Speaker 1: When we analyze if we have a thinking problem, we're
Speaker 1: using the very tools that we use when we think.
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 Wolfe. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr
Speaker 1: Chris Niebauer. Chris holds a PhD in cognitive neuropsychology, specializing
Speaker 1: in the differences between the left and the right sides
Speaker 1: of the human brain. He's currently a professor at Slippery
Speaker 1: Rocky University in Pennsylvania, where he teaches courses on consciousness, mindfulness,
Speaker 1: left and right brain differences and artificial intelligence. His new
Speaker 1: book is No Self No Problem, How neuropsychology is catching
Speaker 1: up with Buddhism. Hi, Chris, welcome to the show. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you on.
Speaker 1: You are a second time guest. It's somewhat elite crew.
Speaker 1: I suppose if you've been looking for some very small
Speaker 1: way to feel better about yourself, I suppose there's there's that. No, seriously,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming back. We're going to talk about your
Speaker 1: latest book, which is called Self No Problem, How neuropsychology
Speaker 1: is catching up to Buddhism. But before we do, let's start,
Speaker 1: like we always do, with a parable. There's a grandfather
Speaker 1: who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there
Speaker 1: are two wolves inside of us that are always a battle.
Speaker 1: One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
Speaker 1: and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and 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. It's such a great story.
Speaker 1: I was on the show about four years ago, and
Speaker 1: I really think that it's been percolating sort of in
Speaker 1: the either in the back of my consciousness or really
Speaker 1: in front of my consciousness in one way or another,
Speaker 1: and so I think it came out in No Selves,
Speaker 1: No Problem, particularly at the end of the book. To me,
Speaker 1: the parable is something that we live with every morning.
Speaker 1: We get up in the morning and we make a
Speaker 1: choice between the positive and the negative. And the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about this choice is that from a psychological standpoint,
Speaker 1: you don't really have to be particularly introspective. It should
Speaker 1: be rather obvious to us that the positive is self rewarding.
Speaker 1: If you practice gratitude, if you practice compassion, it feels good.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing about the negative, and I think
Speaker 1: everyone kind of knows this, is that you're not punished
Speaker 1: for your anger. You're punished by your anger. You know
Speaker 1: the consequences of taking that negative path, of feeding the negative.
Speaker 1: And yet it's like a habit that we've gotten into
Speaker 1: where so many of us still get up and we
Speaker 1: turned the news on we started a we start off
Speaker 1: feeding the negative, and the question becomes, why are we
Speaker 1: doing this? Why are we engaging in something that it
Speaker 1: shouldn't really be happening, because, if anything, the reverse should
Speaker 1: be happening. Gratitude and compassion are so self rewarding it
Speaker 1: should just come sy to us. So one of the
Speaker 1: things I've pondered for the last few years is why
Speaker 1: would we make this choice? Why would we do something
Speaker 1: that is so self inflicting in terms of pain and suffering.
Speaker 1: What it did is it led me back to questioning
Speaker 1: where did the idea of the self come from? Did
Speaker 1: we always have an idea of the self? And it
Speaker 1: became more obvious to me that we are a species.
Speaker 1: And I didn't come up with this quote. I think
Speaker 1: it was Graham Hancock. He said we're species that suffers
Speaker 1: from amnesia. And I think that is a really good
Speaker 1: way to put it. So we started thinking when do
Speaker 1: we start thinking? When do we start feeding the negative?
Speaker 1: Was it something that human beings always did? You know,
Speaker 1: the numbers can be pretty amazing. So as human beings,
Speaker 1: we've been on the planet about two and a half
Speaker 1: million years. Our version of being a human almost apiens.
Speaker 1: We've only been around maybe two hundred three hundred thousand years.
Speaker 1: And the remarkable thing is that we've only been thinking
Speaker 1: the way that we think, the way you and I
Speaker 1: and their listeners, they've only been thinking for about forty
Speaker 1: thousand years, maybe seventy. That's not a very long time.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing about thinking is that it's almost
Speaker 1: like a program that we've inherited. And when you compare
Speaker 1: our world now to how human beings lived forty fifty
Speaker 1: sixty thousand years ago, in a way, we needed to
Speaker 1: feed the negative. Our environment was so unpredictable. It's almost
Speaker 1: impossible to imagine what our environment was like. I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine a glacier outside. Imagine, you know, subzero temperatures and
Speaker 1: no food, and there's no microwaves and there's no heat.
