Speaker 1: You don't need to stop the thoughts, you just need
Speaker 1: to change the relationship to them. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good Wolfe. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Jeff Warren. Jeff used to be a journalist
Speaker 1: for CBCS Radios, The Current and Ideas. He's a researcher,
Speaker 1: a writer, and teacher of different meditation and personal growth practices.
Speaker 1: His new book, written with Dan Harris, is called Meditation
Speaker 1: for Fidgety Skeptics. I mentioned last week that we're releasing
Speaker 1: our first online course, and it's finally here, and I'm
Speaker 1: excited to share it with you. It's a method that
Speaker 1: I have used for years to help me hold down
Speaker 1: a full time job, while building a solar company, while
Speaker 1: building this podcast, while raising kids, basically dealing with all
Speaker 1: the madness that all of you do. Also, it's a
Speaker 1: five step approach to managing stress, increasing productivity, and being
Speaker 1: present in day to day life. The horses for you
Speaker 1: if your minds always racing, if you're always thinking about
Speaker 1: things that need to be done, and you need actual,
Speaker 1: concrete strategies and smart tips to eliminate the overwhelm in
Speaker 1: your life. As I said, this method has served me
Speaker 1: so well over the years. Basically, it's a simple and
Speaker 1: effective way to reduce stress and get things done, and
Speaker 1: I'm very excited that I'm now able to share it
Speaker 1: with you. It's at one you feed dot net slash stress. Again,
Speaker 1: that's one you feed dot net slash stress. I hope
Speaker 1: that you'll check it out and I sincerely hope that
Speaker 1: it's a benefit to you in your life. Thanks, and
Speaker 1: here's the interview with Jeff Warren. Hi Jeff, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hi Eric, thanks for having me out. You
Speaker 1: are a meditation teacher, and you recently co authored a
Speaker 1: book with Dan Harris, who has actually been on the
Speaker 1: show a couple of times, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, a
Speaker 1: ten happier how to book, and we'll get into it
Speaker 1: in a minute. There's lots of great tips for meditation itself,
Speaker 1: and we'll get into that and lots of other things,
Speaker 1: but let's start like we normally do, with the parable.
Speaker 1: There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 1: are always at battle. What is a good wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 1: other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 1: and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks
Speaker 1: about it for a second and looks up at his
Speaker 1: grandfather and he says, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's um. It could not be more central. It's been
Speaker 1: my main preoccupation since I've been an adult, is trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what the consequences, because it's a true
Speaker 1: parable and it's very very sobering, and I've been kind
Speaker 1: of actually remember a bit of a weird story, but
Speaker 1: I remember being a little kid being maybe I was
Speaker 1: seven or eight, and I had this uh insight experience.
Speaker 1: As a little kid, I saw myself doing some behavior
Speaker 1: and they realized, if I keep doing this behavior, this
Speaker 1: is going to become part of who I am, this
Speaker 1: is going to become my character. And I remember this
Speaker 1: distinct feeling of that insight and I and it was
Speaker 1: just very unusual because I wasn't necessarily very perceptive or
Speaker 1: you know. It just was this thing that I suddenly
Speaker 1: and then the years later I remembered it. So I've
Speaker 1: been trying to figure out how to live with that
Speaker 1: understanding ever since. And I guess for me that the
Speaker 1: big question is what are the habits can be changed,
Speaker 1: and what are the ones that are just you know,
Speaker 1: hardwired into your nervous system or just part of who
Speaker 1: you are. Because I have a lot of serious challenging
Speaker 1: habits that have to do with my own mental health
Speaker 1: issues and and you know, in intense distracted ability and
Speaker 1: uh fixation and reactivity and it's those ones that I wonder,
Speaker 1: in particular, can you how much of those can you
Speaker 1: really change? And it's sort of been the guiding question
Speaker 1: of my my life, and also it's why I got
Speaker 1: into meditation, and it's kind of a lot about what
Speaker 1: I teach And do you have an answer to that
Speaker 1: question how much you can change? I was hoping you
Speaker 1: would know my experience is a lot. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 1: my experience too. I well, so I think I feel
Speaker 1: like I have to give a kind of you know,
Speaker 1: it's an ongoing work in progress trying to understand how
Speaker 1: she can change. And I think it differs a little
Speaker 1: bit from person to person. I think it probably differs
Speaker 1: a lot. I think when you have deep and tractable
Speaker 1: things like a d D and emotional regulation and some
Speaker 1: of these things that I struggle with, there are the
Speaker 1: question is how much of that can you change? Versus
Speaker 1: how much can you just change the relationship to the symptoms.
Speaker 1: And I think there's both. You can become more concentrated,
Speaker 1: you can become clear, you can become less react if
Speaker 1: you can become less disregulated, absolutely, But a lot of
Speaker 1: the change that allows you to do this is this
Speaker 1: kind of paradoxical thing where you're getting more and more
Speaker 1: space around it. It's that getting more space relatively interested in,
Speaker 1: Like what is that? It's not like the thing itself
Speaker 1: is going away. Uh, there's still this conditioning, there's still
Speaker 1: this piece in there. But it's that you're shifting where
Speaker 1: you identify from to be more from the space around it.
