Speaker 1: The path is about going deeper, and it's about integrating
Speaker 1: what we realize in these experiences. It's like a whole
Speaker 1: new life can open up. Welcome to the one you
Speaker 1: feed Throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the importance of
Speaker 1: 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 wolf. Hello everyone. Just a reminder that all the
Speaker 1: extra support we're providing during this time is available at
Speaker 1: when you Feed dot net slash help. The free group
Speaker 1: coaching each week has been a wonderful way to meet
Speaker 1: so many of you, and we're forming a really special
Speaker 1: community there, so i'd encourage you to check it out.
Speaker 1: Recordings that the sessions are also available, and you can
Speaker 1: get all the details at when you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash help. Secondly, keeping a good perspective is more important
Speaker 1: than ever right now, and I recorded a video teaching
Speaker 1: about three types of perspective and the three things that
Speaker 1: all unhappy people hold onto. You can get free access
Speaker 1: to that at spiritual habits dot net. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Henry Shookman, a poet, writer,
Speaker 1: and associate zen Master who lives in New Mexico, where
Speaker 1: he teaches at Mountain Cloud Zen Center. He's published eight
Speaker 1: books to date of fiction, poetry, and non fiction, and
Speaker 1: writes regularly for Tricycle, The New York Times and other publications.
Speaker 1: In this episode, Eric and Henry discuss his beautifully written
Speaker 1: book One Blade of Grass, Finding the Old Road of
Speaker 1: the Heart, a Zen Memoir. Hi, Henry, welcome to the show. Eric,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I am really
Speaker 1: happy to have you on. We're going to discuss your
Speaker 1: wonderful book called One Blade of Grass, Finding the Old
Speaker 1: Road of the Heart as Zen memoir in a moment.
Speaker 1: But let's start like we always 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. One 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 he
Speaker 1: thinks about it for a second, and he looks up
Speaker 1: at his grand fire. He says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says that the one you feed. So
Speaker 1: I'd like to start off by asking you what that
Speaker 1: parable means to you in your life and in the
Speaker 1: work that you do. It resonates very strongly with me,
Speaker 1: and I feel that there have certainly been times in
Speaker 1: my life when I could sort of say I wasn't
Speaker 1: really feeding the right wolf, you know, when I got
Speaker 1: into places of despair and nihilism, and especially in my
Speaker 1: early adulthood. For me, you know, it was learning really
Speaker 1: to begin to realize that there were choices, deep choices
Speaker 1: one could make about how one lived one's life, how
Speaker 1: one experienced one's life. It began for me in my
Speaker 1: mid twenties, early to mid twenties in a real way,
Speaker 1: when I first took up meditation, it was then that
Speaker 1: I realized I didn't have to be entirely driven by
Speaker 1: the forces that seemed to have been mostly driving me,
Speaker 1: especially in my early adulthood, which were which were really around,
Speaker 1: you know, anxiety and stress and craving for acknowledgement, and
Speaker 1: and I had a lot of ambition in my early life.
Speaker 1: I was trying to be a writer from my mid
Speaker 1: teens actually, and all of it had led to a
Speaker 1: pretty unhappy life. And the moment I started meditating, meaning
Speaker 1: that on a daily basis, I was being still for
Speaker 1: a chunk of time each day, it was as if
Speaker 1: the dial on my nervous system could turn down, and
Speaker 1: it was. It stopped being so hyper active and so
Speaker 1: kind of overloaded and running so hot and hard. And
Speaker 1: as my nervous system settled down, I just started to
Speaker 1: realize that there was space to make choices, to make
Speaker 1: decisions is not out of impulse and a sense of need,
Speaker 1: but more out of well real choice. And you know, gradually,
Speaker 1: as my practice sort of evolved and went on, and
Speaker 1: I got into Zen and other kinds of Buddhism as well,
Speaker 1: in time, you know, I realized when I hear that
Speaker 1: parable now it's like for me, it's kind of describing
Speaker 1: practice because it says one wolf is about love and bravery,
Speaker 1: and the other is about greed and hatred. And in
Speaker 1: the Buddhist view, all of us have work known as
Speaker 1: the three poisons, which are greed and hatred or desire
Speaker 1: and aversion or desire and ill will and delusion, three poisons.
Speaker 1: And to start practicing is to start recognizing them and
Speaker 1: to cease to be under their enchantment, under their spell.
Speaker 1: And so when I hear the parable, you know, to me,
Speaker 1: I want to say, yeah, absolutely, feeding the wolf, that
Speaker 1: that is about growth and capacity and space and love,
Speaker 1: you know, always turning away the greater love is. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I kind of almost want to say,
Speaker 1: it's wise to make some kind of allowance for the
Speaker 1: other wolfings, like like, you know, something in me says
Speaker 1: it's good to know that I can slip into those
Speaker 1: old habits and that there they're not banished exactly, it's
Speaker 1: more that they're allowed for. I didn't know whether that
Speaker 1: makes any sense. You know, I had wrestled with negative
Speaker 1: side quite a bit in the course of my journey,
Speaker 1: and I feel that it's I don't really want to
Speaker 1: banish it, and that hasn't worked so well as understanding it,
Speaker 1: acknowledging it and allowing for it and giving it some
Speaker 1: kind of space but not letting it take over totally
Speaker 1: makes sense. Two things there. I think obviously there's stuff
Speaker 1: to be learned from these so called negative emotions right there,
Speaker 1: coming from something for some reason, so there's something to
Speaker 1: be learned. And then secondly, I think what you said
Speaker 1: we're so important is that when we just feel bad
Speaker 1: about ourselves for having them, we just compound all the problems. Yes,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, and it's I've found that in my journey
Speaker 1: being able to see that underneath a lot of that
Speaker 1: negativity I wrestled with an early life, there were just
Speaker 1: some some wounds. You know, there's some basic pains and grieves,
Speaker 1: griefs and things that somehow I had missed in growing up.
