Speaker 1: People are looking for something and that's why they're practicing.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Ryan Olki, co founder of Buddhist Geeks and founder of
Speaker 1: Awakening in Life. Ryan is a meditation teacher with an
Speaker 1: ms e d and counseling psychology and has eighteen years
Speaker 1: experience in meditation. He is also a certified teacher in
Speaker 1: Judith Blackstone's Realization process. Here's the interview. Hi, Ryan, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Thank you great to be Eric. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on. You and I met.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's been a while ago, as I
Speaker 1: was looking in at different spiritual directors out there, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked for a little bit and I
Speaker 1: just really liked the work you did and I thought
Speaker 1: you'd be a great fit for the show. So let's
Speaker 1: start like we always do, with the parable, where there's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and 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: you're presents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and
Speaker 1: she thinks about it for a second, and she looks
Speaker 1: up at her grandfather says, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you kind of what that
Speaker 1: parable means to you in your life and in the
Speaker 1: work that you do. Well. I think initially what I
Speaker 1: like about it is that it invites in a lot
Speaker 1: of wondering and invites it a lot of inquirying and curiosity.
Speaker 1: And really that's kind of the first place I go
Speaker 1: with this parable is it makes me curious because my
Speaker 1: life and a lot what I observed with people I
Speaker 1: work with is that we have a lot of wolves.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of wolves anyways, and the question
Speaker 1: is is, uh, which wolf is? Which you know? And
Speaker 1: how do I know that? And sometimes life is really
Speaker 1: complicated and the struggles and the joys aren't always super
Speaker 1: clear to me, and sometimes it takes me time to
Speaker 1: really discern that and from that discernment to you know,
Speaker 1: craft a response. So for me what I practice a
Speaker 1: lot in my life and help others with this practicing
Speaker 1: radical curiosity. So can I sit with both of these
Speaker 1: wolves for just a little bit so I can get
Speaker 1: to know them, so I can hear what they have
Speaker 1: to say. Because if I can do that, then I
Speaker 1: can really with confidence have a response to make changes
Speaker 1: in my life. But a lot of times it's so
Speaker 1: easy to just react really quickly. Sometimes I've been wrong
Speaker 1: in my life, you know that. Sometimes I think, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the this is the good wolf right here,
Speaker 1: because it's helping me in the situation, And turns out,
Speaker 1: damn it, that was the wrong wolf, and uh, I
Speaker 1: should have responded in this way. So I also think,
Speaker 1: because we're so conditioned to want answers, and we really
Speaker 1: need a lot of answers in our life, that slowing
Speaker 1: down and practicing curiosity is a lot harder. So whether
Speaker 1: it's in if we seek out say therapy or a
Speaker 1: psychologist or a spiritual teacher, we're going to be practicing
Speaker 1: a lot of slowing down and wondering about our experience,
Speaker 1: um starting to come home to ourselves. It's the other
Speaker 1: thing I think that happens is we come home to ourselves,
Speaker 1: to come home to these wolves, even if we're gonna
Speaker 1: just say we're not going to feed certain wolves here,
Speaker 1: there's something really nice about coming home to myself how
Speaker 1: I am in this moment, regardless of what's arising, then
Speaker 1: to be engaged with my experience so that way I
Speaker 1: can do something with it. So I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot from this parable that can be opened up in
Speaker 1: terms of exploration. Uh, you know, inwardly and outwardly. But
Speaker 1: that's where I go with it. Wonderful. Well, radical curiosity
Speaker 1: was one of the places I wanted to start. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you'd call it your method or your approach.
Speaker 1: But you call it awakening in life, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk through kind of what that means. But one
Speaker 1: of the parts of it is is radical curiosity. And
Speaker 1: you describe a couple of different things, but you say
Speaker 1: that one of the things about radical curiosity is doesn't
Speaker 1: mean having a pleasurable or positive or approval towards what
Speaker 1: we're curious about. And that's part that's what makes it radical,
Speaker 1: is that it's not dependent on approval or disapproval. And
Speaker 1: I'm obviously a big believer in which is can we
Speaker 1: remain curious, because when we remain curious, we can learn
Speaker 1: and we can change. So tell me a little bit
Speaker 1: more about radical curiosity from your perspective. Yeah, well, you
Speaker 1: said it great there, Um, as far as what I
Speaker 1: intend is so difficult. So I want to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: practicing radical curiosity isn't necessarily easy. So I think sometimes
Speaker 1: in the you know, in the spiritual world, but in
Speaker 1: the self help world, to um, we can be given
Speaker 1: a lot of answers that that's just see a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, like just do this and everything's going to
Speaker 1: be great or it will be easy. Um, But no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't that that's also not the point. The radical
Speaker 1: curiosity is the practice, but it can be really difficult
Speaker 1: at times, and maybe other times it's going to be easier.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot that I preface in that because
Speaker 1: I feel like, depending on who I'm talking to, this
Speaker 1: might be readily received and um and then kind of
Speaker 1: investigated and but other times it can be met with
Speaker 1: a lot of resistance. And it depends on the context
Speaker 1: of For example, we're talking about politics, right, regardless of
Speaker 1: where people are in politics, people may not be feeling
Speaker 1: very curious. There's a lot that I understand about that
Speaker 1: for sure, because a lot of us feel like we
Speaker 1: need some very pointed responses to what's going on. But here,
Speaker 1: you know, radical curiosity, right, So radical first part is
Speaker 1: is being radically open to what is happening. And being
Speaker 1: open to what is happening means that I can fully
Speaker 1: see what's happening, or I can more fully see and
Speaker 1: experience what's happening. If I can more fully see and
Speaker 1: experience what's happening, I can respond to it. So I
Speaker 1: think the two extremes here that we can fall into.
Speaker 1: One is being too reactive for we don't have enough
Speaker 1: space to step back and really look at our experience
Speaker 1: so that way we can formulate um and create and
Speaker 1: craft a intelligent, wise and passionate response. The other side
Speaker 1: is being so radical that you basically disengage from experience.
Speaker 1: So the answer would be like, oh, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: sort of transcend experience or spiritually bypassed everything that's arising.
Speaker 1: And obviously that can feel better because I'm no longer
Speaker 1: you know, in touch with the pain of what's arising,
Speaker 1: for example, but it doesn't really change anything about our experience.
