Speaker 1: There's a difference between what you feel and your interpretation
Speaker 1: of that feeling. Where we run into trouble is in
Speaker 1: this interpretation. Part Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our 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. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the show. Our guest this week is Susan Piver,
Speaker 1: a Buddhist teacher and the New York Times best selling
Speaker 1: author of seven books, including The Hard Questions and the
Speaker 1: award winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life.
Speaker 1: Her most current book is The Wisdom of a Broken Heart,
Speaker 1: and her eighth book, Start Here Now, a guide to
Speaker 1: the Path and Practice of Meditation will be published this year.
Speaker 1: Susan is also the creator of the innovative Open Heart Project,
Speaker 1: an online community to help you deepen your meditation practice.
Speaker 1: Here's the interview. Hi Susan, Welcome to the show. Thank you,
Speaker 1: glad to be here. We're glad to have you with
Speaker 1: us tonight. So our podcast is called The One You Feed,
Speaker 1: and it's based on the parable of two Wolves, where
Speaker 1: there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: these two wolves are kind of always at battle with
Speaker 1: each other. So the grandson stops and thinks for a second.
Speaker 1: He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. There's something so moving and
Speaker 1: striking every time I haven't heard a thousand times what.
Speaker 1: I've probably heard it a couple of times, and each
Speaker 1: time I do, it sort of gives me chills. There's
Speaker 1: something about the sequencing of the story and the clarity
Speaker 1: and possibility in the answer the one you feed it
Speaker 1: first gives when the notion that at everything is possible,
Speaker 1: that there is nothing sort of predetermined that is dark
Speaker 1: and foreboding, although of course, as we all know, you
Speaker 1: just have to look at the news, they're countless dark
Speaker 1: and foreboding. Things happen every day, but still, in every moment,
Speaker 1: you have the choice of what to nourish in your
Speaker 1: own consciousness. And this doesn't mean, you know. I sometimes
Speaker 1: get upset at what I call the positivity police, sure,
Speaker 1: people that are always telling you you should think you
Speaker 1: know happy things and you'll have a happy life, or
Speaker 1: positive things will lead to positivity, And I think on
Speaker 1: some level there really is something to that, But on
Speaker 1: another level, it shrinks your world down to a thought monitoring,
Speaker 1: moment to moment process of wondering if you thought the
Speaker 1: right thought or not, and if it's very claustrophobic. The
Speaker 1: parable that you're sharing speaks to sort of this moment
Speaker 1: of freedom and expansion that is I just will use
Speaker 1: the word hopeful again powerful And every moment is a
Speaker 1: moment to make that choice. And because you made that short,
Speaker 1: you know, to feed the feed one particular wolf in
Speaker 1: this moment, does it not mean you will feed the
Speaker 1: same one in the next moment. So it also speaks
Speaker 1: to the need for a present that is indestructible, that
Speaker 1: is constantly turned up to eleven. And you know, as
Speaker 1: a meditator and meditators, luckily we have been given some
Speaker 1: insight into how to turn that dial up, how to
Speaker 1: be more aware. I like what you said about the
Speaker 1: I like the positivity police. You have a line. It
Speaker 1: was one of the things I was going to talk about.
Speaker 1: You say in um one of your writings that when
Speaker 1: you when you spot something you don't like about yourself,
Speaker 1: the tendency is to turn up the negative self talk.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting you replace it with positive self talk.
Speaker 1: I'm suggesting you drop self talk as completely as possible
Speaker 1: and just relax. Yeah. I'm laughing because I really need
Speaker 1: to hear that myself today. Yeah, so thank you me
Speaker 1: for saying that. And then you you kind of go
Speaker 1: on from there to say when you're in the grip
Speaker 1: of negative feelings, you know, try and stop talking to
Speaker 1: yourself about it and allow your awareness to drop away
Speaker 1: from your thoughts and and into your body. And I
Speaker 1: think that's I like that so much because I am um.
