Speaker 1: And he gave a little talk fifteen minutes and then
Speaker 1: a little way to shift awareness. And when he did
Speaker 1: this within three minutes, I felt the same way I
Speaker 1: did at the end of a ten day retreat. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have
Speaker 1: recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like
Speaker 1: garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think
Speaker 1: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 1: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast about how
Speaker 1: other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how
Speaker 1: they feed their good wolf. Our guest this week is Lock.
Speaker 1: Kelly Locke is an author, meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and the
Speaker 1: founder of the Open Hearted Awareness Institute. Lock works to
Speaker 1: help people access awakening as the next natural stage of
Speaker 1: human development. He offers in person retreats, workshops, and online
Speaker 1: video and audio courses. He served on the New York
Speaker 1: Insight Teachers Council, studied extensively with Mingreri Pichet, and was
Speaker 1: invited to teach direct realization by Audia Shanti. He's also
Speaker 1: collaborated with neuroscientists at Yale, you Pen and n y
Speaker 1: U in the study of how awareness training can enhance compare,
Speaker 1: passion and well being. As a licensed psychotherapist, Lock has
Speaker 1: been teaching seminars, supervising clinicians, and practicing awareness psychotherapy in
Speaker 1: New York City for thirty years. His latest book is
Speaker 1: called The Way of Effortless Mindfulness, A Revolutionary Guide for
Speaker 1: Living and Awakened Life. And here is our conversation with Lock. Kelly. Hi, Lock,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks Eric, really great to be
Speaker 1: here with you again. Yes, certainly a pleasure to have
Speaker 1: you on for a second time. And we are going
Speaker 1: to jump in and talk about your new book here
Speaker 1: in a moment, which is called The Way of Effortless Mindfulness,
Speaker 1: a Revolutionary Guide for Living and Awakened Life. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, we'll start like we always do, with
Speaker 1: the parable There is a grandmother who's talking with her
Speaker 1: granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 1: inside of us that are always at battle. One is
Speaker 1: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and she looks up at her grandfather and she 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 the
Speaker 1: work that you do. Sure, yeah, I'm happy to give you, um,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of a unique interpretation maybe, uh, what
Speaker 1: we might call a kind of non dual interpretation or
Speaker 1: a view from effortless mindfulness. So the sense would be
Speaker 1: that each of us has parts within ourselves, and usually
Speaker 1: they're polarized. So there's a two wolves within us. One
Speaker 1: might be happy or soft and childlike, and another might
Speaker 1: be more angry or strong, and the feeling is that
Speaker 1: they're both actually parts of us, and there are no
Speaker 1: bad part. So the way that we might experience this
Speaker 1: would be to feel each of those parts, each of
Speaker 1: the wolves within us, and then simply ask, can you
Speaker 1: feel the angry wolf, yes, can you feel the happy wolf? Yes?
Speaker 1: And then to ask the question who's aware of those
Speaker 1: two wolves? And then as we feel that the answer
Speaker 1: would be feed the one who's aware of the two wolves,
Speaker 1: and then acknowledge and talked to the two wolves to
Speaker 1: see that maybe the angry, the mean, strong wolf might
Speaker 1: be a protector that is looking out for the good
Speaker 1: but just doesn't quite know how to do it right,
Speaker 1: right exactly. I think that's, you know, more and more
Speaker 1: an idea that we get, which is to you know,
Speaker 1: what is the emotion telling us? What is the message
Speaker 1: it's sending? Not that it's a bad thing, but what
Speaker 1: is this you know, what is it sending? Exactly? So
Speaker 1: so let's let's jump into your book you were on before.