Speaker 1: So here radical curiosity integrates these two really great practices,
Speaker 1: one of being really open and allowing and then the
Speaker 1: other being responsive and engaged. So we're not choosing between
Speaker 1: the two, but we're allowing both to be present at
Speaker 1: the same time. And pretty much like this is a
Speaker 1: common thread for me and everything I do. UM. It's hard.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can think of a situation
Speaker 1: where I'm not including some radical curiosity as has part
Speaker 1: of what I'm doing. And again, it doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: being static or passive, you know. So I'm hoping I'm
Speaker 1: communicating that very clearly because that's usually the objections of
Speaker 1: being like, oh, so I'm gonna, you know, not be
Speaker 1: engaged in my experience. No, that's not what we mean.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just including that as an element of
Speaker 1: how we experience and respond to life. Right. The spiritual
Speaker 1: teacher Audio Shanty said to me once that you know,
Speaker 1: nothing collapses consciousness faster than judgment. And it also makes
Speaker 1: me think of, you know, beginner's mind idea like radical
Speaker 1: curiosity for me is a way of sort of avoiding
Speaker 1: that collapsing of consciousness and keeping in that sort of
Speaker 1: beginner's mind. And it's hard to do, like you said,
Speaker 1: and and so I agree. I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: passive approach, but it's a place to start from for me.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think a lot of different people have
Speaker 1: talked about this. This just happens to be, uh, something
Speaker 1: I tend to focus a lot on. But that's why
Speaker 1: to use that word curiosity in there, because it implies
Speaker 1: being engaged um and the radical communicates the openness around it,
Speaker 1: a phrase that I've been using this week. I'm in
Speaker 1: this integral meta derma training I'm leading. I'm giving people
Speaker 1: an introduction on integral theory from Kenloeber, and I had
Speaker 1: to think of a way to say all this stuff
Speaker 1: in a very little time, you know, like less than
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, which is really difficult. And an essential phrase
Speaker 1: that came up for me was, um, what's happening here matters?
Speaker 1: So what's happening in our life matters? And this is
Speaker 1: a phrase that's particularly potent inside of a context awakening,
Speaker 1: where um, we might be cultivating the experience of transcending
Speaker 1: or opening up beyond the experience of our everyday life,
Speaker 1: you know, or tapping into something more timeless. And so
Speaker 1: radical curiosity includes that too, that what's happening here matters,
Speaker 1: and therefore I'm going to be radically curious. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about your awakening in life approach. You break
Speaker 1: this down into three basic ideas. You talk about you
Speaker 1: know that both those words awakening and in life are
Speaker 1: really important. And you describe life as as the opportunity
Speaker 1: to awaken. You describe life is what we are awakening
Speaker 1: through and what we are awakening for. So let's talk
Speaker 1: briefly about each of those three, because I think it's
Speaker 1: an interesting model. So let's talk about life as the
Speaker 1: opportunity to awaken. What do you mean by that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know what's funny. So with the kind of
Speaker 1: breaking this down into three parts here it can be
Speaker 1: really subtle and really at certain points almost the three
Speaker 1: can be synonymous with one another. But in how I
Speaker 1: differentiate and subtly, opportunity to awaken means that we don't
Speaker 1: have to um go somewhere else. We don't have to
Speaker 1: find special conditions to wake up. The reason why I
Speaker 1: say this is because in that tradition, like Buddhism, for example,
Speaker 1: going on retreats is very common, and this is very
Speaker 1: common amongst many contemplative traditions, whether traditional or contemporary. We
Speaker 1: seek reach so we can kind of have optimal conditions
Speaker 1: in order to practice things like meditation and cultivating the
Speaker 1: insights and capacities that exists in those traditions. But the
Speaker 1: way that I differentiate as I say that those are optimal,
Speaker 1: So we can seek out optimal conditions for sure, maybe
Speaker 1: that will be beneficial, but we don't need to do
Speaker 1: that in order to wake up. And the funny thing
Speaker 1: is is like I also say that awakening in life
Speaker 1: is it's almost silly in a certain way, Like I
Speaker 1: really love the title, but if you think about it's
Speaker 1: like where else are we gonna awaken that well where else? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what else? You got? Where you gonna go? Where life
Speaker 1: and everything that is a part of life isn't present? Right,
Speaker 1: So even if we're meditating on a mountain and with
Speaker 1: and there's like nobody around, are we ever not relational?
Speaker 1: Are we ever not in relationship? You know? I mean
Speaker 1: we were born a relationship where even if there's nobody around,
Speaker 1: were in the relationship with our surroundings and nature, and
Speaker 1: still we have the awareness that there are any beings
Speaker 1: on this planet. So, um, life is everywhere. So it's
Speaker 1: to really counter the tendency to to think that we
Speaker 1: have to find some escape to life in order to
Speaker 1: wake up. And of course, I guess you know, we're
Speaker 1: assuming here that maybe you know, there's some shared understanding
Speaker 1: of what we mean by wake up, but we're just
Speaker 1: talking about traditional paths of waking up. Where um, again,
Speaker 1: we're waking up to something you can use so many
Speaker 1: different terms, something timeless, nondual awakenings, awakening to selflessness, deep
Speaker 1: love and deep compassion, etcetera, etcetera. But we don't need
Speaker 1: to go anywhere to do that. So that's the first bit.
Speaker 1: I love that idea because I do think that. I'll
Speaker 1: just read something you said, because I think it really
Speaker 1: says it well. You say, no matter our circumstances, we
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to awaken. It isn't to say that
Speaker 1: all circumstances will be relatively of the same ease or
Speaker 1: difficulty to practice you awaken. But indeed, wherever we are,
Speaker 1: whatever we're experiencing this, this is our opportunity for awakening.
Speaker 1: And I think certainly that's what a lot of spirit
Speaker 1: traditions are driving at, which is like this, like now
Speaker 1: right now, like this is the only place you could
Speaker 1: wake up is here right now? Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 1: and and I like that. I like that that you
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, reframe us back because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us are waiting for a particular moment.
Speaker 1: It's the way we live our lives, right It's the
Speaker 1: the orientation of oh, well when this than that that's
Speaker 1: definitely yeah, And it's always uh, I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of the cosmic joke to inside of the tradition that
Speaker 1: you finally realize that there is no well if this,
Speaker 1: then that that's that that that that's the very thing
Speaker 1: that prevents us from waking up on that deep level.