Speaker 1: We've had enough different things on this show that listeners
Speaker 1: will know that I'm not a huge fan of the
Speaker 1: positive thinking um movement either. I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of it in it, but I think there's
Speaker 1: also a lot of real challenges there. And so I
Speaker 1: really like what you what you said there, And I
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time, I've spent a lot more
Speaker 1: time recently really being more tuned into sort of what
Speaker 1: the self talk that's going on in my head is,
Speaker 1: and it is, Uh, it's certainly better when that can
Speaker 1: be turned off in a lot of cases. Yeah, I'm curious,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind me asking what what has your
Speaker 1: experience been with the positivity movement for lack of a
Speaker 1: better phrase, what makes you feel that way? Well? I
Speaker 1: do you know? I don't know that I haven't like
Speaker 1: I wasn't dragged into a room by fifteen positive thinkers
Speaker 1: and and made to listen to Norman Vincent Peel at
Speaker 1: a you're splitting volume for fifteen hours. But um, the
Speaker 1: question that we ask on this show a lot is
Speaker 1: what's the difference between positive thinking and denial? Like it's
Speaker 1: easy to I think, go buy what you need, what
Speaker 1: you're feeling, and what your emotions are, and go right
Speaker 1: to self talk. That's positive that tries to bypass all that.
Speaker 1: And then I also think that it's sort of what
Speaker 1: you said a minute ago when you were talking about
Speaker 1: it being claustrophobic. I think that this idea that we
Speaker 1: attract things to ourselves is there's there's some there's there's
Speaker 1: some grain of truth in that, but taken to its extremes,
Speaker 1: you end up thinking that anything bad that happens, you know,
Speaker 1: people attracted to themselves. So you know, if I have cancer,
Speaker 1: did I attract that to myself? And oh I just
Speaker 1: had a bad thought? Did I make it worse? And
Speaker 1: I just think it you know, I think claustrophobic is
Speaker 1: a is a good word for it. I think that
Speaker 1: it's Um, I just think, I'm I'm I'm always skeptical
Speaker 1: of anything that goes too far in any one direction,
Speaker 1: and so I guess that would be the better way
Speaker 1: to put it. Yeah, that makes sense, and it also
Speaker 1: sort of seems to indicate that who you are so
Speaker 1: tiny that a single thought can sway the course of
Speaker 1: your life, and that your mind is so sort of
Speaker 1: far to you that you have to you know, corral
Speaker 1: it in some domineering way, and who who you are
Speaker 1: is just so much bigger than any single positive or
Speaker 1: negative thought. And the suggestion to relax is not necessarily
Speaker 1: to just blow it off or just to feel like,
Speaker 1: well it doesn't really matter, or upsetting things don't actually
Speaker 1: upset me or anything like that. Here relaxed means allow,
Speaker 1: you know, to expand and include, like you were saying
Speaker 1: a moment ago, when negative self talk arises were often
Speaker 1: counseled to just sort of squeeze it out, like just
Speaker 1: shut it out, shut it off, or turn your back
Speaker 1: on it, or I don't know what, pretended didn't happen
Speaker 1: something like that, And this instruction is instead too, why
Speaker 1: didn't your lens, as it were, put on a bigger lens?
Speaker 1: Or step back and see that thought as one of
Speaker 1: countless things that are happening within you right now. And
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of famous metaphor in meditation circles,
Speaker 1: if there is such a thing, is to see your
Speaker 1: thoughts like clouds in the sky, and one by one,
Speaker 1: of course, they all pass passed by. There's no cloud
Speaker 1: that has remained in perpetuity. And who you are is
Speaker 1: the sky, and the sky has no preference. The sky
Speaker 1: can hold it all. And remembering that our mind is
Speaker 1: more like the clock, more like the sky than it
Speaker 1: is like any cloud system, no matter how powerful, is
Speaker 1: called relaxation. In a lot of your work, you do
Speaker 1: espouse the idea of allowing yourself to feel your emotions.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and and go into those emotions, or at
Speaker 1: least allow them to be And I'm I've been asked
Speaker 1: a couple of times a boy people recently, and I
Speaker 1: think it's an interesting question, which is, um, when when
Speaker 1: have you done that enough? When have you leaned in
Speaker 1: enough for When have you allowed yourself to feel those
Speaker 1: emotions enough? And when is it time to start trying
Speaker 1: to move towards perhaps a more positive space. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're wrestling with depression or sadness, do you how
Speaker 1: in your how in your mind do you reconcile that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's a good question and a personal question for
Speaker 1: me because I've struggled with depression all my life. It
Speaker 1: just as it's like my companion, my strange friend that
Speaker 1: is always trying to tug on my sleeve. So it's
Speaker 1: it's an important question to me personally. And you know,
Speaker 1: there's a difference between feeling and wallowing. And yes, sometimes
Speaker 1: we do need to kick our own selves in the butt,
Speaker 1: and you know, exploring and relaxing and all that is
Speaker 1: just a place to hide. But feeling has a sharp
Speaker 1: edge that depression lacks. And the key differentiation was made
Speaker 1: by Gloria Steinhum when she was asked in an interview
Speaker 1: she was depressed over the death of her husband's was
Speaker 1: probably I don't know, six or seven years ago or something,
Speaker 1: and she said, I'm not not depressed, I'm sad. And
Speaker 1: the interviewer asked the difference, and she said, when you're depressed,
Speaker 1: nothing has any meaning, and when you're sad, everything does.