Speaker 1: You could say, so, is that changing it or is
Speaker 1: it just that it's become muted because there's something else
Speaker 1: that's started to come into the picture. And I don't
Speaker 1: really know the answer to that other than that's just
Speaker 1: what my experience has been. Yeah, well, being somewhat of
Speaker 1: a practical bent, I think if you don't suffer from
Speaker 1: it as much, you've changed it. Whatever the mechanism that
Speaker 1: made that happen is um And I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think the answer isn't change everything. But you know,
Speaker 1: there was a point in my life where I was
Speaker 1: homeless and a heroin addict, and you know that that
Speaker 1: doesn't resonate in any part with the way I live today.
Speaker 1: And so you know, there are you know, I think
Speaker 1: there are some pretty big transformations that are possible, but
Speaker 1: there's also you know, I I wrestle with depression also,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's not gone, but my relationship to
Speaker 1: it is so so different. Um, I think the conditions are,
Speaker 1: or the symptoms are far more mild than they used
Speaker 1: to be, and I've gotten a lot more skillful in
Speaker 1: how to relate to it. Yeah, that's what really well said.
Speaker 1: I would say it's it's a similar thing for me sometimes.
Speaker 1: I think one of the main things that I've gained
Speaker 1: through my practice is just this sense of perspective that
Speaker 1: I'm you know, able to now when I go into
Speaker 1: a darker place, or I go into a challenging place
Speaker 1: where once it seemed all encompassing and I couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: how I would ever come out of it, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't even and it felt like I was I would
Speaker 1: always be there. Now I can go into that place
Speaker 1: and go, oh, I've been here before, and this will change,
Speaker 1: and that in itself, that pure simple sanity has been
Speaker 1: you know, that's the game changer for me. I agree.
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more about meditation in a minute. But
Speaker 1: one of your teachers is is shins and Young, who
Speaker 1: said possibly one of my favorite things that's ever been said,
Speaker 1: which is that suffering equals pain times resistance, and so
Speaker 1: you know, to take this model, you know, and talking
Speaker 1: about it, if if you consider the mental symptom depression
Speaker 1: or a d h D to be the pain, maybe
Speaker 1: you can adjust that to some degree. But it's the
Speaker 1: resistance that can be adjusted a lot and dramatically reduces
Speaker 1: the suffering. I know, for me, just recognizing that I
Speaker 1: have depression and when it comes on, not making a
Speaker 1: big fuss about it has saved me countless amounts of
Speaker 1: suffering because I no longer get thrust into the middle
Speaker 1: of an existential crisis. I just go, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like having a cold. I'm gonna have it for
Speaker 1: a few days and it's gonna go away, and it's
Speaker 1: just radically change how much I suffer from that. Can
Speaker 1: I ask you, do you catch it right away or
Speaker 1: is there a period where you kind of don't really
Speaker 1: realize you're kind of you find yourself in it and
Speaker 1: beginning to believe it and it takes a while to
Speaker 1: catch it. I'm just curious here, I catch it really
Speaker 1: early now, I mean I'm I'm I'm an old man,
Speaker 1: so it's taken you know, I've had plenty of years
Speaker 1: to to hone this skill, UM, But yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: capture it right away. It has a leading symptom for me,
Speaker 1: and it's leading symptom is in anhedonia where I suddenly
Speaker 1: like I can't think of anything I want to read
Speaker 1: or I want to listen to. As soon as I
Speaker 1: start having that, I'm like something's off because I normally,
Speaker 1: you know, have a stack of books that I want
Speaker 1: to get to, and you know, there's a thousand songs
Speaker 1: I want to listen to in fifty podcasts, And as
Speaker 1: soon as none of that interests me, it's my leading indicator, like, oh,
Speaker 1: here we are. So I recognize it pretty quickly when
Speaker 1: that happens. And how long does it take to cycle through?
Speaker 1: That's a great question that I don't think I know
Speaker 1: an answer to, um, because some of it has to
Speaker 1: do with what I do, how I respond. So some
Speaker 1: of the response is not making a big fuss about it,
Speaker 1: and then other parts of the response are, you know,
Speaker 1: do I force myself to get out and exercise? Do
Speaker 1: I get outside and the sun, do I spend time
Speaker 1: with friends? Do I you know, to what extent am
Speaker 1: I trying to do things that I know help with
Speaker 1: the depression? So that matters it. You know, the acute
Speaker 1: phase for me anymore, seems to really just be a
Speaker 1: couple of days or you know, a few days, and
Speaker 1: never goes as deep as it used to. It's just
Speaker 1: a general like you know, I think is more than
Speaker 1: a deep pain. It's just like I'm just not interested
Speaker 1: in anything for for a period of time. Um, And
Speaker 1: then I you know, the other thing I've realized is
Speaker 1: I've also um. I think I use the analogy of
Speaker 1: the emotional flu a lot because I think the other
Speaker 1: way that it's relevant is that, just like the flu,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things I can do beforehand to
Speaker 1: to of myself a better chance of not getting the flu. Um.
Speaker 1: Once I've got it, there's still some things I can do,
Speaker 1: but at that point, I'm like, well, I've kind of
Speaker 1: got it. And so for me, it's been a matter
Speaker 1: of managing it from you know, and most of my
Speaker 1: depression management, a lot of it is very physical, um
Speaker 1: managing it and then when it happens, just not making
Speaker 1: a big fuss about it. That's so interesting for me
Speaker 1: to hear you talk about it, because I'm one of
Speaker 1: the things I'm trying to tease a figure out and
Speaker 1: kind of tease apart is what part of this rhythm
Speaker 1: for me is endogenous and what part of it is
Speaker 1: entirely driven by changes in external environment? I know because
Speaker 1: because like you, I can do. I know absolutely when
Speaker 1: I'm in nature a lot, and when i'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm getting good physical activity, and I have good meaningful
Speaker 1: work happening, and certain things that I have in place
Speaker 1: are much that definitely reduced the incidents of for me,
Speaker 1: not someone I get the the kind of bipolar spikes
Speaker 1: like romania and who austion and and even the A
Speaker 1: D D is a kind a separate and related thing.