Speaker 1: And you know there's stories about that I certainly have
Speaker 1: worked with in therapy. But you know that to be
Speaker 1: able to open to what is painful for me, it's
Speaker 1: been part of my journey into greater wholeness and greater
Speaker 1: well being. Other than sort of banishing pain, learning how
Speaker 1: to open up to it and sort of be with
Speaker 1: it and offer it some kind of space that's proven
Speaker 1: to be a wiser path of growth and healing for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree completely. One of the things in your story
Speaker 1: that I resonated kind of throughout it was you you
Speaker 1: talked about since early on in life you had mild,
Speaker 1: low grade sort of depression dysthemia. Is that how you
Speaker 1: pronounce it? Yeah, I've heard it. Yeah, just thymia. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know that you've had that, and and it was
Speaker 1: your companion for a long time, even as you journeyed
Speaker 1: deeper into your spiritual life, even as you had some
Speaker 1: pretty profound awakening and opening experiences. And that describes me
Speaker 1: pretty well. I've had some some tremendous opening and awakening
Speaker 1: experiences and to find myself, you know, a little bit
Speaker 1: later like, Oh, there's my old friend again, low grade depression.
Speaker 1: Here he is hanging around. And I just thought we
Speaker 1: could talk about that a little bit because I really
Speaker 1: resonated a lot with it. And I think that that
Speaker 1: was part of your story that I kept really resoning
Speaker 1: with which you kept growing spiritually and yet didn't make
Speaker 1: everything better. And I don't think your message is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you hit a point where it all goes away, but
Speaker 1: you do have a message of a certain peace eventually coming.
Speaker 1: For me, it was like a kind of a see
Speaker 1: saw for a long time really between you know, really
Speaker 1: finding deep, deep peace and a great sort of intrinsic
Speaker 1: love in every moment, you know at times, and then
Speaker 1: just being sort of triggered right back into old contraction,
Speaker 1: into depression or mild depression, and you know, it's the
Speaker 1: same old habits. But there was a point in my
Speaker 1: I would say it was my long training under under
Speaker 1: certain Zend teachers, you know, who were very kind of
Speaker 1: patient and kind with me, And I mean it's a
Speaker 1: moment in time when on a retreat, actually I just
Speaker 1: had a really you know, for me, it was a
Speaker 1: very deep experience where just everything, really everything just sort
Speaker 1: of fell away and there wasn't anything left. And instead
Speaker 1: of it being like really a nihilistic kind of experience,
Speaker 1: it was the exact opposite. It was the cure for
Speaker 1: all nihilism, I felt. And after it, everything sort of
Speaker 1: came back in a new way in a and like
Speaker 1: there was nothing more precious than this moment, whatever it
Speaker 1: might be. And that was over twelve years ago now,
Speaker 1: and really something has been different since then. It's not
Speaker 1: that I perfectly blessed and marvelous or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but you can I still have habits that I wish
Speaker 1: I didn't have, you know, but it has been really different.
Speaker 1: It's a real different orientation kicked in where I just
Speaker 1: didn't get so caught by my sense of me. You know,
Speaker 1: I couldn't sort of say that it's vanished entirely forever,
Speaker 1: you know. I think it still comes back at times,
Speaker 1: and but it's not a problem, you know. And I
Speaker 1: haven't had depression like I used to in quite a
Speaker 1: long time, not really since that moment. And I'm not
Speaker 1: claiming any great, you know, achievements spiritually or anything. It's
Speaker 1: just that things have been remarkably easier and in a
Speaker 1: way that I never would have expected. You know. I
Speaker 1: always thought, basically, no matter what others may sort of
Speaker 1: find on this path, I'm not cut out for that.