Speaker 1: So there's a kind of life, a live nous. That's
Speaker 1: not a word, I know, but there's a vital discomfort
Speaker 1: and ah ed genius in feeling, not always negative, not
Speaker 1: always positive, that isn't there in depression. And there's a
Speaker 1: difference too between what you feel and this your interpretation
Speaker 1: of that feeling. So where we run into trouble is
Speaker 1: in the interpretation part. So most people don't get stuck
Speaker 1: in a feeling. And I'm not including depression as a feeling.
Speaker 1: It's more of an absence of feeling. I would say,
Speaker 1: you get stuck in the story. And Pema Children, the
Speaker 1: great American Buddhist nun and teacher in my lineage Shambala
Speaker 1: Buddhist lineage, says, feel the feeling and drop the story.
Speaker 1: And that is everything. That instruction is the alpha and
Speaker 1: the omega. It's it's everything and certainly changed my life,
Speaker 1: did it? So you you've experimented with that absolutely, And
Speaker 1: when you try to feel the feeling, where do you go? Um?
Speaker 1: I think, you know, as you said, sort of into
Speaker 1: you know, try and be present with what's happening in
Speaker 1: my body or I try and just be present to
Speaker 1: what it feels like physically. Um. And and also you know, emotionally,
Speaker 1: like try and locate what that pain is if I can,
Speaker 1: if I can find it. Because I think what you're
Speaker 1: saying there the answer that question of leaning in enough
Speaker 1: to some degree, I think, is that difference between a
Speaker 1: feeling and a thought. I agree. And your body is
Speaker 1: very trustworthy usually sometimes you know, especially when there's trauma involved,
Speaker 1: and still trustworthy, but there's more complicated. But you're feeling.
Speaker 1: Your feeling means staying with the sensation in your body,
Speaker 1: and then when it starts two pulse or intensify or dissolve,
Speaker 1: then you go with that. And of course there are
Speaker 1: some periods in our lives a great, great heartbreak, someone dies,
Speaker 1: or relationship ends, or some thing tragic happens, and that
Speaker 1: felt sense in the body is on the present, but
Speaker 1: not really, because when you start to pay attention, even
Speaker 1: to the worst heartbreak, there are moments when it's not there,
Speaker 1: and the pain intensifies when we try to force those
Speaker 1: moments to expand or try to stand on one pinky
Speaker 1: toe on that moment in the midst of this great
Speaker 1: sea of pain. But if you stay with how it
Speaker 1: ebbs and flows in your body, then you're on the journey.
Speaker 1: And no one can tell you where it's going, and
Speaker 1: no one can tell you how long it will take.
Speaker 1: But at least it's a it is a trustworthy guide.
Speaker 1: You wrote a book called Wisdom of a Broken Heart,
Speaker 1: can you, um, I mean, you wrote an entire book
Speaker 1: about it. So I'm going and I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 1: to say it in a sentence which is not not
Speaker 1: exactly fair. But what is the wisdom of a broken heart?
Speaker 1: You know, there's certain things, let's sake to for psyke
Speaker 1: of conversation, that you can't game, meaning you cannot make
Speaker 1: them be there when they're not there, and you cannot
Speaker 1: make them go away when they are. And those two
Speaker 1: things are love and heartbreak. They're bigger than you and me.