Speaker 1: Those things are managed much more. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: there is some kind of indogenous rhythm. You know, I
Speaker 1: wonder what is this thing? Ye? And and are we
Speaker 1: all do? We all have rhythms like this? And I'd
Speaker 1: love to read something about that, because you know, Buddhism
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't talk about that. I don't even I don't
Speaker 1: know who does, because it's not really out there in
Speaker 1: the literature. Yeah, well, I'm not sure anybody knows. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think depression is one of those things like addiction,
Speaker 1: that far more than it is a thing, it's really
Speaker 1: a condition or it's a conglomeration of of different things.
Speaker 1: And I think there's so many different types it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to be like, this is what it is. And
Speaker 1: so for me, I have that same question and I
Speaker 1: don't spend a lot of time on it anymore because
Speaker 1: I do my best to take care of myself, you know,
Speaker 1: all the time, and then when it comes, I don't know,
Speaker 1: is it because I wasn't taking care of myself. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I can look back and see that clearly, and other
Speaker 1: times it just came up and and like I said,
Speaker 1: when I get it, I just kind of go, well,
Speaker 1: all right. But for me, it's amazing that exercise is
Speaker 1: so far in away the biggest contributor for me that
Speaker 1: to my overall emotional mood. Meditation is really important, but
Speaker 1: I think exercise is the one that which I wish
Speaker 1: it wasn't because I don't, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: it's kind of a drag, like I didn't work out
Speaker 1: for three days and now I'm, you know, ready to
Speaker 1: jump off a ledge. It seems like I'd like a
Speaker 1: little more, a little more flexibility, but it is what
Speaker 1: it is. Better than not having an option. Well, it's
Speaker 1: funny you're saying this because I sometimes feel like an
Speaker 1: impostor as a meditation teacher, because I basically believe the
Speaker 1: same thing. You know, I'm a meditation teacher. I meditate,
Speaker 1: I love meditating, but I find even more important than
Speaker 1: my sitting practice is movement, and I try to integrate
Speaker 1: the meditation into the movement at the time. But it's
Speaker 1: definitely I don't know if that's true for everybody, but
Speaker 1: for me, with my kind of hyperactivity, I need to
Speaker 1: have some more of that dimension in there. And I
Speaker 1: was something I was really down on my took me
Speaker 1: a long time to figure that out because I indoctrinated
Speaker 1: in the usual I have students meditation teacher circles and
Speaker 1: had a disdain for the body in a weird way
Speaker 1: that really didn't serve me at all. So, you know,
Speaker 1: thank god, I'm now more interested in my che gung
Speaker 1: practice in some ways and you know, other movements, because
Speaker 1: you can just see that it's the same. You can
Speaker 1: apply exactly the same meditative principles but just doing an
Speaker 1: econom or slow movement. Although there is something special about
Speaker 1: a sitting practice that is um pretty unique. I agree.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if I had to pick only
Speaker 1: one intervention in my life, I might pick exercise. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure that's true. Um, it's the one
Speaker 1: that seems to most benefits sort of my actual mood.
Speaker 1: But I think meditation and the associated pieces do so
Speaker 1: much for my perspective and how I act in the
Speaker 1: world and who I am and my ability to be effective.
Speaker 1: You know. So it may not have a direct effect
Speaker 1: on my mood is exercise does, but I think it
Speaker 1: has every bit as big an impact in my life
Speaker 1: as a whole, and my ability to have perspective, which,
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, is sometimes I think is of
Speaker 1: the game is just you know, can I can I
Speaker 1: keep the right perspective about things? And being in a
Speaker 1: seated practice in particular, which is a kind of pure culture,
Speaker 1: you know, there's it's not like you're trying to do
Speaker 1: a practice walking around where there's many more distractions and
Speaker 1: and feelings. It's like if you're sitting in a seated
Speaker 1: practice and you deliberately kind of try to simplify the environment,
Speaker 1: it's really just you and you know the thoughts of
Speaker 1: the emotions, the sensations that are there, and you can
Speaker 1: begin to really hone these fundamental sort of skills of
Speaker 1: how you're relating to that. And there is definitely the
Speaker 1: promise in in meditation practice of beginning to really dramatically
Speaker 1: change a relationship to all that stimuli, to all that conditioning.
Speaker 1: Because you know, as you know, I mean in different contemplatives,
Speaker 1: talk about it in different ways. You know, there's something
Speaker 1: else that starts to come into your experience, sort of
Speaker 1: oozing in from between the bits from the space, and
Speaker 1: that that something else is, um. You know, it's easier
Speaker 1: to begin to get a signal on it needed practice,
Speaker 1: but of course eventually it spills out into your life.
Speaker 1: Let's move into meditation a little bit here and move
Speaker 1: into the book a little little bit first. I'm going
Speaker 1: to start off with, uh, you know, the book is
Speaker 1: you and Dan have both wrote it. In some of
Speaker 1: its Dan's kind of exposition and then a lot of
Speaker 1: you sort of teaching meditation. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that most interested me about Dan when I first read
Speaker 1: ten Percent Happier was the phrase, you know, the voice
Speaker 1: in my head as an asshole, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: in the book it says meditation forces you into a
Speaker 1: direct collision with the fundamental fact of life that has
Speaker 1: not not often pointed out to us. We all have
Speaker 1: a voice in our heads. The voice is insatiable. The
Speaker 1: default mental condition for too many human beings is dissatisfaction.