Speaker 1: Um but it bears you know, repeating and and talking
Speaker 1: a little bit more at length, you know, like we've
Speaker 1: done here, because you know, people might think, well, I
Speaker 1: can't do these practices awakening or meditation or wake up,
Speaker 1: um if I have a family or you know, on
Speaker 1: the bus and work. You know, that's not conducive to
Speaker 1: waking up. That might be much more difficult in certain aspects.
Speaker 1: But it depends on what part of the path you're
Speaker 1: on too so, and I think when people are at
Speaker 1: the seeking phase of the very beginning of a path
Speaker 1: of meditation awakening, it's all brand new. Um. The desire
Speaker 1: to go and retreat might be much stronger and more
Speaker 1: beneficial um in certain ways. But then at some point
Speaker 1: there's a waking down process where you have to integrate
Speaker 1: what you've realized on the cushion, and you can't do
Speaker 1: that unless you're trying to do in the midst of life.
Speaker 1: But for me, I say, just start that way from
Speaker 1: the beginning, and it's a lot easier, right. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things I am most interested in these
Speaker 1: days is how do we practice throughout our day as
Speaker 1: we go through life, Like there's practice time quote unquote,
Speaker 1: right and sit down and meditate for thirty minutes in
Speaker 1: the morning, or I do some yoga, or maybe I
Speaker 1: do some spiritual reading, and then there's all the rest
Speaker 1: of my life, right, and how do we bring those ideas,
Speaker 1: those concepts, those insights, those practices, those mindsets, all of it.
Speaker 1: How do we weave it through all the rest of
Speaker 1: the hours of our day. And I'm kind of curious
Speaker 1: from your perspective, what are some of the best ways
Speaker 1: to do that. I see that as the fundamental challenge
Speaker 1: is that we limit our practice time to these formal
Speaker 1: times and then we forget about it all the rest
Speaker 1: of the day, which of course we do. I'm not
Speaker 1: We're busy, We're running around. There's a thousand things coming
Speaker 1: at us, you know, And so I'm real curious in
Speaker 1: how you work with people to do that. So a
Speaker 1: few things come up from me. We'll see if I
Speaker 1: can remember them all in intelligent way. But the first
Speaker 1: is the view. So in uh contempled traditional Buddhism, the
Speaker 1: view is important. So if we start with the view
Speaker 1: that are our practice of meditation awakening is to serve
Speaker 1: our experience of life, of being in life, then that
Speaker 1: helps from the get go. So This may be the
Speaker 1: original motivation, but sometimes we can get lost in the
Speaker 1: meditation practices, for example, where what we experience on the
Speaker 1: cushion becomes the goal, Like we lose track of why
Speaker 1: we're practicing. Why, why are we sitting on the cushion,
Speaker 1: what's that going to? Why? What what's our motivation to practice?
Speaker 1: But we can experience something on a cushion, right, we
Speaker 1: can experience some like sense of radical openness, right, or
Speaker 1: selflessness or something like that, and then that becomes the focus.
Speaker 1: And what can happen is like I just keep trying
Speaker 1: to come back to that over and over. I keep
Speaker 1: trying to recreate that experience, and therefore I've gotten lost
Speaker 1: in the view, like the endgame is what's happening on
Speaker 1: the cushion, not life. So start from the beginning with
Speaker 1: how these practices relate and support your life, not the
Speaker 1: other way around, which is what we've been talking about.
Speaker 1: I think too, then it's for me, it's how I
Speaker 1: practice that that aids that. So, for example, I have
Speaker 1: a big emphasis on embodiment, and that has become a
Speaker 1: much bigger focus in paths of awakening and meditation in
Speaker 1: the contemporary modern postmodern era. Um, you you'll hear about embodihim.
Speaker 1: It's so much more than you did even twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty years ago. So, for example, everything I do now
Speaker 1: includes the body. I just can't even It's just strange
Speaker 1: and weird for me to meditate and practice in a
Speaker 1: way where the practice isn't rooted in the body. It
Speaker 1: somehow And the reason why it's important is because essentially
Speaker 1: that's the same thing as rooting the practice in life.
Speaker 1: If it's in through your whole body and you're not
Speaker 1: just saying on the cushion to sort of get out
Speaker 1: of the body, it's gonna be so much easier to
Speaker 1: to bring what you experience on on a cushion into
Speaker 1: life because you're including the body, You're including the form
Speaker 1: that you inhabit in this life. The other thing, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a small practice, um that you probably saw
Speaker 1: there that I call an environment transition sequence, which is
Speaker 1: a bunch of words to describe something simple, but basically
Speaker 1: like how do I come to the cushion and then
Speaker 1: how do I leave the cushion? If I can create
Speaker 1: a more seamless experience from life to formal practice to
Speaker 1: exiting formal practice and going back in life, they will
Speaker 1: be as strong a sense of integration, a stronger sense
Speaker 1: of that this is naturally a part of my life.
Speaker 1: So I would say that's one response in too, if
Speaker 1: you're if you've been doing a lot of formal practice,
Speaker 1: how can you start shifting that to feeling um that
Speaker 1: you're bringing this into life more At a certain point,
Speaker 1: It's funny, and I think a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have done a lot of practice and gone deep, at
Speaker 1: a certain point formal practice becomes less important, and people
Speaker 1: might even stop doing formal practice for a while that
Speaker 1: there's a realization that formal practice isn't gonna awaken me
Speaker 1: or or I'm not going to experience anymore anything deeper
Speaker 1: by doing formal practice. It's not going to change anything.
Speaker 1: I can experience what I experience on the cushion at
Speaker 1: any time in life. So why do the practice now?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, for like somebody who's beginning of meditation,
Speaker 1: it might be very natural just to to emphasize formal
Speaker 1: practice because we're cultivating capacity, right, So if if it's
Speaker 1: we find it very difficult to just sit with our
Speaker 1: breath for a few minutes, like sitting with our breath
Speaker 1: might be really profound for us in this moment. You
Speaker 1: might need some formal practice to strengthen the capacity of
Speaker 1: guiding attention to an object, or to focus or to
Speaker 1: just be present for a few minutes. And you work
Speaker 1: on that informal practice, and then when that when I
Speaker 1: get stronger, it's a little easier to do that on
Speaker 1: a crazy allowed bus for example, right the conditions change.
Speaker 1: So I would just want to acknowledge that that, like
Speaker 1: you know, um, it might take some formal practice in
Speaker 1: order to be able to bring those capacities and insights
Speaker 1: into life. So this is a big conversation. I mean,
Speaker 1: really everything I do involves the question that you brought up.