Speaker 1: And like I say, if they're not there, you cannot
Speaker 1: make them be there, and if they're gone, you cannot
Speaker 1: make them come back. And so when we're faced, you know,
Speaker 1: not usually every day, but maybe there's one or two
Speaker 1: times in our lives when we're in a circumstance like that,
Speaker 1: then all of our conventional notions of who we are
Speaker 1: and how life goes and what works and what doesn't
Speaker 1: don't it don't work anymore. They're not useful. So you
Speaker 1: are forced into this kind of naked state where all
Speaker 1: you can do is look at things with a fresh
Speaker 1: and quite pained heart. And so when you're shaken out
Speaker 1: of your perch like that, you see things you hadn't
Speaker 1: seen before. Your priorities realign mysteriously everyone's priorities realigned in
Speaker 1: the same way, so that love becomes the most important
Speaker 1: thing in your life, and you can feel whether it's
Speaker 1: there or not in one second. You can feel the
Speaker 1: contents of your own heart, whether you want to or not,
Speaker 1: and you can feel the presence of other people too.
Speaker 1: And this these capacities to hold love as the highest
Speaker 1: and um feel whether love is there or not immediately,
Speaker 1: and be able to feel into the experience of other people.
Speaker 1: These are the These are the gestures of a bodhisattva.
Speaker 1: This is the activity of compassion. And though it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel good, it's compassion nonetheless. And it's a dark gateway,
Speaker 1: but it is a gateway, and most of us don't
Speaker 1: step through that gate unless we have no choice, and
Speaker 1: for better or worse, we all seem to run into
Speaker 1: a circumstance where we don't have any choice. So it's
Speaker 1: a gateway to compassion. And that's the wisdom of a
Speaker 1: broken heart. Yeah, there are those moments where you have
Speaker 1: to be open. And I think that's when I said
Speaker 1: that that that idea of dropping the storyline and feeling
Speaker 1: the feeling that happened to me, Um, you know, over
Speaker 1: something similar and it was Pemma Children's book When Things
Speaker 1: Fall Apart. That was where I first encountered that particular
Speaker 1: piece of wisdom, and like I said, it was, it
Speaker 1: was pretty revolutionary for me. God bless her, God bless her.
Speaker 1: She has helped so many people. It's just astonishing how
Speaker 1: powerful and important her work has been and so many lives,
Speaker 1: including my own and yours. So thank you, Pemma. I'm
Speaker 1: sure she's listening. Um. There's a line I use a
Speaker 1: lot um. It comes from Victor Frankel, and it's that
Speaker 1: idea of that between um, stimulus and response, there is
Speaker 1: a space. However, I think you may have improved upon
Speaker 1: it a little bit because you, well, what you talk
Speaker 1: about is that knowing how to create time, no matter
Speaker 1: how brief, between what you observed and feel and what
Speaker 1: you think. And because I think I think the thing
Speaker 1: that's that I've always thought about with that that Victor
Speaker 1: Frankel quote is stimulus in response. We tend to think
Speaker 1: of response is external, like between what I'm stimulated and
Speaker 1: what I say, or but what I really like about
Speaker 1: what you said is I think that that a lot
Speaker 1: of times, that distinction between what I've observed and felt
Speaker 1: and what I think about it is that's that's the
Speaker 1: part for me that's so critical, is before I suddenly
Speaker 1: land on my fixed interpretation, and that's the place where
Speaker 1: you make the choice of which wolf to feed, exactly
Speaker 1: in that moment. So I appreciate you highlighting that. And
Speaker 1: and it's so interesting because we we just imagine quite reasonably,
Speaker 1: because whoever told us otherwise that you're either failing something
Speaker 1: or thinking something and feelings give rise to thoughts and
Speaker 1: sure on one level, but on another level there is
Speaker 1: a gap. There is a gap, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: when Buddhists talk about emptiness and space and no self
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, that tends to be very confusing
Speaker 1: to myself personally. I believe it has something to do
Speaker 1: with that gap. Yeah, that gap is important, and I
Speaker 1: think that's you know, I said, I've said this on
Speaker 1: the show several times, but that's what meditation gives me
Speaker 1: is it increases that gap just a little bit, just
Speaker 1: enough that I can start to say, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what's you know? I find myself going, do I have