Speaker 1: You know. I can do a certain amount, I can
Speaker 1: get a certain way down a path of spiritual growth,
Speaker 1: but I'm always going to get knocked back by my
Speaker 1: by my psychology. You know, it's never going to really
Speaker 1: relinquish its hold. But I was wrong. There was something
Speaker 1: really unexpected did happen. And again, I don't want to
Speaker 1: make it sound like I'm claiming, you know, some exalted
Speaker 1: status or anything at all, And it's certainly not like
Speaker 1: I'm you know, my my wife knows you know perfectly
Speaker 1: well that I can, I can get a bit down,
Speaker 1: I can get a bit grumpy, but it's so much
Speaker 1: less of a problem, right, And I guess my question
Speaker 1: for you would be, you'd had several of these sort
Speaker 1: of you know, in Zen calmed Kenchow moments, right, these
Speaker 1: big awakenings where even your sense of self did fall away,
Speaker 1: but then it seems to you know, it seems to
Speaker 1: sort of come back and reconstitute itself in a in
Speaker 1: a more durable form. Do you think it was the
Speaker 1: fact that as you matured in your Zen practice, you
Speaker 1: had a better container for those things and that you
Speaker 1: were better able to take those experiences and integrate them
Speaker 1: and live them. Or was there something about the depth
Speaker 1: of that other experience that was deeper and more final.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious what you attribute to that sort
Speaker 1: of that turning point, because you've had are pretty profound
Speaker 1: awakening experiences. But that's a great question. I'm honored that
Speaker 1: you would even ask it. But I think the answer
Speaker 1: is both that definitely the container was being expanded and
Speaker 1: made healthier through my training and a lot of I
Speaker 1: mean that really all goes down to my teachers who
Speaker 1: who were just you know, really wise and kind and
Speaker 1: patient with me. So I think there was really as
Speaker 1: the container, let's say, you know, was more and more ready,
Speaker 1: you know, it allowed actually possibly I'd say it allowed
Speaker 1: for something deeper to happen. You know, letting go thoroughly
Speaker 1: is really sort of difficult for us. I think when
Speaker 1: I was nineteen, actually I had a sort of random
Speaker 1: awakening experience out of nowhere, without any interest in that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. I wasn't I wasn't into spirituality at all.
Speaker 1: I was like a I'd grown up in Oxford, England,
Speaker 1: son of academics, and I was, you know, I was
Speaker 1: I was all set to be an academic my self
Speaker 1: is anything. And then suddenly I just had this random
Speaker 1: moment of utter union with the world and it was
Speaker 1: it was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened
Speaker 1: to me, and it came out of nowhere, and it
Speaker 1: was a profound sense that I was just inseparable from
Speaker 1: the fabric of the universe really was was what it
Speaker 1: felt like, and that the whole of creation was sort
Speaker 1: of immediately present right in the moment where I was.
Speaker 1: It was all me, and I was all it and
Speaker 1: and there was no separation of any kind anywhere sort
Speaker 1: of thing was what it felt like. But when it
Speaker 1: and then it sort of faded, and I walked around
Speaker 1: and kind of blissed for a few weeks. And actually
Speaker 1: I was away from home at the time, and I
Speaker 1: went home. This is when I was nineteen, and within
Speaker 1: half an hour of walking into my dad's house, I
Speaker 1: was broken. I was just a wreck. I had a
Speaker 1: very in some ways, you know, very privileged culturally privileged,
Speaker 1: you know, childhood with my parents both being at the
Speaker 1: heart of the university and all that. But it had
Speaker 1: also been difficult because we had a really difficult divorce
Speaker 1: situation when I was young, and I've had really bad
Speaker 1: exema from the age of six months, you know, right
Speaker 1: the way through childhood. And so when I came home
Speaker 1: at that time after this opening, I was really open
Speaker 1: and all the unhappiness of my childhood that I had
Speaker 1: kind of fended off and found ways not to feel
Speaker 1: in order to function as a child. It all just
Speaker 1: sort of landed on top of me then, and I
Speaker 1: had a kind of breakdown. Actually at the time, I thought, oh, no,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the end of the world. Whatever
Speaker 1: is going on is a disaster. When I look back
Speaker 1: on it, I realized, well, no, this was the other side.
Speaker 1: This was like got to reckon with the wounds and
Speaker 1: to only be sort of having a great expansive moment.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's lovely and wonderful and some ways, you know,
Speaker 1: there's some deep truth in that kind of experience. But
Speaker 1: to have that without in my own case anyway, also
Speaker 1: learning how to be with my pain and wounds and
Speaker 1: you know, and and grow in that way as well,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it just somehow in in my
Speaker 1: biography I had to do both in a way. What
Speaker 1: happened then was like the back and forth between oceanic
Speaker 1: expansiveness that i'd sometimes taste, especially when I started training
Speaker 1: in Zen, and you know, real contracted anxiety and pain
Speaker 1: and depression, which I had also experienced. And finally, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, through different kinds of work, not just meditation
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, dreamwork and other kinds of
Speaker 1: therapy and a lot of yoga, and things. I think
Speaker 1: it all helped reach a point where I could let
Speaker 1: go more thoroughly of the whole system, is what it
Speaker 1: felt like, and no longer needing to sort of go
Speaker 1: back and forth. Really in the same way I've heard
Speaker 1: it referenced by Ken Wilber, there's waking up, but there's
Speaker 1: also growing up and cleaning up. There's more to a
Speaker 1: well lived, robust life than just awakening the experiences. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of other stuff we have to work our
Speaker 1: way through. At least that's been my experience. I agree
Speaker 1: there are people, like you know, one or two of
Speaker 1: my teachers who don't seem to have needed to go
Speaker 1: through so much on the healing side. But I think
Speaker 1: they just had happier childhoods. Actually it could be. I
Speaker 1: think some people are more damaged than others. That's just
Speaker 1: a reality. Yes, I think so too. And at a
Speaker 1: certain point I had this notion that, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: people who are real deep seekers are more damaged. They're
Speaker 1: carrying more trauma, they're more traumatized, and that's what makes
Speaker 1: them one this grand liberation of awakening. But actually I
Speaker 1: don't believe that anymore. I think because the people I
Speaker 1: see you know my colleagues in the world of meditation
Speaker 1: and awakening. You know, there's m who just didn't seem
Speaker 1: to have the same kind of need for so much
Speaker 1: healing work. I don't know. I guess we're all different
Speaker 1: and it's hard to lay down rules, but it seems
Speaker 1: smart to acknowledge that, like you said, that we're multidimensional.