Speaker 1: But these are a few thoughts. One last thing, you know,
Speaker 1: on embodiment, A practice like embodiment, I am go up
Speaker 1: really with any practice. I encourage people to try to
Speaker 1: do that multiple times during the day, in different locations,
Speaker 1: in different parts of life, even if it's for a minute,
Speaker 1: like for example, dropping into the body. If if you're
Speaker 1: on a bus, you can try that for just a minute,
Speaker 1: even if it's sixty seconds, experience being present in your body.
Speaker 1: You're not being experiencing trying to escape the bus experience,
Speaker 1: but you're just trying to come home to yourself while
Speaker 1: you're present on that bus, or while you're present whatever
Speaker 1: situation is. And you do it in little micro doses,
Speaker 1: and it starts making it feel much more natural. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that idea is really important. Locke Kelly another
Speaker 1: his method is glimpses. He says small glimpses many times.
Speaker 1: But I love that idea because it's not Okay, I
Speaker 1: sit down and I have this big experience or I
Speaker 1: have these big experiences. Not that that's not valuable. Formal
Speaker 1: practice is a huge part of of what's important to me.
Speaker 1: But that idea of small glimpses, many times, I love it.
Speaker 1: And I study behavior change an awful lot and I
Speaker 1: work with a lot of people in coaching practice around that.
Speaker 1: And that's a pretty big concept, which is you do
Speaker 1: something often over and over and over a little bit
Speaker 1: at a time, you know. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: things I found about really busy people, people who are
Speaker 1: really busy who get a lot done. What I sound
Speaker 1: is that those people find a way to use these
Speaker 1: little moments of time that most people throw away. And
Speaker 1: so from a spiritual perspective, the same thing applies these
Speaker 1: little throwaway moments, the three minutes here that I get
Speaker 1: on Facebook and the two minutes that I get on Twitter.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the quotes early on that I
Speaker 1: started using at the beginning of the shows, will you
Speaker 1: be amazed what a series of small steps taken over
Speaker 1: and over leads to. And I think that with these
Speaker 1: little spiritual practices three minutes here, a minute here, like
Speaker 1: you said, just come back to my body, two many
Speaker 1: you know, a minute of feeling my feet, like it
Speaker 1: all adds up. Yes, definitely. And if we're looking at
Speaker 1: sort of stage model of of awakening with respect to
Speaker 1: these many glimpses, are many practices during a day for
Speaker 1: somebody who's in a really active seeking phase that's wanting
Speaker 1: and needing a lot of practice. Right there, you're trying
Speaker 1: to arrive somewhere. You're trying to cultivate certain experiences, whether
Speaker 1: throughs on the cushion or insights, and so in that sense, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you find more and more opportunities during the day
Speaker 1: to practice, whereas before if you thought, well, my life
Speaker 1: is really crammed and I don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: time to practice, then you might feel discouraged. So in
Speaker 1: that sense, it's very supportive doing that. On the under
Speaker 1: it of the path, it can really switch where the
Speaker 1: goal isn't really necessarily to rack up the time or
Speaker 1: the opportunities to practice. It's more of habituating ourselves to
Speaker 1: not differentiating between practice and life. And both of these
Speaker 1: things I just said are very really valid, and it's
Speaker 1: really relative to where what person is at on the path.
Speaker 1: But I really love both. I love both for you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm putting people into big boxes. You know, for
Speaker 1: the beginner, I love so I tried two minutes and
Speaker 1: ten times a day. Great. And then for somebody who's
Speaker 1: gotten disillusioned with, you know, formal practice and they can
Speaker 1: sense that there's something deeper wanting to emerge and integrate,
Speaker 1: try to do these practices in different contexts, you know,
Speaker 1: even briefly, can help dissolve that the vision we can
Speaker 1: put between formal practice in life. I think one of
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges is remembering we get busy doing things,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think about this often because it's
Speaker 1: not that I want to always be thinking of like, oh,
Speaker 1: spiritual practice. When I'm doing everything right, Ultimately it transcends
Speaker 1: into actually just doing things and really doing them right.
Speaker 1: So this isn't like I have to transform the way
Speaker 1: I do everything, but I do think that one of
Speaker 1: the biggest challenge es is, and I you know, I
Speaker 1: know this from a lot of people I work with myself,
Speaker 1: is up read a little bit of spiritual literature, do
Speaker 1: a little bit of meditation, rush off into the day,
Speaker 1: and the next time I think about any of these
Speaker 1: ideas is nine pm. And so, how do you think
Speaker 1: people can remember more? Because if we can even just
Speaker 1: like you said, it's a view to a certain extent, right,
Speaker 1: it's a perspective, It's a it's remembering to sort of
Speaker 1: take perspective and move it out of the normal day
Speaker 1: to day rush get I want, I don't want perspective
Speaker 1: and just that slight shift into oh there's something deeper here,
Speaker 1: you know. But remembering to do that is so hard. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a few response to have. One I've already mentioned
Speaker 1: about to elaborate on a little bit more is well
Speaker 1: it's kind of tune one the view and embodiment. So
Speaker 1: one thing I love to ask people is why are
Speaker 1: you practicing? How I want to ask that and how
Speaker 1: I want to listen. The response is to have you
Speaker 1: me be in our bodies. When we do that, to
Speaker 1: drop into our bodies as fully as we can present
Speaker 1: into our bodies and have the question presented, and notice
Speaker 1: what arises, because it's different, because it's so easy for
Speaker 1: us to respond, say from example, from our heads right,
Speaker 1: or from simple reactivity like a surface level response. But
Speaker 1: what is deeply motivating us? What is that our deepest
Speaker 1: motivation to practice? And it sounds so simple. We may
Speaker 1: think that the answer is obvious, But um, when we
Speaker 1: asked the question in this way and respond in that way,
Speaker 1: something takes deeper root in us to where it will
Speaker 1: continue more and more throughout our days that we won't forget.