Speaker 1: It's almost like an exercise in itself to imagine what
Speaker 1: it would be like to live this long ago. So
Speaker 1: in a way, human beings survived this almost unimaginable environment,
Speaker 1: how do we do it well? Some archaeologists and people
Speaker 1: have speculated that it could have been this thinking program.
Speaker 1: And the thinking program strategize as it create in groups,
Speaker 1: it creates out groups. It's paranoid. It really does all
Speaker 1: those things that you're talking about in terms of feeding
Speaker 1: the negative. So what I'm getting at here is this
Speaker 1: idea that it's not a fair fight. So each of
Speaker 1: us has this battle for the negative and the positive
Speaker 1: inside of us going on every day, and we know
Speaker 1: we should be choosing the positive because it feels good,
Speaker 1: it's self rewarding, it's a path of peace, tranquility, and
Speaker 1: we know we should be feeding it, and we know
Speaker 1: what happens when we do. So the question is, why
Speaker 1: aren't we doing this? Well. One speculation that I really
Speaker 1: have been exploring is that we have this program. I
Speaker 1: actually call it Mind one point oh. And Mind one
Speaker 1: point oh is a program that is biological. It was
Speaker 1: something that, for whatever reasons, came online about forty years ago.
Speaker 1: It was very helpful for us to survive. It got
Speaker 1: us out of a really terrible mess, and we were
Speaker 1: competing with six different versions of humans at the time
Speaker 1: and we were the only ones that survived. So we
Speaker 1: can be very thankful for this program. The problem is,
Speaker 1: and the reason I call it Mind one point oh
Speaker 1: is because it's never been updated. It's a point we're
Speaker 1: living with a forty thousand year old program in our skull.
Speaker 1: I mentioned a program in your computer that's ten years outdated.
Speaker 1: We'll imagine having a forty year old, outdated program in
Speaker 1: your skull, and it lives off that negative. The negative
Speaker 1: is how it survived, but we don't need it any longer. Now.
Speaker 1: The question is how do we become conscious of this
Speaker 1: mind one point oh program? How do we stop feeding
Speaker 1: it because it's no longer useful to us and take
Speaker 1: a path that on some level all of us absolutely
Speaker 1: no is intrinsically more healthy. And that's the path of
Speaker 1: the positive. There's a lot in there that I think
Speaker 1: is important, and we're going to get into some of
Speaker 1: the different aspects of it. I guess my big question
Speaker 1: coming out of what you just said would be why
Speaker 1: do we still have mind one point oh? This is
Speaker 1: a question I never fully understand when we talk about
Speaker 1: evolutionary psychology, is what is taking so long for us
Speaker 1: to evolve? Because you can see evolution happen in something
Speaker 1: like a series of foxes over a number of generations.
Speaker 1: You know, you can breed a fox in a number
Speaker 1: of generations to have pretty different traits. Why are we
Speaker 1: lagging so far behind? Is it just that it takes longer.
Speaker 1: Is it that there's no conscious choice about it, like
Speaker 1: you know in the case of the Fox, it's a
Speaker 1: very controlled thing. Or is it that the pace of
Speaker 1: change is so fast we never get settled enough or
Speaker 1: something I'm not even thinking. I think a lot is
Speaker 1: contributing to it. To me, I think the biggest variable,
Speaker 1: the most important factor, is the invisibility of the program itself.
Speaker 1: It has a transparency to it. We don't know it's
Speaker 1: a program. We go around with feelings of paranoia, you know,
Speaker 1: in group out group, and we really buy into it.
Speaker 1: We really think that this person is our me. We
Speaker 1: don't recognize the program. So how are you going to
Speaker 1: really evolve past the program when you don't even recognize
Speaker 1: that it's a program. Imagine if your computer had a problem,
Speaker 1: you never recognize the problem. And the reason we update
Speaker 1: our computers is because it's so obvious to us. You know,
Speaker 1: it crashes and we get feedback, and we realized this
Speaker 1: with mind one point. Oh, the problem is it's invisible
Speaker 1: to us. But I think that's why it was so successful.