Speaker 1: So you know, we talked about some of these ideas before,
Speaker 1: but you've reframed him a little bit in this book
Speaker 1: and talking about them slightly differently. But let's start with
Speaker 1: you know, the title the Way of Effortless Mindfulness. So
Speaker 1: what is effortless mindfulness? So in some ways, that little
Speaker 1: example is that we're kind of effortlessly, effort fully trying
Speaker 1: to run our lives as if we're living in this
Speaker 1: cloud or in this body and using our smart parts
Speaker 1: and are even our mindful meditator to try to organize
Speaker 1: or clean up this cloud of our body mind. And
Speaker 1: so the remarkable move in effortless mindfulness is to kind
Speaker 1: of step out of the cloud and to wreck conize
Speaker 1: we're also the sky and we're aware of this freedom
Speaker 1: of the sky, and then to realize the sky is
Speaker 1: already awake without our help, and then to be aware
Speaker 1: of from the sky back, realizing the cloud is within
Speaker 1: the sky and the skies within the cloud. And then
Speaker 1: to feel this embracing effortless awareness that's aware without effort,
Speaker 1: that can focus without concentrating, that is kind of like
Speaker 1: a flow consciousness that we can kind of integrate kind
Speaker 1: of the transcendent and imminent, the spiritual and the mundane. Great. So,
Speaker 1: let's let's break that down a little bit some of
Speaker 1: the things that you said there, because I think that
Speaker 1: you know, it might be useful to contrast what you're
Speaker 1: calling effortless mindfulness versus deliberate mindfulness, right, and deliberate mindfulness
Speaker 1: is more what we're used to talking about, and in
Speaker 1: a way of saying it that you use in the
Speaker 1: book and I've heard also is in a deliberate mindfulness practice, right,
Speaker 1: we're paying attention to the objects of consciousness, whether it
Speaker 1: be our breath, whether it be sounds, whether it be
Speaker 1: we look at our thoughts, and in effortless mindfulness, the
Speaker 1: idea is we pay attention to the context or the
Speaker 1: space itself, that all that stuff is happens right in Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's the real and traditionally, um, when I met
Speaker 1: this wisdom teacher, and as I've studied other wisdom traditions,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the next natural step of mindfulness
Speaker 1: practice or of wisdom practices that starts with some kind
Speaker 1: of yoga or calming the body and focusing the mind,
Speaker 1: just as a preparation or as a preliminary set of practices,
Speaker 1: but there's meant to be kind of the next age,
Speaker 1: so that mindfulness is about awakening, not just about stress management.
Speaker 1: So for those who are interested in kind of relieving
Speaker 1: suffering at its root, we begin by focusing on the
Speaker 1: contents of consciousness and creating a kind of mindful witness
Speaker 1: and then interestingly opening almost looking behind the camera to
Speaker 1: feel this more vast, spacious awake consciousness that is spacious
Speaker 1: and pervasive, embodied and interconnected with everyone. And it seems
Speaker 1: like a you know, intellectual or abstract idea or but
Speaker 1: it it literally takes just a the same amount of
Speaker 1: time to learn effortless mindfulness as deliberate mindfulness. It's just
Speaker 1: a kind of a new unique skill set that can
Speaker 1: be learned. And once you kind to get a hold
Speaker 1: of it, then I have a set of these practices
Speaker 1: that kind of lead you through through these small glimpses.
Speaker 1: This idea of glimpses that you talked about, I want
Speaker 1: to I want to talk about that real quick and
Speaker 1: then maybe do one because I love this thing. Is
Speaker 1: one of the things in your teaching that has always
Speaker 1: really stood out to me is the phrase small glimpses.
Speaker 1: Many times tell us about what that. So, just to
Speaker 1: give you a little background, I was in graduate school
Speaker 1: and went on a fellowship to Sri Lanka and studying
Speaker 1: deliberate mindfulness, which is from the Terravada or insight meditation tradition.
Speaker 1: I sat five day retreats, ten day retreats and longer,
Speaker 1: and then I went up through India and met this
Speaker 1: teacher Toko urgan Riprochet, who was giving out this what
Speaker 1: he called effortless mindfulness approach, and he gave a little
Speaker 1: talk fifteen minutes and then a little way to shift awareness.