Speaker 1: But I think it's so easy to skip this step
Speaker 1: because it seems so obvious. It seems obvious because we're
Speaker 1: already practicing why asked the question, but one we may
Speaker 1: not have thoroughly asked it, or we may not have
Speaker 1: thoroughly sat with the inquiry, and then not to mention
Speaker 1: that the response to that question changes over time. So
Speaker 1: I have found when people sit with this question an
Speaker 1: embodied way, they naturally come back to the practice more
Speaker 1: throughout their day and throughout their daily life, because otherwise
Speaker 1: I think what people do is you you try to
Speaker 1: go from external reminders like you externalize the reminding, right,
Speaker 1: you use timers and things like that, which, again, if
Speaker 1: that is what is needed in this moment, then you
Speaker 1: make use of that. But at certain point we wanted
Speaker 1: to switch to where this is just naturally part of
Speaker 1: our life. Right. We're practicing for a reason. We're practicing
Speaker 1: to shift something in our own experience. That's that we
Speaker 1: want to become a natural part of who we are.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's continually coming back um to our
Speaker 1: lived experience and grounding it in our bodies. And that's
Speaker 1: when I say body. I don't mean you know, exclusively
Speaker 1: like our physical body, but um, I think you did
Speaker 1: an interview with jud To Blackstone, Yeah, yeah, and she
Speaker 1: talks about inhabiting the qualities of our experience in our body.
Speaker 1: For example, knowing, we experience knowing in our heads, we
Speaker 1: experience love in our chest, we experience power on our stomachs,
Speaker 1: mid sections. This means grounding our motivation and our lived,
Speaker 1: embodied experience. And from there there emerges some trust I think,
Speaker 1: and naturally and spontaneously we will come back to the practice.
Speaker 1: The practices that are important to us. I've been quite
Speaker 1: surprised with that, actually, even with beginners, because you know,
Speaker 1: establishing a practice can be really hard. But I'm surprised
Speaker 1: that how many beginners will naturally come back to a
Speaker 1: practice of embodiment when a meditation is grounded in the
Speaker 1: body at least. So what you're saying is that if
Speaker 1: you are embodied in a moment and then while you're
Speaker 1: there you reflect on why you're doing this, it strengthens
Speaker 1: Maybe this isn't the word, but I'll just use it
Speaker 1: resolve or it deepens the practice so that it more
Speaker 1: naturally emerges exactly right. You said it much more succinctly
Speaker 1: than I did, But that's right. Yes, um, yes, it's
Speaker 1: because it makes our practice more our own, right, because
Speaker 1: it's so easy upfront, especially the beginner. Is that we
Speaker 1: naturally have to look for forms and practices. We look
Speaker 1: externally for instruction, right, we have to do that. That's
Speaker 1: why we study with teachers and in in peers. But
Speaker 1: at a certain point we want it to become naturally
Speaker 1: part of our own experience. Like I said, so, yes,
Speaker 1: so if we start from there, especially asking that question
Speaker 1: why am I practicing? What is giving rise to practice
Speaker 1: in this moment, even formal practice. Can I really steep
Speaker 1: myself in whatever that is, whatever that motivation is, however
Speaker 1: it takes form, whether it's in in the form of words,
Speaker 1: or whether it's in the form of feelings or physical
Speaker 1: sensations or images, whatever it might be, but it arises
Speaker 1: more deeply from our own experience. Excellent. I think this
Speaker 1: would be a good time to transition into talking about paths. Right,
Speaker 1: and you make a distinction. You refer to awakening life
Speaker 1: as a responsive integral path um and then you make
Speaker 1: a distinction between two sort of a coaches. One is
Speaker 1: a prescriptive path and model and the others a responsive
Speaker 1: path and model. And what's interesting is I think back
Speaker 1: to when you and I talked. Where I was at
Speaker 1: that point. Was I wanted to get more focused on
Speaker 1: a spiritual path because I felt like for a lot
Speaker 1: of years I had what was felt very responsive to me. Right,
Speaker 1: I was a very responsive path, totally followed my own
Speaker 1: intuition and what drew me in and and you know,
Speaker 1: I was a pretty serious practitioner, and yet I felt
Speaker 1: the need for a deepening in a focus because you know,
Speaker 1: I interviewed somebody different every week, and so I'm over here,
Speaker 1: that I'm over here, and then I'm over here, and
Speaker 1: we talked and I ultimately landed. Um working in pretty
Speaker 1: focused way for now in the Zen path, which is
Speaker 1: fairly prescriptive and also kind of responsive in its own way.
Speaker 1: UM So talk to me about prescriptive and responsive and
Speaker 1: and how people can sort of think about maybe what
Speaker 1: do they need. It's a big question. I know, I'm
Speaker 1: raised in these two hour long conversations that we need
Speaker 1: to do in seven minutes themes. But I've made reference
Speaker 1: already to relativizing advice and instructions and practices to where
Speaker 1: a person is at on the path and also just
Speaker 1: what's going on in your life right So again, you
Speaker 1: know I've talked about grounding your motivation in your own body,
Speaker 1: that by paying attention to what you need right now
Speaker 1: in your life is another way that it will deepen
Speaker 1: your practice and integration to life. UM So, if right
Speaker 1: now you need a prescriptive path, then you follow that.
Speaker 1: But you know why you're doing that. You know you've
Speaker 1: you've sat with it and said yes, okay. Out of
Speaker 1: my experience, the movement and intuition has arisen to say
Speaker 1: let's do a prescriptive path. So I think actually, you know,
Speaker 1: even in say Zen and Buddhism um, there will be
Speaker 1: a natural arc from prescriptive to responsive in the way
Speaker 1: that I'm describing that where upfront you are going to
Speaker 1: you know, study certain teachings and practices. You're gonna familiarize
Speaker 1: yourself because this is something maybe you've never done in
Speaker 1: your life, Like you've never sat down, you've never meditate before,
Speaker 1: so you have to kind of learn what is meditation,
Speaker 1: what are the different techniques, what are the practices, Why
Speaker 1: am I doing this? How should I do this? Etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: There's just no way around learning some form, and to
Speaker 1: learn some form, you're gonna have a prescription of like
Speaker 1: this is how things are, this is how practices are,
Speaker 1: This is why we practice this first, and then this next,
Speaker 1: and then this is where it's going to take you. Right,
Speaker 1: So things are now and you have practices, techniques, maps
Speaker 1: and models for the path at a certain point though,
Speaker 1: even in Buddhism, so if you say I studied in
Speaker 1: practice and beet and Buddhist tradition, things will be really prescriptive.