Speaker 1: And that that is such a fundamental understanding to me.
Speaker 1: And I think it's possibly that idea that we all
Speaker 1: have a voice in our head, that that that thing
Speaker 1: that's prattling on is not all of who I am
Speaker 1: or not who I am. I think that might be
Speaker 1: the fundamental teaching of any that I've ever learned, that piece.
Speaker 1: And I think that meditation is so useful and helping
Speaker 1: me to catch it closer to the moment. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I mean that was the first big revelation for me
Speaker 1: and practice. My teacher Sanzen is really big on helping
Speaker 1: his students parse apart the that inner world of thoughts,
Speaker 1: like so the auditory component, the visual component, the feeling component,
Speaker 1: and you know, finally in meditation, beginning to notice how
Speaker 1: much of my inner world was dominated by these weird
Speaker 1: monologues that just would go on and on, and you know,
Speaker 1: the narration and the various characters that would appear, and
Speaker 1: the critic and the sad and the other, and you
Speaker 1: begin to as you get as you know, and when
Speaker 1: you practice, you start to get more and more perspective,
Speaker 1: and it they become more like for me, they've shifted
Speaker 1: into this sort of friendly band of characters, you know,
Speaker 1: they and I see them more as like they had
Speaker 1: their role. They all had their kind of some reason
Speaker 1: that they came about, some developmental reason that some compensation
Speaker 1: or who knows what, And there's still there's still energy
Speaker 1: in those patterns, but there now I just see them
Speaker 1: as part of this sort of ongoing process of the
Speaker 1: body mind, my particular body mind, and it's happening. And
Speaker 1: the more I practice, the more I look with them
Speaker 1: with the same amusement and hopefully friendliness that I look
Speaker 1: to other things going on in my life, other people,
Speaker 1: other sensations. It's just part of the single stream of stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's of course the great you know, trajectory is
Speaker 1: like can you learn to begin to not only see
Speaker 1: those things, but start to let go of them, of
Speaker 1: the need to reflexively identify with them. And that's a
Speaker 1: very interesting re orientation because again it's that same thing
Speaker 1: I was. It's the that what is this new thing
Speaker 1: that's coming into experience? I'm not if I'm not inside
Speaker 1: that and identifying with that? Then what am I? Who
Speaker 1: am I? Exactly? Yeah? I mean there's a part in
Speaker 1: the book where your dances that, you know, a fellow
Speaker 1: meditator jokes that, you know, when that voices in his head,
Speaker 1: it feels like he's been kidnapped by the most boring
Speaker 1: person alive who says the same bologne over and over,
Speaker 1: most of it negative, nearly all of itself referential. And
Speaker 1: I mean that is that describes it so well. Mine,
Speaker 1: Mine is not as malevolent as it used to be.
Speaker 1: The you know, the the conversation that goes on my
Speaker 1: head is not is not as damaging or but it's
Speaker 1: mostly just boring, and it's just the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over. The phrase I've been running around with a
Speaker 1: lot lately is just trying to remind myself, like come
Speaker 1: out of the conversation in my head. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: meditation on the cushion is all about that, but but
Speaker 1: just walking day to day, you know, I just keep
Speaker 1: trying to remind myself as often as possible, like just
Speaker 1: get come out of the conversation in your head, like,
Speaker 1: don't pay attention to that, pay attention to nearly anything else. Um,
Speaker 1: which when I do, when I and when I'm very
Speaker 1: focused on it like I have been, boy, I live
Speaker 1: a better life. I mean it's not like I stay
Speaker 1: out of the conversation in my head for more than
Speaker 1: about a minute at a time. Um. You know that
Speaker 1: I'm back in it and I'm back out, But just
Speaker 1: remembering to step out of it is so um. Like
Speaker 1: you said, when when that voice isn't going, there's something
Speaker 1: else that's there that is far more life affirming. For
Speaker 1: lack of a better way to say it, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, Um, do you think about opening a book.
Speaker 1: Imagine you opened the book and it was just a
Speaker 1: single like a single stream of words where there was
Speaker 1: no space between any of the words, just a giant
Speaker 1: stream of text. That's sometimes what it feels like to be,
Speaker 1: you know, to be in my head, just a giant
Speaker 1: scream of black ink. But the more I practice, the
Speaker 1: more I can begin to see the space between the words.
Speaker 1: And and what's really interesting is as you start to
Speaker 1: spend more time in that space between the words, the
Speaker 1: words themselves are given the contrast they need to become
Speaker 1: more interesting and more pointed. And I don't mean just
Speaker 1: mean the words in your the words now being everything
Speaker 1: you're the things you're seeing, the sights, the sounds, the smells,
Speaker 1: the feeling now that the capacity to be in in
Speaker 1: more stillness brings them into relief. So there's this weird
Speaker 1: sense though, as you're beginning to move away from the
Speaker 1: world into this space thing or this this more room
Speaker 1: around it, you're coming more intimately into the world at
Speaker 1: the same time, because that makes sense as at totally.