Speaker 1: It was so successful because no one actually noticed it
Speaker 1: was a program. They absolutely brought into it for reality,
Speaker 1: which is by design. You know, it's by design. I
Speaker 1: think that we not see a lot of the ways
Speaker 1: that we react to the world. If we're thinking about
Speaker 1: it just from a survival basis, it's better to not
Speaker 1: even know. It's better to just react. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much fascinating data on this, and I'd like to
Speaker 1: start to move into some of it here. Let's move
Speaker 1: directly into the title of the book, No Self, no problem.
Speaker 1: What do we mean? I know self? This is a
Speaker 1: Buddhist concept, is where it primarily comes from, and it's
Speaker 1: talked about a lot, and it's probably the least at
Speaker 1: least in my experience, in my own life for a
Speaker 1: long time, and with a lot of people I talked to.
Speaker 1: It's the least accessible of the Buddhist teachings. Ones about impermanence,
Speaker 1: about craving, these all make intuitive sense. We're like, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But you hear no self, and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: what the heck does that mean? Because as sure as
Speaker 1: I sit here, it seems like I'm sitting here. So
Speaker 1: what are we getting at when we say no self?
Speaker 1: I think you hit on the most successful part of
Speaker 1: the program. The reason the program was so successful is
Speaker 1: it created an image of a self. This became so natural,
Speaker 1: it felt so convincing that when people talk about it
Speaker 1: like it's not there, it's almost impossible to really buy into.
Speaker 1: I have people pick up my books sometimes and they'll
Speaker 1: say that exact thing. I'll say, well, this is silly.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm me, you know here I am. What
Speaker 1: are you saying that there is no me? And I? Actually,
Speaker 1: in some ways, although it wouldn't have made for such
Speaker 1: a simple title, I could have really titled it no
Speaker 1: serious self, no serious problems. There's obviously a practical self.
Speaker 1: In a way, the self exists kind of a social agreement,
Speaker 1: like obviously I pay my bills, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: pay yours, and I drive myke you can start any time,
Speaker 1: you know, I get in my car, and I come
Speaker 1: to my house, and I have my family and so
Speaker 1: on a practical level, yes, there is a practical self.
Speaker 1: And so that's not what I'm getting at all. What
Speaker 1: I'm getting at is to believe in it in a
Speaker 1: in a way that's absolutely serious. To believe that it
Speaker 1: has some kind of solid consistent like it's an actual thing.
Speaker 1: You know, if we take a look at the self,
Speaker 1: and we play with it and and and have a
Speaker 1: little bit of fun with it and invent it and recognized.
Speaker 1: I do a practice with my students in the book.
Speaker 1: It's called how Many Selves do You Have in a Day?
Speaker 1: And so it's a good way to start practicing the
Speaker 1: experience of this illusion. And all you do is start
Speaker 1: taking notes of how many different selves come and go
Speaker 1: through one day. Like right now, I have a particular
Speaker 1: self with a microphone here and on a podcast, and
Speaker 1: then I've got some guitars over there, and I'll start
Speaker 1: playing guitar and it's a different self, and I've got
Speaker 1: my kids come home in a couple of hours, and
Speaker 1: then you know, and the self is just continuously changing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we have an angry self, and then sometimes we'll
Speaker 1: have a peaceful self. And so when you start noticing
Speaker 1: this self, it's like it's really like a continuous flow
Speaker 1: of different sells. And you may have a hundred different
Speaker 1: sells in one day, and the question is do you
Speaker 1: think there's a self behind those selves? That's what I'm
Speaker 1: really pointing to. Know the self can be fun. It's
Speaker 1: like theater. The self is like theater. We're putting on
Speaker 1: a show. We can actually have a lot of fun
Speaker 1: with it. But if you take it seriously, that's when
Speaker 1: you start questioning, well, you know, what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to this self when I die? And that's when the
Speaker 1: fear of death comes in. And that's when we take
Speaker 1: things very seriously, and things like well, if you get
Speaker 1: embarrassed or you have anxiety, all of the stems from
Speaker 1: taking the self very seriously, like it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing to go to a movie. I
Speaker 1: was watching a rather terrible movie about these people who
Speaker 1: all these horrible things happened to him, and there's a
Speaker 1: certain sense where it's entertaining because you're not taking it
Speaker 1: very seriously. Of course, if this was all real, we
Speaker 1: would all have been horrified. It would have been a
Speaker 1: terrible movie. No one would have ever voluntarily watched this.
Speaker 1: But you watch it in an entertaining way because we
Speaker 1: know there's no substance to it. We know they're just acting.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm really getting at with the self.