Speaker 1: But when when you get to things like soap Jen
Speaker 1: and Mohamudja. Things become formless a lot in practice, things
Speaker 1: become very spontaneous where and then the same thing you
Speaker 1: just the instruction is just sit there, like that's the
Speaker 1: prescriptive as it gets and which if somebody has never
Speaker 1: meditate before and um it's very new to it, um,
Speaker 1: that may be really it doesn't even make sense. Maybe
Speaker 1: they could just sit, but like the instructions just doesn't
Speaker 1: make it doesn't land. So I think one there's a
Speaker 1: natural arc from in the path where we might start
Speaker 1: with prescriptive and then eventually find our way to more
Speaker 1: responsive way of practicing. And it also might fluctuate, you know,
Speaker 1: if we discover something brand new in our practice, Like
Speaker 1: a lot of us have realized how important embodiment is
Speaker 1: in this you know, last in fifteen years. So we
Speaker 1: might take up some intentional prescriptive embodiment practices for a
Speaker 1: little bit so we can really familiarize ourselves with that,
Speaker 1: and then eventually we start intuitively adapting practices to what
Speaker 1: we need in life. And I think that's where things
Speaker 1: get really interesting and radical, is how if we shift
Speaker 1: from having practices prescribed to sort of designing spontaneously our
Speaker 1: own practices for what we need in life at any
Speaker 1: given time. In that sense, like of what I do
Speaker 1: with people is that I am not putting out necessarily
Speaker 1: like this is how it is, you know, and this
Speaker 1: is the best way to practice, and you should practice
Speaker 1: these practices in this order. In this way, Awakening Life
Speaker 1: is definitely not that, and it's not exclusive either, So
Speaker 1: it's not proprietary, like if you practice with me, you
Speaker 1: can only practice this path. And I encourage people to
Speaker 1: study with more than one teacher because every tradition and
Speaker 1: every practitioner and if a teacher is going to offer
Speaker 1: something unique and different, that can make one's practice more full.
Speaker 1: So in that sense, Awakening Life is responsive. Yep, totally, totally. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it raises so many really important and big questions,
Speaker 1: particularly as we look at what's happening here in the West,
Speaker 1: as these ancient traditions sort of get dumped into the
Speaker 1: market place for lack of a better word, and you
Speaker 1: hear a lot of people saying, well, you know, is
Speaker 1: it good or bad that mindfulness is getting you know,
Speaker 1: sort of pulled out of these traditions and just purely
Speaker 1: secular form and you know, you hear complaints about well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a it's like a buffet. People
Speaker 1: are going and they're picking a little of this and
Speaker 1: a little of that and a little of that, and
Speaker 1: and knowing like is that a good thing? Is that
Speaker 1: a bad thing? Is that? You know? Do you need
Speaker 1: a teacher? And I asked Audia Shanty this question one
Speaker 1: so I sat down with him. I said, well, does
Speaker 1: everybody need like a teacher that they work with one
Speaker 1: on one? Because I was learning a lot from him,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't work one on one with people, right,
Speaker 1: He's just he's too big now and it doesn't work
Speaker 1: that way. So what do you need a teacher that
Speaker 1: you work with closely individually? And his answer was perfect,
Speaker 1: which was, well, I don't know. The question is do
Speaker 1: you you know? He wasn't going to answer it. He
Speaker 1: wasn't going to answer it as a everybody needs or
Speaker 1: no one needs, or it was what about you? You know?
Speaker 1: And when you and I talked, one of the things
Speaker 1: you said to me was we'll just go and kind
Speaker 1: of like you said, go go sit in an embodiment
Speaker 1: and then kind of ask yourself, what do you need?
Speaker 1: Where do you want to go? And what came out
Speaker 1: for me was very clearly, like I, right now, where
Speaker 1: I'm at, I want a pretty tight container. I've been
Speaker 1: out in the wild for so long that what I
Speaker 1: want right now for a period of time, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how long that will last, right is this
Speaker 1: is this tighter container that has a lot of foundation
Speaker 1: to it. And that just was where where I was.
Speaker 1: But again, that comes from never you know, for twenty
Speaker 1: five years of practice, never going deeply into one area,
Speaker 1: pulling a little this and a little of that, and
Speaker 1: I'd wait in a little bit and then I'd start
Speaker 1: hearing some things. I was like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I believe that. I don't know if I like that,
Speaker 1: And then I just kind of waltz back out, you know,
Speaker 1: and I and I, you know, it became clear to
Speaker 1: me that what I needed was and I just made
Speaker 1: a commitment for a certain amount of time. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just walk this path for this amount of time and
Speaker 1: then I'll reevaluate. And I think, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: like we're saying, I think it's sort of knowing yourself, uh,
Speaker 1: to know kind of what you need and to trust
Speaker 1: your intuition. Yeah exactly, Yeah, Yeah's response was great. If
Speaker 1: I'm trying to support people in anything, it's to have
Speaker 1: them sit radically in their own experience and pay attention
Speaker 1: to what's arising. And there's two things there. One is
Speaker 1: that there's a deep trust in in your experience and
Speaker 1: everybody's experience. Because if we don't start with deep trust,
Speaker 1: if I don't start with deep trusting your experience, the
Speaker 1: whole bunch of actual negative seeds get planted there. Um.
Speaker 1: It communicates that you shouldn't trust them yourself. It creates
Speaker 1: some problematic things that can arise in and we've seen
Speaker 1: in with guru models of spirituality, communities collapsing things like that. So,
Speaker 1: but it's different because we you know, there's plenty of
Speaker 1: examples that we've experienced in the traditions that say, you know,
Speaker 1: that's how you do it. You look to a teacher
Speaker 1: who has all the answers for being honest bent them.
Speaker 1: It's all over the Buddhist tradition as well. For sure, Um,
Speaker 1: that's not the only thing that's there, but it definitely
Speaker 1: exists there. And so to radically turn around and say, well, listen,
Speaker 1: I trust you and your experience, so let's sit together.
Speaker 1: But the thing is I can be helpful, can be
Speaker 1: helpful in supporting you in this inquiry, And so to
Speaker 1: really ask somebody what do you really, what do you want?
Speaker 1: What do you most need right now? And to facilitate
Speaker 1: the experience of trying to sit more deeply in that
Speaker 1: because it's very vulnerable. So the process there is to
Speaker 1: facilitate a vulnerable experience as much as we can, to
Speaker 1: sit in what's radically true for us in this moment
Speaker 1: and knowing that it may very well change in a
Speaker 1: week or in a month or in a year, and
Speaker 1: I would say it will change. I will go ahead
Speaker 1: and say that I just don't know when it will change.