Speaker 1: to think that? Is that? Really? What I think is that,
Speaker 1: you know, is that the interpretation I really you know
Speaker 1: that I have to take because a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff is so so instantaneous, particularly if it's UM something
Speaker 1: that's been painful to us in the past. It's it's
Speaker 1: almost almost instantaneous. Our landing on the interpretation that is
Speaker 1: such a good indication of a good practice. That's of
Speaker 1: a of someone who is really practicing. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that you're practicing twenty five hours a day, and you
Speaker 1: know who is. But that's a great thing what you
Speaker 1: just said, and truly a sign that your practice is
Speaker 1: going well. I think so. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that UM and you and I touched on it just
Speaker 1: before the show a little bit, and you know, we
Speaker 1: had one of our earliest guests on this show when
Speaker 1: we started was Lodro Rinsler, who I know you, who
Speaker 1: I know you do a lot of work with. And
Speaker 1: we had a conversation on there on that show, and
Speaker 1: it reminded me of today because we were talking about
Speaker 1: the concept of basic goodness and I know that that
Speaker 1: in the Shambala lineage, that's a very big part of it, right,
Speaker 1: that we are all born with this basic underlying goodness
Speaker 1: and then UM things get layered on top of that,
Speaker 1: which is sort of a slightly different approach than the
Speaker 1: more traditionally Western version, which says we're born into sort
Speaker 1: of original sin and and things go from there. What
Speaker 1: I always think is interesting, though, is when we when
Speaker 1: we come across something like what we were talking about
Speaker 1: earlier today, which is the the shootings in France, I
Speaker 1: always find that that that that makes me question that
Speaker 1: concept of of basic goodness. It makes me feel like,
Speaker 1: you know what, if we start out with with you know,
Speaker 1: some degree of these things inside us, these bad things,
Speaker 1: it seems easier to how we get to that than
Speaker 1: starting out good and going all the way over to
Speaker 1: that other extreme. And I'm just interested in your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, it's the most horrible thing on that
Speaker 1: just it's been plaguing me all day, like we're as
Speaker 1: well as everyone else in the world. I'm sure, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a hard one because you think, okay,
Speaker 1: basic goodness, that sounds nice. Okay about Hitler and what
Speaker 1: about the guy that killed all the kids at Sandy Hook?
Speaker 1: And what about the Holocaust? And yes, what about those things?
Speaker 1: Because they are real and they are horrible and there
Speaker 1: is nothing good about it, and there is no mistaking
Speaker 1: that for oh, I just had a bad day. You know.
Speaker 1: It's just even if you point to all the socio
Speaker 1: economic factors that lay the foundation for such horrific acts,
Speaker 1: it's still does not make it in any way bearable.
Speaker 1: So I don't know it's the answer. But I wrote
Speaker 1: a long post novel, I guess long in the blog isphere.
Speaker 1: Now It's like, so I wrote, I wrote a post
Speaker 1: about this today because I can't find any compassion in
Speaker 1: my heart for people who for the people who did that,
Speaker 1: I just tell you straight up, I'm really if I
Speaker 1: just if they were in the room with me and
Speaker 1: I had a gun, I I would not want to
Speaker 1: be in that situation because it's horrible. So I feel
Speaker 1: like what I can do, and what a person could do,
Speaker 1: is you don't have to not hate anyone. You can
Speaker 1: hate anyone you want, and you can have vast judgments
Speaker 1: of right doing and wrongdoing. Go ahead, I'll probably agree
Speaker 1: with yours, and you can just feel outraged and depressed
Speaker 1: and enraged and so on. Then nothing is off limits
Speaker 1: except one thing, and that is imagining that you are
Speaker 1: any different than that person, because you're not. And what
Speaker 1: I mean by that is the seeds of that behavior
Speaker 1: are present. I believe in us all, and if we
Speaker 1: lived the life that those people lived, we might have
Speaker 1: done what they did. I find that hard to imagine,
Speaker 1: but it's possible. And the danger comes not when I
Speaker 1: get outrage, and not when I fight, and not when
Speaker 1: I condemn, but when I put anyone else in a
Speaker 1: less than human category, and it becomes quite a big problem.
Speaker 1: And we as was in evidence today, and people just
Speaker 1: took out guns and shot other people for some freaking cartoons.