Speaker 1: We've got different facets and different aspects, and to only
Speaker 1: work on one, like you know, this sort of deep
Speaker 1: kind of spirituality, it might be an unbalanced thing for
Speaker 1: some of us. In your epilogue you try to sort
Speaker 1: of summarize the book in a number of points, and
Speaker 1: that was the second point. You said, some of us
Speaker 1: are going to need other kinds of help along with meditation,
Speaker 1: and the more that those different approaches understand and respect
Speaker 1: one another, the better. So that might lead me just
Speaker 1: maybe to go to three because I think some of
Speaker 1: these points were a good summation of things. And the
Speaker 1: third point you said, one common misunderstanding of meditation in
Speaker 1: the West is that it's an individual undertaking. I fell
Speaker 1: for that and fell foul of it. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: collaborative and relational at least if you want to make
Speaker 1: real progress. Could you share a little bit more about
Speaker 1: that and why that's the case? Okay, thank you. I
Speaker 1: mean I would say, like in my early years as
Speaker 1: a meditator, you know, basically I was kind of given
Speaker 1: instructions and told to go and do them, and I
Speaker 1: did it primarily alone. I had a couple of friends
Speaker 1: who also did that kind of meditation. It was TM,
Speaker 1: by the way, which was really popular back in you know,
Speaker 1: late eighties in London. It was more or less the
Speaker 1: only kind around. I did it in the late eighties
Speaker 1: myself in Columbus, Ohio, of all places, I still can't
Speaker 1: believe one exist did. There was a t M teacher
Speaker 1: in Colomazile. Well, they were tremendously successful, you know, Urishi
Speaker 1: my house really was brilliant to sort of marketing and
Speaker 1: giving it a great image. And so yeah, it was
Speaker 1: the first big form of meditation in the West that
Speaker 1: really got scaled up to a high degree, I think.
Speaker 1: But once I stumbled into Zen. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the reason I got into Zen was that I recognized
Speaker 1: that it understood, you know, that random moment I mentioned
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen years old. I knew when I
Speaker 1: read some some Zen writings I just could sense that
Speaker 1: it understood what I had experienced then, and luckily enough,
Speaker 1: I think I was right. But once I got into
Speaker 1: Zen in a serious way, I kind of got the
Speaker 1: sense that you're supposed to have a teacher the way
Speaker 1: I had grown up, In the character I had, I
Speaker 1: just didn't really trust anybody, not really, and I certainly
Speaker 1: didn't trust some trumped up would be spiritual teacher, you know,
Speaker 1: Zen or otherwise. So I wasn't prepared to entrust myself
Speaker 1: to a teacher. So I'd go and do a lot
Speaker 1: of retreats, and I went to lots of different centers
Speaker 1: of different kinds of meditation actually, and you know, I'd
Speaker 1: listened to the teachers talks, you know, they'd resonate to
Speaker 1: some degree or not. But the idea of actually becoming
Speaker 1: a student, it just I was too independent, and you know,
Speaker 1: I I just didn't trust people enough. And and I
Speaker 1: had a career by then as a writer. I was
Speaker 1: you know, I was lucky in that regard. I got
Speaker 1: to work as a writer full time from fairly early
Speaker 1: in my life. And there was a reason I had
Speaker 1: a career like that, which was that I just wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared to put myself under somebody else's authority if I
Speaker 1: could avoid it, and so I couldn't. I couldn't see
Speaker 1: my way to having a teacher until finally, somehow I
Speaker 1: was just kind of ready and met a wonderful teacher
Speaker 1: actually funny enough, in my hometown and started studying in
Speaker 1: a serious way with him. And that was when suddenly
Speaker 1: the whole thing just went into a whole different gear
Speaker 1: because I realized, Man, it's not just about meditating. There's
Speaker 1: a path here. You know, things can happen whatever I
Speaker 1: have been experienced by then, and by way of the
Speaker 1: occasional I think by then maybe a couple of strong
Speaker 1: sort of awakening or opening experiences that was in a
Speaker 1: way only the start. Like what what this teacher John,
Speaker 1: he was called John Gayner. What he represented was that
Speaker 1: those were like doorways, and beyond them there's a path,
Speaker 1: and the path is about going deeper, and it's about
Speaker 1: integrating what we realize in these experiences, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a whole new life can open up. It's
Speaker 1: just sort of having the experiences is only step one
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and that that path couldn't be embarked
Speaker 1: on without a guide. And you know that. That was
Speaker 1: a huge thing for me to first of all, to
Speaker 1: realize that and second to realize that I wanted it.