Speaker 1: And out of that, if we're really honest and and
Speaker 1: and staying in touch with other experience, certain things will
Speaker 1: naturally arise that well, yeah, I want to study with
Speaker 1: the teacher because I want to get some input, you know,
Speaker 1: I want some feedback, I want some support, So of
Speaker 1: course I'm going to do that. So yeah, and with
Speaker 1: the unbundling of mindfulness and things like that, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a whole big conversation. But I think these questions
Speaker 1: definitely come up, and you know, I hope that I
Speaker 1: communicate that I take this seriousness. So in the sense
Speaker 1: of like that I say that I work responsively people.
Speaker 1: It's not a it's not I don't communicate it. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's a buffet do what you on and who cares?
Speaker 1: Because really that's going to let people down. That's there's
Speaker 1: suffering inside of that. People are looking for something and
Speaker 1: that's why they're practicing. But it's on the foundation of
Speaker 1: trusting in our own experience. I am in a training
Speaker 1: program for being a spiritual director. It's a it's an
Speaker 1: Interface Spiritual Director program, and it's a fascinating thing because
Speaker 1: in that model, there's the big debate in that community
Speaker 1: between prescriptive and non prescriptive. Right, how much does your
Speaker 1: spiritual direc actor tell you what to do or how
Speaker 1: much do they teach and how much you know? And
Speaker 1: so on one hand, there's this complete like, well, don't
Speaker 1: do anything. I'm like, well, and me, of course, I'm
Speaker 1: a middleway guy. I'm like, well, you're not doing anything,
Speaker 1: just sitting in a room with somebody. Well there's some
Speaker 1: value in that, but you know. But then on the
Speaker 1: other hand, and I found it really interesting because one
Speaker 1: of the people that I work with names John Maybury
Speaker 1: has written a bunch of books on spiritual direction. He
Speaker 1: made this analogy. He said, your job is to be
Speaker 1: like a couple's counselor between the person that you're working
Speaker 1: within the divine and what's important is their connection to
Speaker 1: to use a different word than divine if you want, right,
Speaker 1: But it's all about facilitating their connection. And what you're
Speaker 1: saying is what you're trying to do is facilitate direct
Speaker 1: connection to their own or our own experience. That's the
Speaker 1: facilitation is how do I get in touch with my
Speaker 1: own experience in a deep enough way that I can
Speaker 1: trust it because I do think it's always trustworthy, but
Speaker 1: a lot of this may not know how to get there,
Speaker 1: and so sometimes that's the facilitation that we need. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly again, Yeah, that that deep trust is important because
Speaker 1: for me, what's interesting is that if I am I
Speaker 1: in facilitate that I an experience where you know that
Speaker 1: I deeply trust your experience and I'm looking to you
Speaker 1: to guide your experience and I'm here to respond to
Speaker 1: you when you need structure and help. Right. But that
Speaker 1: also allows me, I think, some room to then be
Speaker 1: more pointed in my responses. So like I can say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna speak really directly to you, which could be
Speaker 1: a prescriptive sort of way. Um, So I feel like
Speaker 1: I have more room to do that because you know
Speaker 1: that I'm still going to trust you to to make
Speaker 1: use of what I'm saying or not. So yeah, so
Speaker 1: like I actually can for me as a teacher and facilitator,
Speaker 1: I feel like I can do both. I can be
Speaker 1: both radically open but also really direct and pointed that
Speaker 1: I don't have to sort of pick between those two. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're nearing the end of our time here, but I
Speaker 1: can't help wade into these waters and so, um, because
Speaker 1: I don't fully get it. So I'm going to ask,
Speaker 1: what is metadharma? Yeah, well, join the club we're all
Speaker 1: figuring out together. I think in this terms that term
Speaker 1: metadharma truly, sincerely, this is some level. It's a living
Speaker 1: inquiry that um. I think a lot of people are
Speaker 1: sitting what they may use different terms. It's related to
Speaker 1: forth turning a Buddhism, for example, which Kim Wilberg talks
Speaker 1: a lot about. But really, I think the whole conversation
Speaker 1: we've been having here has really waded into the waters
Speaker 1: that could be called metadharma. So this term dharma UH
Speaker 1: is coming from Buddhist tradition in terms of how I'm
Speaker 1: using it or folks like my good friend Vincent Horne
Speaker 1: and Michael taft Um and the implication. There's a lot here.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to figure out how to say this
Speaker 1: really sucinctly. But in traditional dharma and Buddhism, we're focused.
Speaker 1: I'm mainly waking up. That's it, right, It's to wake
Speaker 1: up to how things are radically, how they always are,
Speaker 1: this always alreadiness of reality, and then that's the goal,
Speaker 1: and then you're done. Truly, that's it, except for maybe
Speaker 1: to try to help other beings other people to have
Speaker 1: that same awakening experience. Meta dharma is more pointedly going
Speaker 1: into the question and inquiry of saying what's needed beyond
Speaker 1: that and how does waking up relate to UH, to
Speaker 1: the rest of life even, which is a question we've
Speaker 1: been exploring today. So I think I saw that you
Speaker 1: have a variety of different people in your show, right,
Speaker 1: so from different fields of study and experience and practice.
Speaker 1: So already implicitly we're saying as as a collective that
Speaker 1: we value all of these different traditions, all these different practices,
Speaker 1: all these different ways of looking in at our lives,
Speaker 1: and so to include everything like, for example, psychology and
Speaker 1: socio cultural studies and practices, to be paying attention to
Speaker 1: politics in the economy, to including things like neuroscience and
Speaker 1: the meditation and therapy. We we include all of that
Speaker 1: with waking up. This is partly what we mean by
Speaker 1: metadarma is that we're saying intentionally this all should be included.