Speaker 1: So that's the only wine I can draw in the sand.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to basic goodness in the face
Speaker 1: of things like this, I still stand by it, not
Speaker 1: as a belief but as an experience. And the where
Speaker 1: what my mind always hearkens back to is when those
Speaker 1: people who did this thing today came into the world.
Speaker 1: They were not born with automatic weapons in their hands.
Speaker 1: They were born reaching their arms out for the warm
Speaker 1: embrace of whoever was there. And that is how it is.
Speaker 1: That's the basic goodness. No one is born hating. Everyone
Speaker 1: is born expecting gentleness, because that's how we're constructed. Everything
Speaker 1: else is a weird and very bad mistake. That's the
Speaker 1: best I got. Yeah, I think it's it is a
Speaker 1: perplexing question. It's part of the reason I like the
Speaker 1: parable that we talked about, because it does point very
Speaker 1: clearly to hey, both that stuff is all there. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I I don't know that I personally, um,
Speaker 1: I don't think I buy into the original sin idea,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that I believe that basic goodness
Speaker 1: is our nature. I think I tend to feel more
Speaker 1: like it's all in there and and and how we
Speaker 1: live and what happens and the experiences were given choose
Speaker 1: to a large extent what what gets expressed. But it
Speaker 1: is a I agree with that part that you say
Speaker 1: about not thinking that we're any different, because as soon
Speaker 1: as we start thinking that people are different or less
Speaker 1: than human, that's when you know some of the really
Speaker 1: worst atrocities have happened. And what you said to me
Speaker 1: is totally makes total sense, and it's very smart about
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I believe this, and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I believe that. So that's the only intelligent That's the
Speaker 1: only thing an intelligent person can say, because I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that people who say otherwise
Speaker 1: are stupid, But there's everybody has to figure it out
Speaker 1: for themselves. Is there such a thing as basic goodness?
Speaker 1: Is there such a thing as original sin? Nobody can
Speaker 1: tell you, nobody, You have to figure it out. So
Speaker 1: my experience is mine. But that doesn't let anyone out.
Speaker 1: You know, no one should take my word for anything, right,
Speaker 1: nor should they take anyone else's word right. And I
Speaker 1: think to some degree it is I I get the
Speaker 1: the concept of basic goodness and and the I think
Speaker 1: there's a free notion of that. I also think that
Speaker 1: whether its original sin or basic goodness or is almost
Speaker 1: an academic question because we all do. We all are
Speaker 1: faced with what is it that we are going to cultivate?
Speaker 1: What you know? For to be pedantic, what wolf are
Speaker 1: we going to feed? To some degree, because we can
Speaker 1: regardless of how we came into the world, we are
Speaker 1: none of us are either all good or all bad.
Speaker 1: Certainly when you get to be b our Age, you've
Speaker 1: got a lot of both of that stuff layered in.
Speaker 1: At this point at least I do well. I do too,
Speaker 1: and I want to take issue. I want to argue
Speaker 1: with one point, which is that it is academic academic question.
Speaker 1: I think, actually the experience of your life and it
Speaker 1: sounds dramatic, but flows from your answer to that question.
Speaker 1: And even someone very smart named Albert Einstein. Yeah, presume
Speaker 1: maybe the smartest guy ever. He sends my co host
Speaker 1: Chris Obviously, it's the first time I think I've ever
Speaker 1: said anything nice about him in like episodes. So Chris
Speaker 1: mark this, well, Chris, what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: Albert Einstein said the most important question a person can
Speaker 1: ask is is the universe a friendly place? I'm paraphrasing.