Speaker 1: That was like a huge kind of crumbling of defenses
Speaker 1: in my psyche in a beautiful way to open up
Speaker 1: the Wow, somebody might help me in this way. That
Speaker 1: matters so much to me. But but I've never known
Speaker 1: where to turn. Really, it was. It was an awesome
Speaker 1: or I'd known where to turn, but not turned wholeheartedly enough.
Speaker 1: And suddenly to realize that I could, it was a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing. It was. It was really like scales of
Speaker 1: armor falling off my heart. And so the teacher was
Speaker 1: a big part. How important was the community around the
Speaker 1: teacher for you early on? Well, that took me longer
Speaker 1: to realize, actually, because I was definitely not somebody who
Speaker 1: sort of terribly light institutions. You know, My my main
Speaker 1: experience with them was in education, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of rebellious, you know. I grew up admiring Peter Tosh
Speaker 1: and Shake of Aura, and most institutions were things that
Speaker 1: ought to be torn down as far as I was concerned.
Speaker 1: So even when I went to a zenda, which is
Speaker 1: a pretty radical kind of institute in the West, at
Speaker 1: least in those days. Even then, I didn't really think
Speaker 1: of it as a home, you know. I thought of
Speaker 1: somehow something intrinsically threatening about any institution almost, you know.
Speaker 1: And and gradually, gradually I just got softened by sitting
Speaker 1: with people. I think it was mostly just sitting in
Speaker 1: a lot of company of other people, being silent in
Speaker 1: the room. I think it just kind of taught me
Speaker 1: that I had had human beings wrong. Whatever assumptions and
Speaker 1: feelings and attitudes had had a long time unconsciously and
Speaker 1: maybe also consciously towards others, they were pretty much all wrong.
Speaker 1: And sitting in silence with others, I think was the
Speaker 1: thing that allowed me to open that up. And I
Speaker 1: started a just sort of fall in love with not
Speaker 1: exactly literally, but you know, kind of feel like I
Speaker 1: was falling in love with with with the room, with
Speaker 1: the people in the room. It's a beautiful d And
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of been me most of my life.
Speaker 1: I've been like, I'll figure this out, I'll read about it,
Speaker 1: I'll meditate, I'll do all this stuff. And it's been
Speaker 1: in the last you know, several years where I've really
Speaker 1: went a I think it's time to pick a path,
Speaker 1: pick a community, like try and ground myself and stop
Speaker 1: being the lone wolf in that regard. Yes, that's a
Speaker 1: phrase I think I used in my book here and
Speaker 1: there I was like a snarling lone wolf. Then the
Speaker 1: wolf again, yeah, yeah, that's the bad wolf, the loner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the wolf. Yeah, thinks it's got to do it alone
Speaker 1: and must do it alone, and and everybody else is
Speaker 1: like keep them at your distance. You know. This is
Speaker 1: something else that resonated throughout your book. You said. Fourth,
Speaker 1: While for some it may be helpful to find a
Speaker 1: live in community, we don't have to do that. And further,
Speaker 1: we don't have to go to a community that that
Speaker 1: is very non Western. It doesn't have to be These
Speaker 1: teachings don't have to be presented as exotic. That we
Speaker 1: can be a lay person, a person in the world
Speaker 1: and work within our cultural trappings to some degree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel that quite strongly. I think that we have
Speaker 1: that choice that, you know, from my point of view,
Speaker 1: sort of like the deep teachings of Zen. They don't
Speaker 1: have to be conveyed in robes with a lot of ritual.
Speaker 1: You know, I actually happen to have pretty short hair,
Speaker 1: but you don't really have to have a shaved head,
Speaker 1: you know. And really the deep teachings are about what
Speaker 1: we humans are and how we could best live, or
Speaker 1: how we can live good and helpful lives, and how
Speaker 1: we can tame are harmful impulses, and and how we
Speaker 1: can grow in hopefully in wisdom of different kinds, you know,
Speaker 1: one kind of wisdom being how to live less harmfully
Speaker 1: to ourselves and to others, how to love ourselves and
Speaker 1: others more, and another kind of wisdom being this more
Speaker 1: like deep experiential openings to the nature of the present
Speaker 1: moment that you know, on one level, this present moment
Speaker 1: is just as it appears. There's you know, things in
Speaker 1: front of us, like right now, there's a computer screen,
Speaker 1: and Eric's on the other end of the line, and
Speaker 1: I know it's Henry sitting here in the sitting room
Speaker 1: in his home and salafe, and there's a little wind
Speaker 1: outside and the bare early spring trees are stirring slightly
Speaker 1: in the classes, you know, and all that's just as
Speaker 1: it is. But at the same time, there's an infinite
Speaker 1: expanse right here, you know, and there's a boundlessness that's
Speaker 1: utterly beautiful there's a level of total intimacy that you know,
Speaker 1: even in an ordinary moment, if we're open to it,
Speaker 1: we can sense that, you know, we're just part of it.
Speaker 1: We're we're part of one hole which is presenting itself
Speaker 1: in just this way, just now, and you know, that's
Speaker 1: always available. It's always right here and right now and
Speaker 1: learning I mean, the train, and I would call that
Speaker 1: another level of wisdom, so to speak. We are humbled
Speaker 1: by it because it's just awesome to be part of
Speaker 1: one enormous reality, you know, and we're inextricably part of it.