Speaker 1: And when he did within three minutes, I felt the
Speaker 1: same way I did at the end of a ten
Speaker 1: day retreat. So you might you might guess that that
Speaker 1: caught my interest, and that was a glimpse. That was
Speaker 1: a one minute, five minute shift of awareness intentionally to
Speaker 1: discover that that awakeness that I had kind of worked
Speaker 1: ten days to kind of calm down in order for
Speaker 1: it to appear is already here and is as close
Speaker 1: as our breath. And so learning how to glimpse this
Speaker 1: with just simply by moving awareness is the method that
Speaker 1: can be done in the midst of a busy life,
Speaker 1: rather than needing to retreat to a quiet place or
Speaker 1: join a monastery or live in a cave, right, right,
Speaker 1: And I love that idea in it really weeks to
Speaker 1: something we talk about on the show all the time.
Speaker 1: We always talk about small steps, small consistent steps. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, you'd be amazed what a series of small
Speaker 1: steps taken over and over we'll lead to. And that's
Speaker 1: what I love about the small glimpses many times, right,
Speaker 1: it's not searching for, like you said, being able to
Speaker 1: go away and retreat and stay in this in a
Speaker 1: certain state. It's about trying to shift awareness a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, over and over and over again, but but
Speaker 1: relatively quickly. And I really like that part of the practice.
Speaker 1: So why don't you give us one of these glimpse
Speaker 1: practices right now? Sure? So, I mean it can take
Speaker 1: a little bit to set up, but one simple one
Speaker 1: would be a way to drop from head to heart mind.
Speaker 1: So the sense when we do a deliberate mindfulness practice
Speaker 1: is we focus on our breath. So you could start
Speaker 1: out by simply doing this just as a preparation, as
Speaker 1: people may have done before, just to focus on your
Speaker 1: breath at your belly. You just need to do it
Speaker 1: for a couple of breaths and then shift your awareness
Speaker 1: to notice where are you focusing from. So this gives
Speaker 1: us a feeling that not only are we able to
Speaker 1: focus on the object of our breath, but now we're
Speaker 1: starting to feel our normal sense of a subject, which
Speaker 1: for most people feels like it's in the middle of
Speaker 1: our head, behind our eyes, and so feeling that that
Speaker 1: pattern of thought and realizing that it's not a solid,
Speaker 1: separate self. See if you can simply feel as if
Speaker 1: awareness is identified or attached to this pattern of thought,
Speaker 1: and then somehow feel like awareness can step out into
Speaker 1: the space around you and just feel that relief for
Speaker 1: that quiet and then feel as if this awareness, which
Speaker 1: is kind of moving itself, can drop and become aware
Speaker 1: of your smile and your jaw directly from your draw
Speaker 1: and somehow this awareness can move itself down to be
Speaker 1: aware of your throat from within your throat, the space
Speaker 1: the aliveness and the awareness directly knowing itself from within,
Speaker 1: And then feel this awareness drop below your neck as
Speaker 1: if the subject and object are moving from head to
Speaker 1: be embodied, and then feel as if this awareness can
Speaker 1: discover a safe heart space that you're aware of and
Speaker 1: that then you're aware from. So just curiously notice that
Speaker 1: you don't have to orient a thought to be alert
Speaker 1: and knowing and here and embodied, and just notice what
Speaker 1: it's like, almost as if you're seeing through the eyes
Speaker 1: of the heart or knowing from this heart mind. What's
Speaker 1: it like just for a moment to have dropped from
Speaker 1: head it to heart mind and be aware and awake
Speaker 1: from this heart space. Okay, I'm gonna get back into
Speaker 1: the conversation here, I don't you know, a silent podcast
Speaker 1: main bore and people can pause and pause another time, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pause it and do it again. M Y. So here's
Speaker 1: a question for you that I think is an interesting
Speaker 1: question because I've been exposed to your work sat several
Speaker 1: retreats with Audio Shanti, I've been exposed to other other
Speaker 1: ideas around this sort of effortless meditation, which is really
Speaker 1: you stop trying so hard to concentrate and you sort
Speaker 1: of sink into what is aware and we and try
Speaker 1: and do that, right. And what I've found is that
Speaker 1: sometimes that's extraordinarily profound and other times it's like just nothing.