Speaker 1: Let's now talk a little bit about meditation itself. The
Speaker 1: book is really considered a how to guide, and I
Speaker 1: think there are some really critical, very practical things about
Speaker 1: meditation that you guys teach, and I kind of want
Speaker 1: to go through some of them because I think they're
Speaker 1: so important. And one of them is this idea that
Speaker 1: I can't meditate or I'm not a good meditator. It's
Speaker 1: this idea that we should be able to stop thinking,
Speaker 1: and that when we don't stop thinking, which none of
Speaker 1: us do, that we're not a good meditator. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that, because I think that
Speaker 1: is it, at least for a lot of people I
Speaker 1: talked to, that is the fundamental barrier to build in
Speaker 1: a meditation practice. Yeah, I'm happy to. I mean, that
Speaker 1: was why I thought I was a hopeless meditator at
Speaker 1: the beginning, that it would never work for me. And
Speaker 1: to date, I still all the time get lost in
Speaker 1: thought and have that voice. And um, what what you
Speaker 1: realize is that you don't need to stop the thoughts. It's,
Speaker 1: as you know, you just need to change the relationship
Speaker 1: to them. And so when people realize that that, that's
Speaker 1: a huge kind of insight. And then the real challenge
Speaker 1: is just shifting the ratio of your tension away from
Speaker 1: what you were feeding, which is the thinking, to some
Speaker 1: other part of your experience, and that the act of
Speaker 1: just shifting back getting lost you know, and then shifting
Speaker 1: back that, as jam would say, that's a rep for
Speaker 1: the concentration part of what you're developing in a practice.
Speaker 1: So you are doing the practice perfectly, then it's not
Speaker 1: it's not need it doesn't need to be any other
Speaker 1: than exactly that. Then noticing that you've got lost of
Speaker 1: the thought, then going back into noticing the breath or
Speaker 1: whatever you're you're focused on, and then there are many
Speaker 1: many ways of making that more easier and richer and
Speaker 1: more enjoyable. Um that you can kind of add on
Speaker 1: to that. But that essential movement is the movement of
Speaker 1: a practice. So to have that normalized can do a
Speaker 1: lot for folks who are or you know, trapped inside
Speaker 1: that that dynamic thinking it's something that's going wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you guys say, getting lost and starting over is not
Speaker 1: failing at meditation. It is succeeding. And I think it again,
Speaker 1: I don't think we could say it enough that piece,
Speaker 1: because I spent a lot of years the same way,
Speaker 1: thinking I just couldn't meditate, and then I would quit
Speaker 1: for a period of time, and then eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: I would become convinced to the benefit again and I
Speaker 1: would you know, start up again. And you know, that
Speaker 1: went on for a you know a lot of years,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure people were saying it that like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if you wander off, but I wasn't getting
Speaker 1: that message. For whatever reason, you know, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is not peaceful. My mind's not settling down. The other
Speaker 1: thing I think that you guys say that I really
Speaker 1: like is that we're so quick to conclude that we
Speaker 1: can't meditate. So we sit down, we do it twice,
Speaker 1: and our brain doesn't shut off. More like I can't
Speaker 1: do this, I'm not any good at it. Which if
Speaker 1: you you guys, make the analogy to play in a
Speaker 1: musical instrument, like you would never sit down in the
Speaker 1: second time you pick up a guitar, expect to be
Speaker 1: playing Stairway to Heaven. That's preposterous. But we do that
Speaker 1: with meditation exactly. I mean, it is literally a practice,
Speaker 1: and and it's one that's developing very specific skills, you know.
Speaker 1: And just like the skill of playing an instrument, you're
Speaker 1: slowly developing that dexterity and the capacity to concentrate on
Speaker 1: it and the openness to new nuances exactly the same
Speaker 1: way in a meditation, you're developing the concentration, the ability
Speaker 1: to hold your attention in particular direction, but also the
Speaker 1: sensitivity and clarity, the ability to kind of opened your
Speaker 1: experience and not judge it, and to um to allow
Speaker 1: it to kind of move it through you. Those are
Speaker 1: all particular skills, to say nothing of the friendliness and
Speaker 1: the kindness that you bring to the whole endeavor those
Speaker 1: things every time you sit down, and if you have
Speaker 1: those in your mind in particular, they just develop of
Speaker 1: their own. I mean, it's just slowly raising those baselines.
Speaker 1: And and you know, when you begin to there's a
Speaker 1: there's a moment when you can start to experience that
Speaker 1: as really a privilege that you're sitting with yourself. And
Speaker 1: this moment of being able to kind of pay respects
Speaker 1: to this body mind and have this caring attitude in
Speaker 1: the way you sit and feel your breath with a
Speaker 1: kind of friendliness or a sense of um of just
Speaker 1: being happy that you're here. That those things change this
Speaker 1: grueling practice, which can be so uncomfortable for us, into
Speaker 1: something that we do for its own sake. It really
Speaker 1: paradosically starts to accelerate the benefits because because that is
Speaker 1: the thing you're training, that fundamental attitude of being okay
Speaker 1: with your is the is sort of the ground under
Speaker 1: the meditation practice. Yeah, you point at this in the book,
Speaker 1: and and the only other place I had really ever
Speaker 1: heard it made this clear to me was, well, actually,
Speaker 1: Audia Shanti has said something about it. And then a
Speaker 1: book that you reference in your reading list, The Mind Illuminated,
Speaker 1: which is just a book that has blown my mind
Speaker 1: over and over about meditation. But how important it is
Speaker 1: when when we recognize that we've wandered off, how important
Speaker 1: it is to almost celebrate the recognition instead of punishing ourselves.