Speaker 1: It's it's an amazing thing to realize and too sense,
Speaker 1: to have the kind of training that can allow us,
Speaker 1: first of all, to discover that for ourselves. I think
Speaker 1: that's an incredible thing. But then to go on, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's not that easy, I would say for most
Speaker 1: of us, but you know, hopefully eventually just be able
Speaker 1: to sort of sense it, you know, maybe not all
Speaker 1: the time, but often, and you know, whenever we kind
Speaker 1: of remember to oh, yes, you know, just coming back
Speaker 1: and realizing this is here, this is you know, this
Speaker 1: this whole is here right now and all is one
Speaker 1: and you know, but it's also just each thing exactly
Speaker 1: as it is, and I find that just so beautiful,
Speaker 1: and it fills my heart with love whenever I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, and to have the possibility of growing in
Speaker 1: those kinds of ways just doesn't seem to me to
Speaker 1: need elaborate foreign costumes or elaborate foreign rituals. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't seem necessary to me. I know that there are
Speaker 1: other forms of Buddhism in the West that are much
Speaker 1: more traditional and follow you know, the customs and the
Speaker 1: litages of Asian forms, and I respect that deeply. I'm personally,
Speaker 1: I'm just glad that that's not the only way. Something
Speaker 1: you just were saying reminded me of a couple of
Speaker 1: lines you wrote, and I did want to get a
Speaker 1: couple of lines of the book in because you're such
Speaker 1: a beautiful writer. You said, you're talking about training as
Speaker 1: a lay person or a person who doesn't join the monastery. Say,
Speaker 1: it's not like a monastery. This kind of training. Life
Speaker 1: goes on. You have to keep making sense of the
Speaker 1: ordinary daily grind, but the training starts to infiltrate normal life,
Speaker 1: and odd moments of joy and minor revelation fall on
Speaker 1: us as we pushed the toddler on the swing, or
Speaker 1: step off a cold street into a warm shop, or
Speaker 1: get into the car and listen to the choking to
Speaker 1: the starter motor. Everyday sights and sounds start to hit
Speaker 1: us in a more immediate way, and we meet them
Speaker 1: with appreciation. Well, I'm glad I said that that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could pull out hundreds of these, but this is
Speaker 1: a good pivot point because you're also a poet, and
Speaker 1: you are interested in poetry from from very early on,
Speaker 1: and you talk a little bit about why zen and
Speaker 1: poetry have such a close affinity with each other. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that bit you just read
Speaker 1: speaks to that. Thank you, because it is. It seems
Speaker 1: to me it is about cherishing the every day, cherishing
Speaker 1: the normal, like a moment. Ago is talking pretty sort
Speaker 1: of cosmically about the you know, the vast, boundless moment
Speaker 1: or whatever. But actually, however cosmic it may be, it's
Speaker 1: showing up as just this table cloth just as it is,
Speaker 1: you know, and the lamb and the folded sweater and
Speaker 1: the water bottle, you know, and each thing is so precious.
Speaker 1: So this level of appreciation, maybe, you know, we could
Speaker 1: call that another facet of wisdom to be able to
Speaker 1: appreciate our life in the moment, and that means I think, well,
Speaker 1: that's so amplified when we see that all things are
Speaker 1: just sort of freely arising in one great boundlessness. It's
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful. And you know, we don't have to
Speaker 1: have maybe open up to that boundlessness to even just
Speaker 1: get the sense that whatever arises, we know it's going
Speaker 1: to pass away, and it's therefore so precious. And two
Speaker 1: be able though, to be encouraged to find beauty in
Speaker 1: the most ordinary things is definitely part of the Zen tradition.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons I love it. Other forms
Speaker 1: of Buddhism maybe have less concerned with externals, you know,
Speaker 1: they're more about internal experience. But then really loves to
Speaker 1: turn the lens outward and to explore our relationship with
Speaker 1: the world and to see the world as our ultimate teacher,
Speaker 1: because in the sense, you know, at the deepest level,
Speaker 1: it's it's part of us. It is us, you know,
Speaker 1: in a sense, I don't want to sound too spooky
Speaker 1: to the listeners, but there's a level where we can
Speaker 1: discover that, you know, in awakening experience and so on,
Speaker 1: but even without that, just to sense the wonder of
Speaker 1: the ordinary, Like if you just think, if you just
Speaker 1: look at a you know, something simple like a glass
Speaker 1: of water, whether you know, maybe standing in a bar
Speaker 1: of sunlight coming through an open window, what an amazing
Speaker 1: thing it is to take a step? Well, actually, that's
Speaker 1: a really amazing thing. You know. There's one famous Zen
Speaker 1: story where a zen master is walking with some some
Speaker 1: other kind of practitioner who's maybe sort of more like
Speaker 1: a sort of magical practitioner, and they come to a
Speaker 1: river and this other practitioner just walks across it. You know,
Speaker 1: he can walk on water, and and there zen practitioner
Speaker 1: wades across the river, and it said something like, you know,
Speaker 1: you school, if I had known you could do that,
Speaker 1: I'd never have walked all this way with you. Like,
Speaker 1: there's something sort of wrong with valuing superhuman powers because
Speaker 1: it distracts us from the miracle of this moment just
Speaker 1: as it is. You know that actually we should really
Speaker 1: be appreciating the miracle of just being able to sit
Speaker 1: here and chat. One of the things that draws me
Speaker 1: to Zend the most is that I'm always pointed back
Speaker 1: to my immediate experience like I don't have to be
Speaker 1: somewhere else. I don't have to go somewhere else, I
Speaker 1: don't have to do something. It's always pointing me back,
Speaker 1: like it's right here, right here, right here, right over
Speaker 1: and over and over and and for someone who spent
Speaker 1: a lot of his life thinking that it was always
Speaker 1: somewhere else, it's a great constant reminder. No, it's right here.