Speaker 1: It's like there's no self behind the self. There's no
Speaker 1: seriousness to the self. And when you have that experience
Speaker 1: that there's no seriousness and there's no self behind the self.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the things nouroscience it's has
Speaker 1: been so conclusive about. It goes back again when you
Speaker 1: look at the Buddhist second lecture on no Self, what
Speaker 1: he was, That's what he was getting at, you know,
Speaker 1: something that anyone can experience because feelings and thoughts keep coming, perceptions,
Speaker 1: and it's a flow. There's nothing solid to the ones.
Speaker 1: The only thing that seems solid is the idea we
Speaker 1: have of who we think we are. And that idea
Speaker 1: that gets us into trouble because once we buy into
Speaker 1: it and it becomes serious, it brings all kinds of
Speaker 1: problems with it. Whose problems do you worry about when
Speaker 1: you're lying in bed at night, your problems? That's what
Speaker 1: happens with the self. As soon as you take it seriously.
Speaker 1: It's like this magnet and it attracts all of these
Speaker 1: kinds of problems with it. And when you see it
Speaker 1: for what it really is, it's just an idea. It's
Speaker 1: an idea that comes and goes very whimsically, it's very playful.
Speaker 1: Then the problems go along with it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that it's helpful to sometimes approach this as you're doing
Speaker 1: by saying when we say no self, we think, well,
Speaker 1: that's crazy, because here I am right. But I think
Speaker 1: it can be really helpful to start to talk about
Speaker 1: where does that sense of here I am come from.
Speaker 1: And one of the most fascinating sets of studies that
Speaker 1: you talk about in this book, and we've referenced on
Speaker 1: this show before, is these studies around split brain patients.
Speaker 1: And what it shows is that there's a part of
Speaker 1: our brain. It's what we know, is what Buddhism and
Speaker 1: lots of other spiritual traditions say, and it's what neuroscience
Speaker 1: is pointing out that we have this part of the
Speaker 1: brain that's narrating everything, often called the left brain narrator,
Speaker 1: sometimes called the press secretary to give it a slightly
Speaker 1: different term. It's basically always narrating what's happening, and we
Speaker 1: think it's narrating reality. But when we start to see
Speaker 1: these split brain patients, we start to see that it's
Speaker 1: not actually narrating reality, it's creating reality. So tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of those and then I'll
Speaker 1: share what I've seen with my partner, Jenny's mom, who
Speaker 1: has Alzheimer's, because I've been able to see this play
Speaker 1: out in her very clearly. It's a fascinating insight into
Speaker 1: human history that we make things up. One of the
Speaker 1: things people wanted. And this is what I responded to
Speaker 1: in the new book coming out, like, again, where did
Speaker 1: the stuff come from? Well, this thinking mind? Is it accurate?
Speaker 1: And of course the answer to that is absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thinking mind all it had to do
Speaker 1: is be right just enough for us to survive. You know,
Speaker 1: it could have been wrong, and that's really huge insight
Speaker 1: to our species. So we've been on the planet now
Speaker 1: is Homo sapiens maybe two or three hundred thousand years.
Speaker 1: For the vast majority of that we've always believed we
Speaker 1: were right. We've always we've confused our thoughts with actual reality,
Speaker 1: something that the philosophers called naive realism. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: until the split brain patients. And of course Freud speculated
Speaker 1: on this too, so it won't say that was like
Speaker 1: a pivotal point, and he talked about it a little earlier,
Speaker 1: so the Nichi. But really with the split brain patients,
Speaker 1: we had such concrete evidence that the isolated left brain
Speaker 1: just makes things up, so they would send a message
Speaker 1: to the right brain. And again these are split brain patients,
Speaker 1: so they're literally the left and right sides of the
Speaker 1: brain are physically disconnected, and it would send a message
Speaker 1: us to the right brain, something like raise your hand,
Speaker 1: and then they would ask the patient, will why is
Speaker 1: your hand in the air With the left brain is
Speaker 1: completely in the dark. It has no clue, and it
Speaker 1: should have just admitted I don't know. As human beings,
Speaker 1: we don't do that. It's a very rare moment. How
Speaker 1: many times if you've seen a human being just admit
Speaker 1: I don't know. That left brain program kicks in, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're able to observe these split brain patients.
Speaker 1: The program kicks in and just makes up a story.