Speaker 1: And the idea, right is, um, if every time I
Speaker 1: recognize that my brain wandered off, I chastised myself, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm training my brain not to do it, because who
Speaker 1: wants to get chastised every time? It's like Audia Shanti says, like,
Speaker 1: you know, if every time somebody said come here and
Speaker 1: give me a hug, you got slapped, you'd stop going
Speaker 1: for the hug soon. And I think it's very similar
Speaker 1: to that, is that that this, and I wrestle with
Speaker 1: it because I think I've got years of I'm off
Speaker 1: the breath again. Damn it. You know that I'm really
Speaker 1: having to rewire of that to really work very hard
Speaker 1: to recognize like, yes, I caught myself, great news, good job,
Speaker 1: um And and you reference that a lot in the book,
Speaker 1: and I think that's just such a useful teaching that
Speaker 1: I wish I had had a long time ago. Me too,
Speaker 1: I was the same way. I was very stern and
Speaker 1: judgmental when I started practicing. I'm like, I suck it,
Speaker 1: can't believe that bad I am. I just it just
Speaker 1: became yet another thing I was failing at which I
Speaker 1: could just give fodder to all that those internal neurotic processes.
Speaker 1: But there's it did change. There was a moment when
Speaker 1: I was I don't know, at the moment a process
Speaker 1: when I began to realize that really what I was
Speaker 1: doing here was kind of trying to train affability, uh,
Speaker 1: sense of just being okay with whatever was going on,
Speaker 1: and that now has just completely changed the whole nature.
Speaker 1: You know, it's even when I'm in the worst thing storm,
Speaker 1: I'm having the first seemingly least concentrated experience of meditation,
Speaker 1: if it's undergirded by a sense of kind of mature
Speaker 1: allowing that this happens to be the experience that's happening
Speaker 1: now and that that's hey, then it's a success because
Speaker 1: that it's okay. Attitude is the deeper training. It's the
Speaker 1: deeper training you come back to again and again and again,
Speaker 1: and that spills out into everything else, and and it's
Speaker 1: directly relatable to our depression, to our a d D,
Speaker 1: to our mania, to all these things. You know, the
Speaker 1: part of what makes those conditions so challenging is exactly
Speaker 1: what you said about ends quote. It's the suffering that
Speaker 1: comes from resisting it or fighting it or trying to
Speaker 1: rework it, or trying to all this stuff. But when
Speaker 1: you can just say, hey, you know what, I'm just
Speaker 1: this imperfect person, this is the reality of my situation.
Speaker 1: That act alone makes all of that stuff so much
Speaker 1: more manageable, and it actually begins to create open up
Speaker 1: a space where you can create certain kinds of changes.
Speaker 1: So it's a miraculous that it works that way. The
Speaker 1: other thing that you talk about that I think is
Speaker 1: so important is you say that the single greatest accelerator
Speaker 1: in a meditation practice is learning how to enjoy it
Speaker 1: or to look for the moments of joy or pleasure. Again,
Speaker 1: a concept I've never really had until not too long
Speaker 1: ago that does seem to help is just trying to
Speaker 1: find whatever degree of enjoyment there is in it. Absolutely
Speaker 1: like there there are certain qualities enjoyment and curiosity or
Speaker 1: two that I can think of that they make the
Speaker 1: thing you're working with more interesting. So when you're more
Speaker 1: interested in it, you can begin to get absorbed more
Speaker 1: fully into it. You so you begin to create the
Speaker 1: conditions for this natural flow of moving into through your
Speaker 1: commitment into this object of your attention. And it's just
Speaker 1: like that that it just creates this wonderful, syrupy movement
Speaker 1: and flow and really accelerate development of those skills. So
Speaker 1: so if you're a nerd, then you can use curiosity.
Speaker 1: If you're a hedonist, then you can use enjoyment and
Speaker 1: they'll both work and and if you're a little bit
Speaker 1: of both, you know, there you go, Hey, totally mix
Speaker 1: it up. Another thing that you mentioned the book that
Speaker 1: I thought is so useful and I can't actually wait
Speaker 1: to try it out, which is to check in with
Speaker 1: yourself during meditation and ask yourself, what's the attitude in
Speaker 1: my mind right now? Absolutely it comes on what I
Speaker 1: was just saying. You know, the um this is the
Speaker 1: fundamental training. This is And you can have an attitude
Speaker 1: of kind of grim endurance, you can have attitude of
Speaker 1: of like just eating your vegetables. You can have an
Speaker 1: attitude of straight up antagonism for different parts of your experience.
Speaker 1: If that's what you're doing, then that is the thing
Speaker 1: that you're going to be training. That's the fundamental that
Speaker 1: will be the product of your meditation practice. Rather if
Speaker 1: your attitude is one of being more welcoming to experience,
Speaker 1: if your attitude is one of sort of amusement by
Speaker 1: the unbelievable uh neurotic expanse of your personality that's bubbling
Speaker 1: up under the surface. I mean, all of those things
Speaker 1: are there are going to be the fundamental thing that
Speaker 1: you're training, So attitude. There are some teachers that only
Speaker 1: teach attitude. You know, then I I totally get it.
Speaker 1: It comes clear and clear the longer you practice how
Speaker 1: important that single thing is. So and and the other
Speaker 1: good news with that is you can fake it until
Speaker 1: you make it. So you realize you have this grim attitude,
Speaker 1: you can have a sense of humor about it, and
Speaker 1: then you can kind of begin to practice at least
Speaker 1: being neutral, you know. And even that and that a
Speaker 1: neutrality is actually a very rich attitude. That's the equanimity piece. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I heard you on an interview say something I thought
Speaker 1: was really really interesting, and it's about talking about when
Speaker 1: we get a break from the sort of endless churn
Speaker 1: in our brain or the constant things. You referenced it
Speaker 1: being like when a refrigerator shuts off. So if you're
Speaker 1: in a room in the refrigerators running and buzzing, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden that shuts off, and you just notice,
Speaker 1: like Wow, I didn't even know that thing was there.