Speaker 1: I think actually the most important decision that a person
Speaker 1: can make is do we live in a friendly or
Speaker 1: an unfriendly universe? And you know that was Einstein, So he,
Speaker 1: I don't think was saying do I want to be
Speaker 1: in La La Land or not? I think he was
Speaker 1: saying everything, every gesture, every action, every motivation, every intention,
Speaker 1: and whatever it comes before motivation and intention, which is
Speaker 1: a mysterious arising in the gap, comes from your decision
Speaker 1: on that point. Yeah, I have heard that phrase. I've
Speaker 1: I've heard that, and I am in no position to
Speaker 1: probably argue with Einstein except that he can no longer
Speaker 1: argue back. But yeah, I think that's uh, we can
Speaker 1: we can probably disagree on on on that one. Because
Speaker 1: I think when you know, a lot of the evidence
Speaker 1: says that it's not terribly friendly sometimes out there, but
Speaker 1: I don't think that's caused for despair either. Another thing
Speaker 1: that you have said is, and I really like this line,
Speaker 1: you said that generally monumental realizations don't cut delusion, but
Speaker 1: the moment to moment commitment to work with thoughts as
Speaker 1: they arise does Can you elaborate on that a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I live in Boston, Massachusetts, you know, kind of right
Speaker 1: next to Cambridge, actually in Somerville, and it's a very
Speaker 1: heady place, a lot of heavy people. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why I'm thinking of that particularly, but maybe it's
Speaker 1: just where I live. But there's a lot of attention
Speaker 1: paid to what you believe and your opinions, which everybody
Speaker 1: should have, and you're sort of mm hm, mission statement,
Speaker 1: I guess about your life and reality and so on,
Speaker 1: and and I just find that those kinds of things
Speaker 1: are traps, they're entrapments, and even if you have this
Speaker 1: great some things fall together in your mind in a
Speaker 1: really wonderful and powerful way. That's fantastic. But that I
Speaker 1: don't think is what what actually creates real change or
Speaker 1: makes you more capable of love or a more creative person. Even.
Speaker 1: I think it's when you take that realization into the
Speaker 1: world and watch your mind in a moment to moment.
Speaker 1: I don't mean in a policing way, but in a
Speaker 1: just a sort of friendly way, and are constantly making
Speaker 1: little corrections or decisions like Okay, that was a projection,
Speaker 1: let me take that back, or that was an opinion
Speaker 1: that what is that opinion based on? Again? Oh? Nothing, okay,
Speaker 1: let me just set that down. Oh I felt this
Speaker 1: my strength, this like pull on my heart strings. When
Speaker 1: this person walked by me, I said about them was
Speaker 1: about something that happened in me. Let me look at that.
Speaker 1: So that kind of just checking in with your experience
Speaker 1: and living your experience and taking responsibility even I would
Speaker 1: say for your experience is a greater source of wisdom
Speaker 1: than coming to any kind of conclusion. Yeah. I really
Speaker 1: like that line because I think that, um it really
Speaker 1: points to I think there's a real tendency for all
Speaker 1: of us to want a silver bullet of some sort, right,
Speaker 1: Like if I just if I could just you know,
Speaker 1: I'll get this one realization and then everything will be
Speaker 1: easy or fine. And I really like that you're sort
Speaker 1: of you're pointing to the fact that it's a moment
Speaker 1: to moment commitment that that goes on with the thoughts
Speaker 1: as they continue to come. And I think that it
Speaker 1: points to for a lot of us, and I'm I
Speaker 1: am guilty of this to a great degree. But it's
Speaker 1: not another realization that we need. It's not something that
Speaker 1: we haven't learned or haven't heard for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: it's are we are we practicing kind of what we
Speaker 1: know on a regular and consistent basis. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: that that makes sense to me. And you know, wisdom
Speaker 1: is real and important and and inseparable from compassion. Wisdom
Speaker 1: and compassion are the two sides of the same coin,
Speaker 1: and Buddhist thought and maybe other kinds of thought too,
Speaker 1: and not that they lead to it. Their inseparable, not
Speaker 1: that one helps the other, it's they're the same thing.
Speaker 1: And you know, in our culture we kind of separate them.