Speaker 1: And that's part of it. The making up and the
Speaker 1: confabulation is part of it. The second more interesting thing
Speaker 1: to me is how easily we buy into it. If
Speaker 1: you look at the split brain patients when they were
Speaker 1: doing all these studies sending messages to the right brain
Speaker 1: and getting people to stand up and then asking their
Speaker 1: left brain, why did you just stand up? You would
Speaker 1: think maybe the patient would pause for a moment and
Speaker 1: then try to figure it out, but they don't. The
Speaker 1: left brain that's what it does it's so effortlessly comes
Speaker 1: up with this explanation. It's based on the data, and
Speaker 1: it's a reasonable explanation. But here's the thing. It's wrong,
Speaker 1: and it's wrong not just a little bit. It's wrong
Speaker 1: so often that as a species, we should have been
Speaker 1: almost the cover of every magazine. It should have been like, look, humans,
Speaker 1: we make things up. We make up stories, and we
Speaker 1: believe them. And the interesting thing about the split brain
Speaker 1: patients is it's still such an effective program that we're
Speaker 1: still trying to incorporate this and and it's very easy. Well,
Speaker 1: I know your brain makes things up. You know, it's
Speaker 1: easy to talk like that, but it's much more difficult
Speaker 1: for us to except that my brain makes things up.
Speaker 1: One of the themes in the book is to mistake
Speaker 1: the map for the territory. And maps are really useful.
Speaker 1: Thoughts are very useful, and if we learn to use
Speaker 1: them as a tool, that can be very helpful. If
Speaker 1: we mistake them for reality, we're going to start, you know,
Speaker 1: using a hammer for everything, and it doesn't work like that.
Speaker 1: What I've observed, as I was saying about Jenny's mom
Speaker 1: who has Alzheimer's, is will see these situations where similar
Speaker 1: to split brain patients. She wanders into the kitchen, and
Speaker 1: I know she wandered in the kitchen because I brought
Speaker 1: her in the kitchen. Let's just say as an example,
Speaker 1: but if I ask her why she's in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: she will immediately come up with an answer, and that
Speaker 1: answer is not true. But what's so staggering is, like
Speaker 1: you say, it's not that she's just telling me a lie.
Speaker 1: She's absolutely convinced that it is true. And it's stunning
Speaker 1: to watch how fast it happens and how certain she
Speaker 1: is and someone with Alzheimer's who clearly is just making
Speaker 1: things up. One of the things that happens in Alzheimer's confabulation,
Speaker 1: I think what happens is two different memories merged together.
Speaker 1: So you'll hear her suddenly saying something that's completely insane.
Speaker 1: But I've learned the hard way. You don't wander into
Speaker 1: that conversation and try and convince them of why they're wrong,
Speaker 1: because they will double down, and they will double down,
Speaker 1: and they will double down. And again, it's not because
Speaker 1: they're trying to be deceptive. It's because they genuinely believe it.
Speaker 1: And it's been stunning to watch that happen so clearly
Speaker 1: in another human and realize that some version of that
Speaker 1: is happening in me. What freaks me out about it
Speaker 1: is that I don't know what it is. If I
Speaker 1: know that my brain is just out there interpreting events
Speaker 1: and seeing them as really solid, and then I go, well,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know which ones it's interpreting. It's
Speaker 1: sort of a disconcerting feeling when you go, I must
Speaker 1: be wrong about a bunch of things, but I have
Speaker 1: no idea which ones. That's a wonderful insight and it's
Speaker 1: something I come back to many times in the book
Speaker 1: that you can't fix the thinking problem with more thinking.
Speaker 1: You know, the interpreter is all about thinking. It's all
Speaker 1: about what we would call reasoning and using the data
Speaker 1: and doing analyses and linear processing and language. And the
Speaker 1: problem with thinking problem is you can't solve it with
Speaker 1: more thinking. We just get deeper into it. So you say,
Speaker 1: I'm going to figure out my interpreter, and then what happens?