Speaker 1: I think that's such a great description for what it
Speaker 1: can be like when the inner mind does take a
Speaker 1: little bit of a break. That was the single most
Speaker 1: dramatic experience early on in my meditation career was at
Speaker 1: a retreat where I had literally that I was meditating,
Speaker 1: and suddenly it went completely silent in my head. And
Speaker 1: I had no idea. Up until then. There had been
Speaker 1: so much noise and what was I mean, it was unbelieable,
Speaker 1: it was, but the quiet, And what was so interesting
Speaker 1: about it was it wasn't just that. Once that, once
Speaker 1: that cooled out in there, I a I could just
Speaker 1: have sat forever, because there was no reason not to
Speaker 1: be sitting there anymore. All the endless negotiation and subtle
Speaker 1: tugs and I like it, I don't like it. I
Speaker 1: could be doing it, could be doing that stuff. That
Speaker 1: is the true kind of background noise of the mind,
Speaker 1: which is all friction. It's all tensions and grippings and resistances.
Speaker 1: Once all that cooled out, there was no reason not
Speaker 1: to just be sitting here because sitting was inherently pleasurable
Speaker 1: and of itself, and I didn't have any sense of
Speaker 1: needing to get somewhere for the future. Um So that
Speaker 1: was really really interesting. But the other part of it
Speaker 1: was when I went up into the dining hall and
Speaker 1: it began my meal and looked around the dining hall,
Speaker 1: I realized that I was seeing people in a very
Speaker 1: different way that I could, and I could really see
Speaker 1: the character in their faces, and I could see I
Speaker 1: noticed things about their bearing and their demeanors and their
Speaker 1: habits that I just hadn't seen before because every time
Speaker 1: I had been looking up until then, there was a
Speaker 1: sense in which I was looking at them to the
Speaker 1: filter of my own, you know, my own biases and
Speaker 1: my own desire to be liked or not liked, And
Speaker 1: and I couldn't imagine how something so there was such
Speaker 1: a fundamental shift and realized all that's that sound of
Speaker 1: the fridge was like a constant distortion of what was
Speaker 1: going on around me. And with that, with that gone,
Speaker 1: I felt so much closer and was able to connect
Speaker 1: to people in a way that I that was very
Speaker 1: new for me. And that was that really was you know,
Speaker 1: that was the time I realized, Okay, this meditation thing
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. There's something really powerful going on with this
Speaker 1: sitting technology because it was I never have forgotten that,
Speaker 1: and I've actually I felt like, in some ways I've
Speaker 1: never completely lost that. Uh there was something. It never
Speaker 1: came back as loud, you know, the fridge, but it's
Speaker 1: still there. It's amazing how interesting the world can be
Speaker 1: when that voice isn't sort of taking up all of
Speaker 1: our attention. I mean, that's kind of what I've noticed,
Speaker 1: is what I'm really caught in the voice, and that's
Speaker 1: what's kind of happening. I can look at it the
Speaker 1: world and be like, yeah, whatever, like I don't even
Speaker 1: really notice, it doesn't mean anything. But when I get
Speaker 1: just a little bit of a break and I really
Speaker 1: directed my attention outwards, it's all of a sudden like, wow,
Speaker 1: oh you know, I didn't notice that before, and I
Speaker 1: didn't notice that. Well, that's really nice and I like that.
Speaker 1: It's just it's a wonderful way to be um. And again,
Speaker 1: I it's not I don't want to get back into
Speaker 1: the idea of convincing people. That's the only goal of
Speaker 1: meditation is that that happens. And if that's not happening
Speaker 1: when you meditate and you're not doing it right, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't want to go back into that that
Speaker 1: area again. But I think one of the benefits of
Speaker 1: meditation for me is at least a little bit more
Speaker 1: space from the constant inner self referential it's all about
Speaker 1: me monotone voice, and a little bit more ability to
Speaker 1: look at the rest of the world with an interest,
Speaker 1: because if you can pay attention to your breath for
Speaker 1: a while, everything else starts to look pretty interesting exactly.
Speaker 1: You realize that there's no reason you can't be looking
Speaker 1: at everything else. Everything else is actually get filled with
Speaker 1: its own thing, it's own dustness, thingness, and it seems
Speaker 1: like that there's less and less of a hierarchy between things.
Speaker 1: That's another thing I've noticed that before there would only
Speaker 1: be certain things I would want to look at. I
Speaker 1: like this stuff for I want to look at this
Speaker 1: or these are the things I like. Whereas you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like I don't haven't lost that sense of
Speaker 1: appreciation for those things. But everything else starts to come
Speaker 1: more into the four as well, and you realize that
Speaker 1: there's so much energy being spent just creat keys at
Speaker 1: or what you like it don't like, and you just
Speaker 1: get lazy. It's like I don't want to spend that
Speaker 1: energy all the time. Ye, choiceless awareness, right exactly, that's
Speaker 1: the ideal that I think. It's like the trajectory you're
Speaker 1: aiming for. But of course there's all still lots of
Speaker 1: choices and preferences, and we don't want to vilify that.