Speaker 1: It's really good for me. Yeah, I'm sure it's good
Speaker 1: for all of us, you know. And I think that's
Speaker 1: you sort of talked about. That's what poetry does, right.
Speaker 1: Poetry is is the practice of really paying very close
Speaker 1: attention exactly. I'm so. I was going to come around
Speaker 1: to that. I forgot exactly. Poetry has that in common,
Speaker 1: you know, that real close attention and being able to
Speaker 1: render it in hopefully beautiful speech, you know, beautiful words.
Speaker 1: You know, similar probably to somebody who draws. You know,
Speaker 1: an artist who draws, and they're just giving so much
Speaker 1: attention to you know, the medium they're working in and
Speaker 1: to what they're seeing, you know, and whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: in the mind or in the imagination or in front
Speaker 1: of them, if it's representational art, that kind of deep attentiveness.
Speaker 1: When that expresses itself on the page, you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's a like I said, whether it's an art, visual art,
Speaker 1: or poetry or even great prose. You know, when that
Speaker 1: kind of attentiveness is expressed, I think we can't help
Speaker 1: responding to it. You know, our hearts are touched by it,
Speaker 1: and we it wakes up in us our own capacity
Speaker 1: to be that attentive and to appreciate what is before us.
Speaker 1: So I think that's one of the functions of art
Speaker 1: is that it it sort of opens our hearts and
Speaker 1: our eyes to our own life, you know, a good
Speaker 1: great Yeah, great art sort of centers us back in
Speaker 1: the middle of our own life where we can appreciate
Speaker 1: it more fully. And so does meditation practice for sure.
Speaker 1: So the other thing I wanted to talk about was
Speaker 1: there was a point in your life where you know,
Speaker 1: you felt like your marriage was a little bit in trouble,
Speaker 1: you were feeling drawn in other directions, And I just
Speaker 1: want to read what you wrote. I really love this
Speaker 1: because it's it's something that comes up in my mind
Speaker 1: a lot. Also, And you said self help gurus might
Speaker 1: say get on with it, do what you want. You
Speaker 1: don't live forever, you know, basically encouraging you, like, chase
Speaker 1: whatever it is you want, chase your your dreams. But
Speaker 1: Zen said, wait a minute, check out who is calling
Speaker 1: the shots, Who is the tyrant declaring what must and
Speaker 1: must not be, what we must and must not do.
Speaker 1: See the bigger picture, who else is involved, who has
Speaker 1: the most at stake? And will this situation lead to
Speaker 1: more suffering all told or less? And I just love
Speaker 1: that idea, because I do think in the self helped world,
Speaker 1: which is a world I sort of travel in this show,
Speaker 1: is in that area. There's a lot of that sense.
Speaker 1: It's a There's another phrase that that irks me a
Speaker 1: lot that I hear often, which is like, let go
Speaker 1: of what's not serving you, as if the point of
Speaker 1: everything is to serve us. And I love that you
Speaker 1: sort of pivoted here and and Zen said slow down
Speaker 1: and and be more present and think more deeply, and
Speaker 1: and it turned out to be the right thing for you.
Speaker 1: You're still, as far as I can, as far as
Speaker 1: I know at least the end of the memoir, still
Speaker 1: a very happily married man. But I just thought it
Speaker 1: was really fascinating the process you went through there. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: thanks for bringing that up. I mean, I do feel
Speaker 1: that there's discovery that we can make in you know,
Speaker 1: deep spiritual or contemplative training, that our sense of self
Speaker 1: is actually an illusion. That it's not that you know,
Speaker 1: we're not somebody. We you know, we are, and I'm
Speaker 1: Henry born and such and such a time, living in
Speaker 1: such and such a place, doing certain things. But the
Speaker 1: sense of me that is a kind of like a
Speaker 1: certain sort of contraction in that I sense in the
Speaker 1: middle of my being somehow, some kind of core or
Speaker 1: kernel or nugget that is the me that I've always been.
Speaker 1: If we go deep in meditation and really examine it,
Speaker 1: we find that it's not really there. It just appears
Speaker 1: to be and so feels like it is. So with
Speaker 1: that in mind, when we serve ourselves, we're probably likely
Speaker 1: serving in a sense of the wrong thing, because it's
Speaker 1: not really there to be to be served in the
Speaker 1: way we thought, if you see what I mean. But
Speaker 1: I think it's a tricky point actually because because at
Speaker 1: the same time, I really think a lot of us
Speaker 1: in the West need more self love. So it sounds contradictory,
Speaker 1: but it's really not. It's just that there are sort
Speaker 1: of different levels of growth and different levels of love.