Speaker 1: And You've see this a lot with people on spiritual trips,
Speaker 1: and you know it ends up becoming, you know, more
Speaker 1: of an ego trip than than in any kind of
Speaker 1: spiritual trip. It's because they were trying to get out
Speaker 1: of the interpreter by using the interpreter, and all that
Speaker 1: does is dig you deeper and deeper. And so it
Speaker 1: feels like this is what I do now. I'm helping
Speaker 1: people with simple practical exercises to help them engage and
Speaker 1: right brain consciousness, because that's the real way out. You're
Speaker 1: not going to get out of the thinking problem with
Speaker 1: more thinking. But they are all kinds of ways to
Speaker 1: get out of a thinking problem you just can't think
Speaker 1: about it. Let's talk about some of those. I think
Speaker 1: that's a really good place to go. But on our
Speaker 1: way there, I want to hit real quick some of
Speaker 1: what you just said, which is that more thinking doesn't
Speaker 1: solve a thinking problem. Another way of saying that that
Speaker 1: I sometimes resonate with is it's a different type of
Speaker 1: thinking that we need. Because we could say that the
Speaker 1: right brain, which is where you're pointing to a lot
Speaker 1: of solutions, and I think where a lot of spiritual
Speaker 1: traditions are trying to orient us towards that the right
Speaker 1: brain is thinking. It's just a very different type of thinking.
Speaker 1: So we need to engage very different parts of our
Speaker 1: brain than what we normally rely on, which is the
Speaker 1: left brain narrator that just is always telling the story.
Speaker 1: And the joke I make with my coaching clients a lot,
Speaker 1: although it's not really a joke because it's totally real,
Speaker 1: is part of the problem is that our brain always
Speaker 1: talks in its own voice. So if my brain is like, Eric,
Speaker 1: you should go get some heroin today and rob three
Speaker 1: liquor stores, that's the same voice that says, maybe you
Speaker 1: should sit on the meditation cushion for two hours. Like
Speaker 1: they talk in the same voice. It always cracks me
Speaker 1: up because it's like, well, it all sounds reasonable because
Speaker 1: it's coming through that same voice. So what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do, I think what you're pointing to from a
Speaker 1: neuropsychology perspective, and what I think spiritual traditions are pointing
Speaker 1: to in a slightly different way, is to engage these
Speaker 1: other parts of our brain. So say a little bit
Speaker 1: about what these other parts of our brains are and
Speaker 1: why they help us around this sort of problem. Well,
Speaker 1: you make a really interesting point about the voice in
Speaker 1: the head that it's really one of the strangest things.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't normal, we would all think we're crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's a weird thing to not
Speaker 1: just hear a voice, but you hear all the time,
Speaker 1: and and it's very difficult to shut off. You know, people,
Speaker 1: this is when people start meditating, they try to silence
Speaker 1: the voice in the head, and it just becomes even louder.
Speaker 1: So you start wondering, you know, well, if I could
Speaker 1: control the voice in my head, why can't I just
Speaker 1: turn it off? And one of the most interesting kind
Speaker 1: of first experiences people have is recognizing that they can't
Speaker 1: turn it off. So I can't be the voice in
Speaker 1: my head. I must be the person listening to it.
Speaker 1: I must be the awareness listening to the voice. I'm
Speaker 1: not the actual voice. If I was, then I'd have
Speaker 1: some control over and I could influence it. So the
Speaker 1: first thing to me is recognizing the voice in the
Speaker 1: head for what it is. It's a left brain program
Speaker 1: that's based in language. It's programmed for survival, so it's
Speaker 1: going to be very paranoid even things when it says
Speaker 1: to sit down and meditate. It's going to do that
Speaker 1: with the goal of self improvement. It's gonna do it
Speaker 1: because I want to be better. But the remarkable thing
Speaker 1: about a thinking problem is how tied in it is
Speaker 1: with actual thinking. Now, I get what you're saying about.
Speaker 1: The right brain has its own way of thinking, and
Speaker 1: I absolutely agree with that. We can use whatever word
Speaker 1: we want to. And I think that why that might
Speaker 1: be a nice way to think about it is because
Speaker 1: really the thinking of the left brain is so tied
Speaker 1: in with language that when we get to all the
Speaker 1: stuff I'm talking about with the right brain, all we
Speaker 1: have to do is leave language behind. Whatever you do,
Speaker 1: is it absent of words? And so I do an
Speaker 1: exercise in my class. I just asked them, because you know, students,
Speaker 1: they really want a lot of explicit instructions, and I
Speaker 1: didn't give them any. I just said, what does music
Speaker 1: mean to me? It's an essay, work on it, and
Speaker 1: I got back to this amazing stuff. I actually had
Speaker 1: one student say something like if I could marry music,
Speaker 1: I would, and it was it was these things like
Speaker 1: music is me the ultimate meaning to my I mean,
Speaker 1: it was incredible music, how important it is to our lives.
