --> 0:47:56.279 Yeah, this I think is from the same article about 0:47:56.320 --> 0:48:00.360 mindful fracking. Could that be next? Putting in neuros science 0:48:00.400 --> 0:48:04.560 halo around a byword for both uppers productivity and downers 0:48:04.600 --> 0:48:07.600 relaxation to ensure a more compliant workforce in a more 0:48:07.600 --> 0:48:08.640 prosperous c suite. 0:48:09.480 --> 0:48:10.799 Right there it is. 0:48:11.280 --> 0:48:14.440 And there's another one too. The Dalai Lama apparently pointed 0:48:14.480 --> 0:48:17.440 out that even a suicide bomber would likely have to 0:48:17.480 --> 0:48:22.279 cultivate some sort of mindfulness. It's not inherently ethical. And 0:48:22.320 --> 0:48:25.359 if it's not inherently ethical, then that means that you 0:48:25.440 --> 0:48:30.400 could conceivably use it to nefarious ends. And the way 0:48:30.520 --> 0:48:34.160 that Buddhists for thousands of years kept it from being 0:48:34.280 --> 0:48:37.839 used to nefares ends is by encasing it in wholesomeness 0:48:38.120 --> 0:48:42.200 like mindfulness. Specifically, what's called right mindfulness by the Buddhists 0:48:42.560 --> 0:48:46.000 is it's a wholesome approach and separating wholesome thoughts from 0:48:46.120 --> 0:48:50.960 unwholesome thoughts. And if you just take the mindfulness practice 0:48:51.320 --> 0:48:55.239 out of that context, you have a problem. You want 0:48:55.239 --> 0:48:58.120 to read that quote from Andrew Olenski. 0:48:58.080 --> 0:49:02.319 True mindfulness is deeply an inextricably embedded in the notion 0:49:02.400 --> 0:49:05.080 of wholesomeness. Just as a tree removed from the forest 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:07.240 is no longer a tree but a piece of lumber, 0:49:07.640 --> 0:49:11.440 so also the carrying attentiveness of mindfulness extracted from its 0:49:11.560 --> 0:49:16.080 matrix of wholesome coorizing factors, denigrates into mere attention. 0:49:16.640 --> 0:49:20.080 Yeah, best attention. That's the best you can hope for. 0:49:20.200 --> 0:49:22.840 Is it just detegrates into mere attention and not something harmful, 0:49:22.920 --> 0:49:26.239 you know? So Yeah, I think it's great. I think 0:49:26.239 --> 0:49:28.480 it's wonderful that people want this and they're seeking it 0:49:28.520 --> 0:49:30.759 out and they're trying it. I think the people who 0:49:30.760 --> 0:49:34.080 are selling it to everybody need to just package it 0:49:34.200 --> 0:49:37.759 more transparently and explain the true purpose of it and 0:49:37.800 --> 0:49:39.520 stop using it for productivity. 0:49:40.680 --> 0:49:41.040 Agreed. 0:49:42.239 --> 0:49:47.320 If you want to know more about mindfulness, go research 0:49:47.360 --> 0:49:48.680 it and see if it's for you, and give it 0:49:48.719 --> 0:49:52.360 a shot, and go into it with right eyes, right vision. 0:49:52.440 --> 0:49:55.400 I can't remember. And since I said I can't remember, 0:49:55.480 --> 0:49:57.359 of course, that means it's time for the listener mail. 0:50:00.840 --> 0:50:04.160 I'm going to call this tribute to Ziggi Bombach from 0:50:04.200 --> 0:50:07.719 his son Michael. We got a great email that I've 0:50:07.760 --> 0:50:10.399 been conversing with Michael for the past couple of weeks 0:50:10.440 --> 0:50:14.279 on this good dude and his dad was a good dude. Hey, guys, 0:50:14.440 --> 0:50:17.839 longtime listener recently lost. My father had had been going 0:50:17.840 --> 0:50:20.239 through a great deal of grief. My dad was at 0:50:20.320 --> 0:50:24.000 high risk for catching COVID, so I made sure it 0:50:24.040 --> 0:50:26.160 was my priority to keep him safe and since being 0:50:26.200 --> 0:50:29.200 social wasn't an option over the past couple of years, 0:50:29.239 --> 0:50:31.880 we turned to nature during the pandemic and rekindled our 0:50:31.880 --> 0:50:34.920 love for the great outdoors, though he never had to 0:50:34.920 --> 0:50:38.160 rekindle his. He was born in Poland and immigrated to 0:50:38.200 --> 0:50:40.720 the States in the sixties and was only ever comfortable 0:50:40.760 --> 0:50:42.840 in his gardener in the woods. He was a simple 0:50:42.880 --> 0:50:46.200 but passionate man. So we started driving out to western 0:50:46.239 --> 0:50:48.960 north New Jersey to Stokes for Est to get spring 0:50:49.040 --> 0:50:52.640 water and go fishing. It's a gorgeous part of the state. 