Speaker 1: And I think wisdom is something that has used on
Speaker 1: its own and it does, it really does, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't make you happy or relieve the suffering of others particularly,
Speaker 1: So just a couple more things that we are getting
Speaker 1: near the end of our time, I wanted to ask you.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about about fear, and I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you could maybe give just a couple of
Speaker 1: short thoughts on how to deal with fear of that
Speaker 1: that people could maybe take away from from the show. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, and maybe it's just because today there's so
Speaker 1: many strong emotions swirling around, But I think that the
Speaker 1: only gesture of fearlessness that one needs to make is
Speaker 1: to not be afraid of themselves and to not be
Speaker 1: afraid of their own feelings. And that's where courage The
Speaker 1: courageous person is someone who is not afraid of themselves.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't mean that you love every think about
Speaker 1: yourself or that you always think you do an awesome
Speaker 1: job at everything. It means that you're not afraid of
Speaker 1: your brilliance, and you're not afraid of your confusion, and
Speaker 1: you're not afraid of your doubt and boredom and depression,
Speaker 1: none of it. You're not afraid of your fear, and
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you aren't afraid. It just means that
Speaker 1: you're not as scared of that, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: and therefore you can open your heart in even the
Speaker 1: most difficult of circumstance, and that's a war That's the
Speaker 1: my definition of a warrior. Warrior someone who is willing
Speaker 1: to keep their heart open even when things become very,
Speaker 1: very difficult. And you know, without contemplative practice or meditation
Speaker 1: practice to teach us how to do that, I think
Speaker 1: it's very hard, very hard for me anyway. So in
Speaker 1: that sense, a meditation practice is so much more. But
Speaker 1: it's also that is what you are practicing. When you
Speaker 1: practice meditation, practicing breathing, you already know how to do that.
Speaker 1: You're practicing remaining with your experience, and so itself is
Speaker 1: a gesture of courage. Yeah. I think that idea that
Speaker 1: whatever we're whatever we're facing, we have the capacity to
Speaker 1: handle is such a which is you, which is kind
Speaker 1: of everything you just said. That ability to know that
Speaker 1: whatever it is, I have the ability to deal with it.
Speaker 1: I can feel it, and it is it will not
Speaker 1: kill me, it's not there's no feeling that has lasted forever.
Speaker 1: So tell us about the open heart pride it which
Speaker 1: is something that you have started on your website recently,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a lot of interesting things you're doing.
Speaker 1: Can you share a little bit about what that is yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, because I love the Open Heart Project. I
Speaker 1: it's a mailing list, it's free, and anyone who signs
Speaker 1: up for it gets a meditation instructional video for me
Speaker 1: every week on Monday, with a ten minute practice and
Speaker 1: short talk on something related to meditation. And by sure
Speaker 1: I mean usually it's under five minutes. And I started
Speaker 1: doing this because I would teach workshops or classes or
Speaker 1: whatever and say to people, if you want to continue meditating,
Speaker 1: please find a meditation instructor, and the people would say,
Speaker 1: we don't have meditation instructors in Utah or Bolivia or
Speaker 1: wherever it is that that person lived. So I started
Speaker 1: I think, wow, I'll just send I'll try to help.
Speaker 1: I'll send out this some instruction and answer questions and
Speaker 1: so on. And now there's more than twelve thou people
Speaker 1: all over the world who practiced together, and it's really
Speaker 1: become a very potent community of people who I find
Speaker 1: to be really smart, independent thinkers who are not interested
Speaker 1: in the latest bs of how to be whatever perfect
Speaker 1: and are trying just their best to be human and
Speaker 1: live good, powerful, realized lives. And it's become my full
Speaker 1: time occupation. I'd say, and a few months ago there
Speaker 1: were enough people that wanted to study more with me
Speaker 1: or go deeper in their practice. I started something within
Speaker 1: the Open Heart Project called the Open Heart Projects SONGA,
Speaker 1: which is I think a month but it's a paid
Speaker 1: description when we work together more closely and really explore
Speaker 1: more deeply the practice and principles of meditation, and also
Speaker 1: work more closely with each other as a community. So
Speaker 1: it really sort of popped out of nowhere in my life.
Speaker 1: I mean not nowhere. I knew what I did it
Speaker 1: very intentionally, but I really did not anticipate that it
Speaker 1: would become this, but I'm really happy that it did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's such a great thing because that idea
Speaker 1: of needing and meditation teacher is is so helpful, and
Speaker 1: it is kind of hard to find experienced meditation teachers
Speaker 1: UM in a lot of parts of the country, and
Speaker 1: so it's it's great that you're using that technology too
Speaker 1: to allow more people to experience that. So listeners should
Speaker 1: definitely check it out. We'll have links to the Open
Speaker 1: Heart Project, your website and all your stuff on on
Speaker 1: all of our show notes pages. Well, thank you very
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to talk with this This evening, Susan,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. I did too, so it was really
Speaker 1: a delight to talk to you. Thank you. Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: talk again soon. Take care by all right bye. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about Susan Piver and this podcast at
Speaker 1: one you Feed dot net slash Susan