Speaker 1: It should not be kept separate. We shouldn't just be
Speaker 1: waking up and ignoring the rest, for sure. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: the question is is like, okay, so this all should
Speaker 1: be included. That's the first kind of conclusion that we're
Speaker 1: going on assumption um. Then the question is how how
Speaker 1: do we include all this? How does it all relate
Speaker 1: to each other? So if I do therapy, you know,
Speaker 1: with a psychologist, and I'm studying deep meditation and an
Speaker 1: awakening tradition, how those two relate to each other. How
Speaker 1: do those two integrate and play with each other in
Speaker 1: in my lived experience? Also from the perspective of dharma
Speaker 1: and a tradition of Buddhism, how does all that relate
Speaker 1: to the crisis of the world. Right, so um, people
Speaker 1: might have different relationship to that, But like something like
Speaker 1: climate change and crisis of economy and health and meaning crisis,
Speaker 1: what is waking up have to do with that? How
Speaker 1: do we best respond to that? With waking up and
Speaker 1: all these other traditions of knowledge and response. So meta
Speaker 1: dharma is a simple word that points to all of
Speaker 1: these inquiries. And there are certain philosophers and theorists who
Speaker 1: are presenting meta maps of all of these traditions and
Speaker 1: how they relate to each other, for example, like Ken
Speaker 1: wilburn inegro theory um as a way to get perspective
Speaker 1: on the immense complexity of the human experience. So rather,
Speaker 1: but one of my mentors has a something I don't
Speaker 1: think he posted as on Twitter or I think it
Speaker 1: was a tweet where he said, hokey, sobel He said,
Speaker 1: don't worry, it's just everything and everyone happening all at once,
Speaker 1: which is such a great phrase. So that the chuckle
Speaker 1: there is for me, the chuckle comes from the waking
Speaker 1: up part that comes from that part of me that
Speaker 1: feels in touch with the okayness of reality. But then
Speaker 1: it also points to like holy shit, you know, this
Speaker 1: is everything happening all at once, and how do we
Speaker 1: respond to that? So with these meta theories, we start
Speaker 1: getting a little bit more space and understanding around that
Speaker 1: immense complexity. But I think we're living through that right now,
Speaker 1: So this is not something that's totally known. It's something
Speaker 1: that we're actively exploring together. Well, I think that's a
Speaker 1: pretty good description, thank you. It sounds very similar to
Speaker 1: you know, integral theory work, but it's trying to sort
Speaker 1: of say where do these spiritual teachings tie back into
Speaker 1: life and the other developmental paths that are there. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And in a real simpler way now I've said that
Speaker 1: is that you know, on this integral meta derma training
Speaker 1: that we're doing right now, me and Vincent horne Um,
Speaker 1: we're haven't four weeks or focused on waking up, cleaning up,
Speaker 1: growing up, and showing up. These are four facets that
Speaker 1: Kim Wilberg has identified as areas of practice. So that's
Speaker 1: the way to put it, simply in a practical term. Wonderful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I love that model, those those four Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: It's really makes so much sense to me, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: because as I look at my journey it's you know,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot of spiritual practice. There's a ton
Speaker 1: of twelve step work, there's all this psychological stuff there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many different things that have informed
Speaker 1: me sort of being who I am in the ways
Speaker 1: that I am. And yeah, it's it's all there. And
Speaker 1: yet you're right, how do how do they relate? So
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna bring this all back around here
Speaker 1: and tie it all together before you and I wrap up.
Speaker 1: Which is that you said? And I love this. You
Speaker 1: said that you could describe the entire point of awakening
Speaker 1: in life is to have an appropriate response, and you
Speaker 1: you you quote a Zen co On and so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read that and then we'll talk about and it's
Speaker 1: I'm deep in co On work right now. So I
Speaker 1: love this. So a monk asked you men, what are
Speaker 1: the teachings of a whole lifetime? And you men said,
Speaker 1: an appropriate response? Aunts So talk to me about that concept,
Speaker 1: because I do think that ties everything we've talked about
Speaker 1: sort of back together into kind of what the point
Speaker 1: of all this is. Yeah, well, I'm glad you pull
Speaker 1: that out. Um. I love that. Uh, it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. Just so succinct, and sometimes I just want
Speaker 1: to let things just sit, like I would party wants
Speaker 1: to just stop there and then say let everybody sit
Speaker 1: with that. Um. But um, I think what's interesting, especially
Speaker 1: in the context of Buddhism, is that that response is
Speaker 1: an unexpected response, right. Um. I remember when I first
Speaker 1: heard that, and I was like, Wow, how cool, because
Speaker 1: normally in Putish tradition, it's like, how do you get uh,
Speaker 1: stop identifying with form? You know, how do you stop?
Speaker 1: How do you let go of attachment to form to self?
Speaker 1: And it's not really a sense of like responding to
Speaker 1: anything except maybe to let go of response and reactivity.
Speaker 1: But here, to say, an appropriate response indicates something of
Speaker 1: intimacy with life, which is another quote from dog in
Speaker 1: these said enlightenment is intimacy with all things. Zen has
Speaker 1: a lot of great of these one liners, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this points to a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: been talking about, that why are we practicing whatever the
Speaker 1: reason we might articulate for ourselves personally, but has to
Speaker 1: do with something with our life, with living our life,
Speaker 1: with showing up and being engaged with the life. It's
Speaker 1: not to check out of life. That's not what we're
Speaker 1: why we're doing it. Even if that's what we do temporarily,
Speaker 1: that's not what we're trying to do. So um and
Speaker 1: when we talk about how do we practice in this moment?
Speaker 1: Will what's the appropriate response for you right now in
Speaker 1: this moment for practice? What do you need right now?
Speaker 1: Prescriptive path, non prescriptive path, formal practice, not formal practice.
Speaker 1: And for me, it's continually coming back over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over again to this question of right now,
Speaker 1: what's the appropriate response? And to be radically open to that,
Speaker 1: radically curious that I don't know. That's why I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask a question, but I trust in life deeply that
Speaker 1: a response will arise if I am present and I'm curious,
Speaker 1: and then I let that, let the response arise and
Speaker 1: follow it. Beautiful. Well, let's leave it there. You and
Speaker 1: I are going to go into the post show conversation,
Speaker 1: and I can't leave that dog and quote of enlightenment
Speaker 1: is intimacy with all things just without exploring that a
Speaker 1: little bit more because that means so much to me.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about that, and then you are going
Speaker 1: to lead us in an embodiment practice because I love
Speaker 1: some of your practices and we're going to do one
Speaker 1: of those in the post show conversation. So listeners, if
Speaker 1: you'd like to get access to that, if you'd like
Speaker 1: to be a member of what we do, support what
Speaker 1: we do and get access to all the post show conversations.
Speaker 1: Add free episodes and a weekly mini episode I do
Speaker 1: call the teaching Song and a poem. Go to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash support. Ryan, thanks so much.
Speaker 1: I could have done this for two more hours, but
Speaker 1: we are why Chris, my editor is gonna be like
Speaker 1: wrap it up soon, so he's not here, so I
Speaker 1: have to have his voice in my head. So thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much much and great and we'll continue this.
Speaker 1: Thank you bye mmmmmmm. If what you just heard was
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