Speaker 1: It's my brain just runs around like it does all
Speaker 1: day long, right, and so it's this sense of you know,
Speaker 1: for me, what I've found is that there are times
Speaker 1: that I can open up to a much more spacious
Speaker 1: awareness and kind of just take my hands off m
Speaker 1: And then there are other times it seems if I'm
Speaker 1: actually trying to quote unquote practice, that I actually need
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I need to give myself a
Speaker 1: little bit more structure, a little bit more focus, in
Speaker 1: order that it just not be mind wandering. So from
Speaker 1: your perspective. You know, let's talk about so interestingly, there
Speaker 1: tends to be two primary methods of direct practice of
Speaker 1: kind of a non dual recognition realization. One is kind
Speaker 1: of the do nothing practice, what I call the the
Speaker 1: resting or the sitting method, where you just sit and
Speaker 1: let things quiet down, and that's kind of a zen
Speaker 1: style that some most non dual teachers practice and most
Speaker 1: And then the other is this inquiry practice or this
Speaker 1: looking method, and it has an active principle of immediately
Speaker 1: and pretty much of the time working up intentionally once
Speaker 1: you learn it. So the sitting method I found, similar
Speaker 1: to you, it was a hit or miss thing. When
Speaker 1: it worked, it was wonderful, but most of the time,
Speaker 1: and certainly out of retreat style, it didn't work as well.
Speaker 1: So I discovered this way of unhooking awareness and having
Speaker 1: it learn and feel how to open to the spacious
Speaker 1: awareness kind of return home, then be aware from the
Speaker 1: spacious awareness back to the alive, embodied, interconnected field, and
Speaker 1: then you actually are able to enter what's called the
Speaker 1: flow consciousness or flow state, which is the optimal way
Speaker 1: of functioning from a non egoic, non thought based way
Speaker 1: of being that is highly functional but free of chattering mind.
Speaker 1: So this is this is kind of why I developed
Speaker 1: this more inquiry based or shifting or glimpsing method that
Speaker 1: once you do learn the the way to separate awareness
Speaker 1: from thought and awareness from doer, you can pretty much
Speaker 1: access return home, drop open and include everything, and then
Speaker 1: begin to function and relate and create from this awake
Speaker 1: consciousness pretty consistently for short periods of time, and then
Speaker 1: it starts getting longer. So it's quite a different thing.
Speaker 1: And that's why I wrote this book is because it
Speaker 1: does have a more of a method than a just
Speaker 1: UH sitting, which is more the traditional way of accessing
Speaker 1: nondual awareness. And so do you recommend that people practice
Speaker 1: these glimpses? I guess you know small glimpses many times
Speaker 1: insinuates that yes, we are practicing it often. But do
Speaker 1: you recommend setting aside time for focused practice of these glimpses?
Speaker 1: Do you just say hey, when you remember do it, like,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about somebody goes all right, this is
Speaker 1: really interesting. I want to practice this, and obviously reading
Speaker 1: your book is UH is the best way to get
Speaker 1: all this information. Yeah, I mean, just like you said,
Speaker 1: small steps and then consistency, so finding a rhythm that
Speaker 1: works for you, but pretty much regularly during the day.