Speaker 1: And on one level, loving ourselves is sort of learning
Speaker 1: to deeply accept ourselves. And that doesn't mean just really
Speaker 1: nearly doing whatever we want and trying to gratify all
Speaker 1: our winds and desires. It doesn't mean that at all.
Speaker 1: It means discovering that there's a place within where we're
Speaker 1: really at home with ourselves, and if we act from there,
Speaker 1: it's so much easier to act in loving and helpful ways.
Speaker 1: And actually when we're not there, when we don't know
Speaker 1: how to be there, we're much more likely to be
Speaker 1: driven by impulses and desires that are only really there
Speaker 1: to try to fill the whole because we're not in
Speaker 1: the middle, you know. So there's a place for really
Speaker 1: coming home to ourselves and learning self love and self compassion.
Speaker 1: But there's also a place for discovering that our sense
Speaker 1: of self has been very, very limited, and that you know,
Speaker 1: we belong in a much greater way to a much
Speaker 1: greater hole, and and that too is a source of
Speaker 1: I would sort of in sense, even deeper love that
Speaker 1: we can open up to. So if we're stuck in
Speaker 1: the mindset that kind of trying to make ourselves feel
Speaker 1: okay by managing what we get and what we don't get.
Speaker 1: We really are going to have a harder time in
Speaker 1: both those projects, because, you know, coming home to ourselves
Speaker 1: and just being all right and peaceful and content just
Speaker 1: being me, that's a big, beautiful thing to find we
Speaker 1: can do in itself. And then you know, if we're
Speaker 1: curious about this sort of deeper discoveries of who am
Speaker 1: I and what is this world and what is this
Speaker 1: life that these deep contemplative paths offer, then we may find, wow,
Speaker 1: I'm not even what I thought I was. Instead, I'm
Speaker 1: part of a much greater whole. You know that that
Speaker 1: that's even more marvelous to discover, you know, And neither
Speaker 1: of them is going to be helped by a life
Speaker 1: that is driven by trying to gratify some imagined self.
Speaker 1: I think the tricky part, of course, is sometimes are
Speaker 1: side conditions should be changed. You know, sometimes we do
Speaker 1: need to change our outside conditions, and sometimes we need
Speaker 1: to change our inside conditions. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: can be tricky. But I think that I hear a
Speaker 1: lot of encouragement, a lot of what feels spiritual to
Speaker 1: me these days, which is very much feels like the
Speaker 1: spiritual imperative that's being given is please yourself, and and
Speaker 1: I just I'm just not sure that's really the message,
Speaker 1: the right message, and your point, what is self anyway?
Speaker 1: That that is that that is the deeper obvious question
Speaker 1: they're wakening is driving at Yes, that's right, and you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right to bring up, you know, like sometimes we're
Speaker 1: in situations that are that are abusive or that are
Speaker 1: really harmful and not wholesome at all, and and something
Speaker 1: needs to change externally. I totally agree with that, and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that I didn't mean to suggest that that's
Speaker 1: not the case, that it's only about sort of deep
Speaker 1: inward discovery. I think you're absolutely right, and in fact,
Speaker 1: you know, again this is another thing ace of where
Speaker 1: we really want practice to be manifesting in the way
Speaker 1: we live. You know that if it's not being expressed
Speaker 1: in a wholesome life that is wholesome meaning really harmless
Speaker 1: to others and to self, If it's not being expressed
Speaker 1: in that way, you know, well, we we just keep
Speaker 1: working at it, and you know, we acknowledge it may
Speaker 1: take a lot of work, and it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of practice and we're not really seeking to get it perfect.
Speaker 1: We're just doing the best we can and hopefully getting
Speaker 1: a little better and being more and more helpful and
Speaker 1: more and more fulfilled along the way. Totally agree. I
Speaker 1: think that's a great place for us to wrap up
Speaker 1: on that beautiful idea. You and I are going to
Speaker 1: talk some more in the post show conversation about working
Speaker 1: with Cohen's, which is a fascinating subject and one close
Speaker 1: to my heart. So listeners, you can get access to
Speaker 1: the post show conversations, add free episodes, and all kinds
Speaker 1: of other good stuff at one you feed, dot net,
Speaker 1: slash Join Henry Thay, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: I can't recommend your book highly enough to listeners. It's
Speaker 1: a beautiful, beautiful read, and it's one of my favorites
Speaker 1: I've read in quite some time. So very wonderful, and
Speaker 1: thank you for your time. Well, thank you Eric so much.
Speaker 1: I'm really honored to be on the show. I'm very
Speaker 1: grateful for this chance to connect with you and learn
Speaker 1: all the listeners, and thank you so so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 1: consider making a monthly donation to support the one you
Speaker 1: Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this
Speaker 1: monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 1: It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 1: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 1: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 1: become a member of the one you Feed community. Go
Speaker 1: to when you feed dot net slash join the One
Speaker 1: You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors
Speaker 1: for supporting the show.