0:50:52.719 --> 0:50:55.640 It was about fifty minutes each way. Perfect to introduce 0:50:55.719 --> 0:50:58.480 him to my favorite podcast, Stuff you should Know. Even 0:50:58.520 --> 0:50:59.879 though I had to describe to him what a pot 0:51:00.120 --> 0:51:03.799 cast was, he was instantly enthralled, and I can still 0:51:03.840 --> 0:51:06.560 hear him quietly asking in the car, if Chuck and 0:51:06.600 --> 0:51:10.920 Josh we're going to be broadcasting today, it's just adorable. 0:51:11.680 --> 0:51:12.840 Like me, He adored your. 0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:16.920 Ability to convey something complex and tough information, such as 0:51:16.920 --> 0:51:18.560 sweetened conversational way. 0:51:18.560 --> 0:51:20.080 He would always come home and. 0:51:20.080 --> 0:51:22.239 Tell my mom what he had learned was so much 0:51:22.239 --> 0:51:24.319 isolation the past few years. It was warming to hear 0:51:24.400 --> 0:51:27.320 him happy about all these new subjects that he was 0:51:27.400 --> 0:51:29.799 learning about. You gave him that happiness and made his 0:51:29.840 --> 0:51:31.640 life that much better of the last couple of years 0:51:31.640 --> 0:51:34.440 of his life. I can't thank you enough for everything 0:51:34.480 --> 0:51:36.759 that you continue to do. There's so much bad in 0:51:36.760 --> 0:51:39.440 this world right now, and people are hardly operating at 0:51:39.440 --> 0:51:42.680 their best, but you continue to do something worthwhile and 0:51:42.719 --> 0:51:46.439 worth making, something worth learning. So thank you for making 0:51:46.440 --> 0:51:48.640 the life of Ziggy bomb Bach a little brighter towards 0:51:48.640 --> 0:51:49.000 his end. 0:51:49.480 --> 0:51:50.840 And that is from. 0:51:50.680 --> 0:51:53.239 Mike, and he sent me a picture of Ziggy and 0:51:53.440 --> 0:51:56.280 I read the obituary. I looked it up and Ziggy 0:51:56.280 --> 0:51:59.320 seemed like a great, great guy. And I had to 0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:02.720 zen out to reading this so I wouldn't cry. 0:52:02.680 --> 0:52:04.160 Ye have cried every time. 0:52:04.320 --> 0:52:07.799 That's a really amazing email. Thank you so much. It's 0:52:07.800 --> 0:52:10.960 impossible to not past judgment on that one. I'm going 0:52:11.000 --> 0:52:12.920 to say, I feel very proud, Chuck. 0:52:13.080 --> 0:52:16.640 That's right in this case, great judgment and ri Ip 0:52:16.760 --> 0:52:17.919 Ziggy sound like a great guy. 0:52:18.080 --> 0:52:21.040 Yeah, ri Ip Ziggy, And thank you Mike. I'm glad 0:52:21.080 --> 0:52:23.319 we could help bring you and your dad together. That's 0:52:23.360 --> 0:52:27.319 pretty amazing stuff. If you want to be like Mike 0:52:27.400 --> 0:52:28.880 and get in touch with us and write us the 0:52:29.000 --> 0:52:32.160 email of the century, we are willing to read it. 0:52:33.000 --> 0:52:36.359 You can send it to us at stuff Podcasts at 0:52:36.360 --> 0:52:39.759 iHeartRadio dot com. 0:52:41.120 --> 0:52:44.000 Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For 0:52:44.120 --> 0:52:48.279 more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:52:48.400 --> 0:52:50.240 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.