Speaker 1: And some people find that they continue to do a
Speaker 1: sitting practice if they have one in the morning, and
Speaker 1: then they glimpse during the day. And then there's many
Speaker 1: people who have never been able to focus on their
Speaker 1: breath or sit quietly without continuous chattering mind and mind wandering,
Speaker 1: and for those this glimpsing immediately relieves that. And so
Speaker 1: then during the day it's kind of like you can
Speaker 1: look out the window and do a glimpse. You can
Speaker 1: sit on the subway and do a glimpse. You can
Speaker 1: walk walk around the park or walk around your house
Speaker 1: and do a glimpse, and they take one to six minutes.
Speaker 1: And then actually the best thing to do is to
Speaker 1: once you do the glimpse, immediately go back to creating
Speaker 1: and relating and typing and talking and walking, and it
Speaker 1: begins to rewire your neuronal network to living from an
Speaker 1: awakened life rather than separating these times of meditation. And
Speaker 1: then you have to kind of recreate the doer or
Speaker 1: the ego that may be a little more relaxed, but
Speaker 1: still is that small separate sense of self which is
Speaker 1: the root of the suffering. So the unique thing is
Speaker 1: that the glimpse is not a shortened meditation, it's actually
Speaker 1: an upgrade of operating system that you shift from the small,
Speaker 1: separate sense of self and then you don't stop at
Speaker 1: the gap of don't know mind or not knowing or
Speaker 1: kind of blank relief. You immediately go to the awake,
Speaker 1: more spacious, interconnected, embodied open heartedness. And then you're now
Speaker 1: aware from there of thoughts, feeling, sensations as more of
Speaker 1: a flow or more of ocean and wave feeling rather
Speaker 1: than a witnessing, separate sky. So you feel this interconnected, loving,
Speaker 1: safe ground of being. Quality is what most people say.
Speaker 1: And so it's surprising that this you know, this map
Speaker 1: has been available in these traditions, and it's you know
Speaker 1: that I find that contemporary people can learn and navigate
Speaker 1: it fairly easily. It's just so new now so unique,
Speaker 1: that people can't believe that it's so simple, And so
Speaker 1: you're if you're wanting to learn this method. Again, the
Speaker 1: book has a lot more instruction than we'll ever get
Speaker 1: out here. But I want to talk about a couple
Speaker 1: of things from a practical manner because I actually been
Speaker 1: exposed to your work for a while, and I had
Speaker 1: one of my first what I would consider one of
Speaker 1: my first sort of awakenings, listening to you on someone
Speaker 1: else's podcast, and you did the glimpse that listeners have
Speaker 1: heard and that I've talked about before, which is stopping
Speaker 1: what's here if there's no problem to solve, and the mind,
Speaker 1: my mind just went boom. Right. However, I've tried that
Speaker 1: glimpse many many times since, and there are times that
Speaker 1: I find like, oh, that's helpful, But I haven't had
Speaker 1: the same sort of experience, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times I do it, and even some of the other
Speaker 1: glimpse I will tempt them and it's like nothing. And
Speaker 1: so I guess my question for you is twofold one
Speaker 1: is if you try and do a glimpse and it
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to take in that moment, what's the
Speaker 1: right way to proceed from there? And then the following
Speaker 1: question would be how do you learn to glimpse better?
Speaker 1: Do you keep doing one glimpse often? Do you keep
Speaker 1: rotating through all the different ones? Do you find the
Speaker 1: ones that work for you? Kind of curious really practically,
Speaker 1: how you put this into into action. Sure, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean certainly, the what I call system one or
Speaker 1: the ego mind kind of tends to learn the glimpse
Speaker 1: and grab hold of it and almost like on it,
Speaker 1: like oh good, we're gonna do the glimpse. Let's achieve
Speaker 1: something now. And it's kind of like keep keeps you
Speaker 1: from from from letting go because it's like I really
Speaker 1: love this, so let's do it. Yeah, Okay, ready go,
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh no it's not working, try harder, No,
Speaker 1: don't try Wait a minute, you know, and then yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the you know, I have a whole section in
Speaker 1: the back that I call traps, detours and rerouting instructions,
Speaker 1: and so it gives a little you know, some of
Speaker 1: these ways that we get caught as antidotes, so you know,
Speaker 1: there's like a fullness of the map. That one that
Speaker 1: I do often on like beginning is one I kind
Speaker 1: of developed as kind of go from step one to
Speaker 1: step two, and sometimes it will lead further two, step three,
Speaker 1: four or five, but it's still just one doorway in
Speaker 1: and it's just the first step. And so I kind
Speaker 1: of divide things into what I call the five foundations
Speaker 1: of effortless mindfulness, and they kind of build on each other.