Speaker 1: But yep, so talk about equanimity. I think Dan says
Speaker 1: that's your favorite word. I don't know if that's true
Speaker 1: or not, but let's let's wrap up with talking about equanimity. Sure, um,
Speaker 1: it is my favorite concept because it was something that
Speaker 1: I when I started practicing, I had never ever thought
Speaker 1: of before, and yet I had been wrestling with the
Speaker 1: profound lack of equanimity my whole life. Meaning uh um,
Speaker 1: So the way my teacher shins and talks about equanimity
Speaker 1: is a lack of pushing and pulling on experience. And
Speaker 1: up until a certain point in my life, all I
Speaker 1: ever did was push and pull up. My experience was
Speaker 1: push things away and grab onto other and it just
Speaker 1: governed my life, and not to mention my moods. When
Speaker 1: I was in a good mood, I would just grab
Speaker 1: onto it and keep feeding it, and then it would
Speaker 1: crash down again, and so I was constantly in these
Speaker 1: cycles of feeding the thing up and then coming back down.
Speaker 1: So when I finally understood equanimity, I began to realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, that was the way into really beginning to
Speaker 1: change those deep habits was. And so I would say
Speaker 1: from your parable of the one you feed, there's you
Speaker 1: could feed the good wolf, where you could feed the
Speaker 1: bad wolf. But there's also this the art of not
Speaker 1: feeding either in a strange way. Although you might say
Speaker 1: that art is feeding the good wolf, but not so.
Speaker 1: The equanimity is a kind of opening to experience so
Speaker 1: that there's no friction and you're allowing the full sound
Speaker 1: to move through you. The you're allowing yourself to have
Speaker 1: the full feeling, you're allowing the thought to be there.
Speaker 1: Everything is being permitted to express itself. And when everything
Speaker 1: is permitted to express itself, this very strange and paradoxical
Speaker 1: thing can happen. And what happens is you get a
Speaker 1: full You feel like you're experiencing the experience fully, but
Speaker 1: in nowhere in it are you laying down any habits.
Speaker 1: Because every habit is a process like gripping. That's it's
Speaker 1: the gripping or the waxy build up inside a habit.
Speaker 1: That is what creates the inevitability of that habit, so
Speaker 1: it comes around again. But if you can be absolutely
Speaker 1: totally open in the present moment to experience, you can
Speaker 1: experience things. And I know this is sounds mystical, mystical,
Speaker 1: but the experience is that it feels like you're not
Speaker 1: laying down any kind of reactivity habit at all. That
Speaker 1: in fact, and it's in more than that, if you're
Speaker 1: truly present, there is a sense in which that openness
Speaker 1: is trickling down the habit world, into the into your brain,
Speaker 1: somehow emptying out earlier patterns. So many times I've had
Speaker 1: the experience in practice just being so open and then
Speaker 1: feeling like either being so open with a sense of
Speaker 1: discomforting sensation or an emotion and it just feeling at
Speaker 1: all break up and empty out, or even more interesting,
Speaker 1: later on, I end up in an argument with my
Speaker 1: dad's say, and suddenly the same the reactivity that I
Speaker 1: had around a particular pattern that he had is totally
Speaker 1: gone and gone for good. Sometimes and I realized that
Speaker 1: somehow that equanimity, that that practice of just of not responding,
Speaker 1: of being open, it's starting to work through the out
Speaker 1: some of this stuff that's in the in the in
Speaker 1: the background, and so it's so radical. And the more
Speaker 1: the more you go down this rabbit hole of exploring equanimity,
Speaker 1: the more it gets into the kind of mystical territory,
Speaker 1: because it's just it's kind of like the zero point.
Speaker 1: You realize the present moment is bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 1: Every time you go back in, you realize there's a
Speaker 1: little bit more room there than you thought, and you
Speaker 1: can get into that place that mystics talk about where
Speaker 1: time and space don't even I mean, this is getting
Speaker 1: a little out there, but it really it's real as
Speaker 1: an experience, you know, where it doesn't seem to apply.
Speaker 1: There's only how present you are. And from that place
Speaker 1: of present, of being present, you don't bring new conditioning
Speaker 1: with you into the next moment. And it's I know,
Speaker 1: it sounds preposterous, but it's wonderful and it's true and
Speaker 1: as an experience, and it's suffused with the feeling of
Speaker 1: the privilege of being here, with the sacredness of of
Speaker 1: the moment, with this inherent love for other people, and
Speaker 1: it just flows out from there and I you know,
Speaker 1: Dan doesn't like it when I get all mystical, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how to talk about in a way
Speaker 1: that isn't laden with what I'm describing and that sense
Speaker 1: of gratitude and privilege, you know, because it's just so
Speaker 1: beautiful and that all comes from equanimity, you know. And um,
Speaker 1: so that's why I'm completely devoted to that word and
Speaker 1: and maybe obsessed with there is a better term, but
Speaker 1: not cripping on it. Well, Jeff, that was so beautifully said,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that we have anything to add
Speaker 1: to that at this point. Uh, Listeners, Jeff and I
Speaker 1: are going to continue the conversation over on Patreon, and
Speaker 1: if you want to get bonus material from this and
Speaker 1: lots and lots of other interviews, head over to one
Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash support and you can look
Speaker 1: into becoming a supporter of the show. And I think
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about is Awakening and Jeff's
Speaker 1: favorite books in the post show conversation. So, Jeff, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for coming on. I had a great time,
Speaker 1: of course, Thanks all right, take care, bye bye. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
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