Speaker 1: You can go kind of from one to three to five,
Speaker 1: or don't have to always go step by step, but
Speaker 1: you get the feeling of of where you get caught
Speaker 1: and how how you're not quite there yet. If you
Speaker 1: if you experience kind of what I call waking up from,
Speaker 1: then you have to wake to the awareness that's already awake,
Speaker 1: and then you wake from the awareness back to embodiment,
Speaker 1: and then you wake into your body and then wake
Speaker 1: out to life and action. So it's navigate, learning to
Speaker 1: navigate your consciousness and making it your own. But I
Speaker 1: give kind of the principles and kind of the map
Speaker 1: um and then everyone's got to find their own way,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the the important democratic way to
Speaker 1: do it, rather than it being a guru or one
Speaker 1: right way system. And so by being interested and and
Speaker 1: playing with it, you know. I have one audio series
Speaker 1: of thirty one small glimpses, and I usually tell people
Speaker 1: listen to it, know once through, because they build on
Speaker 1: each other, and then go back the second time and
Speaker 1: start going, oh, number four, I like, Oh, number twelve,
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, Oh I like, and then just kind
Speaker 1: of mark those and then go back and just when
Speaker 1: you need one, just go to number four, number twelve
Speaker 1: or number twenty two, and it will kind of be
Speaker 1: your starting point to start to, you know, learn this
Speaker 1: new dimension of your own being. And so let's say
Speaker 1: we we do that with Somebody goes all right, I
Speaker 1: like four and twelve, right, it seemed to be helpful,
Speaker 1: and I go and I do I could try and
Speaker 1: do a glimpse, you know, I'm like, oh, it's nine
Speaker 1: in the morning. I remember, I'm gonna do a glimpse, right,
Speaker 1: And I try four and again. I recognize this as
Speaker 1: the ego talking. When I say nothing, nothing happens, so totally, yes,
Speaker 1: I get that distinction of trying not to try and
Speaker 1: and all of that, right, But I try the practice
Speaker 1: and I'm unable to unhook. I'm unable to It feels
Speaker 1: like I'm unable to go into the awareness. Do you
Speaker 1: recommend that you stop and go all right, let me
Speaker 1: try that again, or do you go, maybe right now
Speaker 1: is not a good time, or you know, I guess
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I'm after. You keep sort of
Speaker 1: slogging away on one, and you know, you start again
Speaker 1: and then you can try another one. But it's a
Speaker 1: there's a learning curve. The first the first section of
Speaker 1: learning is kind of getting the felt sense of the principles,
Speaker 1: like learning to ride a bicycle, learning to type. You're
Speaker 1: kind of learning the A, B, C s and you're
Speaker 1: kind of like some days you're typing, well, sometimes you're
Speaker 1: messing up when you're learning. And that's why I wrote
Speaker 1: this book and why I have these series of glimpses,
Speaker 1: is that you will feel how your awareness can what
Speaker 1: I call unhooked and drop or unhooked and open and discover.
Speaker 1: And once you get a feel the ego is not
Speaker 1: doing that that actually, as soon as awareness unhooks and
Speaker 1: opens that you've already shifted into a wake living. The
Speaker 1: awareness is actually the intelligent mode of operating, and the
Speaker 1: doer or the small self is now just an ego function.
Speaker 1: It's not an ego identity. It's just part of you.
Speaker 1: And you start to you know, they're like phases where
Speaker 1: at first, um, you know there's a learning curve. It's easy,
Speaker 1: it's hard, it's not quite getting this one didn't work.
Speaker 1: That one worked, and then you're like, okay, I got
Speaker 1: the feel of it, and now it just starts to
Speaker 1: be the new normal, and so this has more of
Speaker 1: of this solving of the paradox of doing and not doing,
Speaker 1: so you're not wrestling at that place which you do
Speaker 1: when you when you're doing just sitting or the resting method,
Speaker 1: you're kind of always playing with am I doing or
Speaker 1: not doing? Or letting go? Or am I sleep? Am
Speaker 1: I going off to thought? Am I coming back with?
Speaker 1: Who came back? Did I try to come back? Or
Speaker 1: you know, So this is literally as soon as awareness
Speaker 1: on hooks away, consciousness is not passive, it's actually active.
Speaker 1: So it has an intentionality and a movement and a
Speaker 1: dynamism that you begin to hand the baton off to that.
Speaker 1: And once that movement has been learned, you're in the
Speaker 1: second phase of everything becoming easier and just noticing, is
Speaker 1: there some protective part keeping me from doing this or
Speaker 1: some effortful part, or let me just unhooked from that
Speaker 1: effortful part or that protective part, and you pretty much
Speaker 1: can do it every time, you know, except maybe you know,
Speaker 1: extreme emotional situations, but just in any morning time or
Speaker 1: afternoon time, most people within you know, if they kind
Speaker 1: of are willing to learn the system, just like you'd
Speaker 1: be willing to learn. Deliberate mindfulness, which is basic mindfulness,
Speaker 1: is the same learning curve two. Get to a certain
Speaker 1: place where you're getting the benefits, then it enters this
Speaker 1: second phase of ease and clarity of how you're able
Speaker 1: to move, how awareness is able to move itself. Excellent.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of the traps and detours and
Speaker 1: rerouting that you have in the later chapter. Can you
Speaker 1: give us just a couple practical examples of places things
Speaker 1: might go wrong and how to correct it? Sure, So
Speaker 1: you know, the first one is that you know it's
Speaker 1: just the definition of awakening, that it's somehow an either
Speaker 1: or thing, that it's transcend then only that you can
Speaker 1: only do it on retreat, or that it's like a
Speaker 1: spiritual bypass, that you've kind of shifted into this pure awareness,
Speaker 1: and then there's a feeling, oh, there's no problems, there's
Speaker 1: no suffering, but there's actually no humanity either. So then
Speaker 1: the literally the set of instructions that I've kind of
Speaker 1: added to this whole field is okay. Once you've shifted
Speaker 1: out and you're aware of the pure awareness that's called recognition,
Speaker 1: then you realize the awareness is aware of itself without
Speaker 1: your help, and then it's as if, oh, but I'm
Speaker 1: aware from the awareness. That's the new location, and that's
Speaker 1: called realization. And then there's a feeling that you're aware
Speaker 1: both outside and within in this kind of embodied, interconnected feeling,
Speaker 1: and that actually balances what's called your default mode network
Speaker 1: of your brain, which is what kind of takes us
Speaker 1: into this distraction. So some of the ways of getting
Speaker 1: caught are just not knowing the map, and that once
Speaker 1: you know the map, you'll say, oh, I'm based out,
Speaker 1: Oh I'm blissed in. Those are two of the two
Speaker 1: of the traps for those people who kind of drop
Speaker 1: within their body, like chanting mantra and singing and sports,
Speaker 1: you can drop out of your eto into your body
Speaker 1: and then you get blissed in, but then it ends.
Speaker 1: And those who do more subtle mind practices of non
Speaker 1: dual or meditation, they can get spaced out or they
Speaker 1: can get caught in what I call the witness protection program,
Speaker 1: which is basically shifting into this witnessing position of a
Speaker 1: meditator that's walking around kind of watching yourself but being disembodied.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you, we're getting near the end of
Speaker 1: our time. But let's do one more glimpse practice. If
Speaker 1: you're good with that, then we'll wrap this up. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, why don't we just because I'll
Speaker 1: give a little explanation of the one we've talked about,
Speaker 1: but because it is simple. So the premise of developing
Speaker 1: this inquiry of what's here now when there's no problem
Speaker 1: to solve, is that the obstacle to awakening is this
Speaker 1: developmental pattern of this small, separate sense of self that's
Speaker 1: made of thought and emotion that loops around and in fact,
Speaker 1: we've even kind of solidified it by saying I think,
Speaker 1: therefore I am, so that feeling it literally has a
Speaker 1: feeling for most people of being located behind your eyes
Speaker 1: in the middle of your head looking out of these
Speaker 1: people's So that feeling we call I, and it's related
Speaker 1: to our body, and then we use visual and mental
Speaker 1: cues to feel like I'm separate only and then we
Speaker 1: feel alienated, and this feeling of being unable to solve
Speaker 1: the problem of being connected and satisfied and free because
Speaker 1: the thought based temporary identity is continually trying to solve
Speaker 1: the problem of connecting and being free and finding satisfaction,
Speaker 1: and it can't find it because it's looking within, it's
Speaker 1: looking without, And if it would just relax that job
Speaker 1: of solving the problem of identity, then we might discover
Speaker 1: experientially that who or what is here that's always been
Speaker 1: here is this awake, embodied, loving consciousness. So it's just
Speaker 1: that inquiry that allows the obstacle to relax and more
Speaker 1: importantly allows the awareness based knowing and the open hearted
Speaker 1: identity to be who's aware of anything within and without
Speaker 1: and kind of welcoming. So the simple glimpse to ask
Speaker 1: this simple question to understand it, and then inquire and
Speaker 1: then feel with your awareness kind of back and down
Speaker 1: to that which is aware and be aware from it.
Speaker 1: So the inquiry is simply this what's here now when
Speaker 1: there's no problem to solve, and then the pointers that continue.
Speaker 1: If you have a glimpse of the not going to
Speaker 1: thought and not going to sleep to rest, you're aware
Speaker 1: of more openness or spaciousness, of a kind of awareness
Speaker 1: or joy, and then just notice, are you aware of
Speaker 1: the spaciousness or you're actually aware from it, so that
Speaker 1: now your view is from this non thought based, embodied,
Speaker 1: open hearted presence, and then just welcome everything and notice
Speaker 1: that you could talk or relate from here where without
Speaker 1: going back up to create a manager and so that
Speaker 1: becomes kind of the next phase of this kind of
Speaker 1: five part embodiment support that people can kind of explore
Speaker 1: and then you're able to be this more open, loving presence. Excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Luck for coming on the show.
Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure to talk with you again. And
Speaker 1: I do think that you know, these teachings that you're
Speaker 1: presenting is really a different a different approach that is
Speaker 1: worth investigation. I think by anybody who is you know,
Speaker 1: looking towards awakening or meditation or all that this is
Speaker 1: a is there's something different and new here that's worth exploring.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's always a pleasure. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: and I are. And to continue talking in the post
Speaker 1: show conversation a little bit. We're gonna talk about a
Speaker 1: map of consciousness or patterns of experience through certain lenses
Speaker 1: and kind of how we suffer in some of the
Speaker 1: solutions to that. So listeners, you can get access to
Speaker 1: the post show conversations, add free episodes and a special
Speaker 1: mini episode with me each week by going to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net, slash join and becoming part of
Speaker 1: our community. Thank you Lock so much again for coming on.
Speaker 1: Thanks Sarah. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
Speaker 1: please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast.
Speaker 1: Head over to one you Feed dot net slash support.
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