Speaker 1: Even though it doesn't really serve any function that the
Speaker 1: left brain can think of, you know, what does it
Speaker 1: do for us? It's not satisfying any physiological goal. It's
Speaker 1: not making me a better person. It's not it's not
Speaker 1: improving myself. It's nothing I can learn. You know, that's
Speaker 1: not why people listen to music. I mean, some professional
Speaker 1: musicians do, but most people just do it for no reason.
Speaker 1: So something as simple as music encapsulates all the things
Speaker 1: I get at when I say, look, take a break
Speaker 1: from thinking. Okay, well, a lot of people are already
Speaker 1: taking a break from thinking. The problem is that the
Speaker 1: way and this is a little difficult to follow. But
Speaker 1: the reason thinking is such a persistent problem is because
Speaker 1: when we analyze if we have a thinking problem, we're
Speaker 1: using the very tools that we use when we think.
Speaker 1: So we're doing a lot of right brain things already,
Speaker 1: we're just not valuing them from the left brain perspective,
Speaker 1: and it tries to assess my life it's not including
Speaker 1: any of these And so when I talk about right
Speaker 1: brain consciousness, we're right brain thinking. We're already doing a
Speaker 1: lot of it. We just need to become more aware
Speaker 1: of what we're already doing. To a large extent. Yea,
Speaker 1: is it safe to say from a neuroscience perspective, both
Speaker 1: right and left brains. Just the brain as a whole
Speaker 1: is just always doing its thing. We talk about it
Speaker 1: as if like, well, now the left brain is on
Speaker 1: and the right brain must be off. That's not the
Speaker 1: way it works, right, It's always doing stuff. It's just
Speaker 1: where we are orienting our attention and what we're prioritizing
Speaker 1: and valuing. Well, the interesting thing about the left right
Speaker 1: brain dichotomy is that that obviously is a construction of
Speaker 1: the left brain. I mean, that's the way the left
Speaker 1: brain thinks. It comes up with simple categories that oversimplifies reality,
Speaker 1: and then it takes these very seriously. You're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Both sides of the brain are always on. They contribute
Speaker 1: to everything that we do. Even though I speak sometimes
Speaker 1: very simplistically that like language is the left brain, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot to say for that, in the sense
Speaker 1: that the left brain does control language when we talk
Speaker 1: to ourselves. It's clear that there's a small part in
Speaker 1: the left brain that's active even with the voice in
Speaker 1: the head. But the right brain is always on. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's always doing its thing, and it's analyzing the context,
Speaker 1: that's analyzing all kinds of things, that big picture, the
Speaker 1: emotional tone of the voice. It's just that we're not
Speaker 1: really tuned into it. And you know, the left brain
Speaker 1: is it only hears itself when it's speaking. And the
Speaker 1: thing about thinking, so when you get into this, you
Speaker 1: can really see how thinking has dominated our culture, but
Speaker 1: it has cut us off from the totality of our
Speaker 1: existence thinking. We think in one thought at a time.
Speaker 1: And a wonderful thing about music is it's so va
Speaker 1: there's so much going on, and so you can't really
Speaker 1: think about music. When I talk about accessing right brain
Speaker 1: consciousness and right brain thinking, what I tell people is
Speaker 1: do something that is beyond the capacity of the left
Speaker 1: brain thinking mind. And so all you need to do
Speaker 1: is start rock climbing. If you're climbing a rock, you're
Speaker 1: so into your body awareness and not falling, you're probably
Speaker 1: not thinking at all. And that's the same for meditation.
Speaker 1: Meditation is creating a pace that's way too slow for
Speaker 1: the thinking mind. So the thinking mind has a certain
Speaker 1: pace to it, you know, it's like one thing at
Speaker 1: a time, and it's there's a certain almost rhythm to it.
Speaker 1: And if you create a frequency that's too fast, too complex,
Speaker 1: or too slow, the thinking mind really can't exist at
Speaker 1: those levels. And so it's just kind of wonderful break
Speaker 1: from thinking. There's something that I do sometimes that helps
Speaker 1: or takes me into a slightly different place. And I'm
Speaker 1: curious if there's any neuropsychological basis to it, but it's basically,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes in meditation, we are focusing on something like, okay,
Speaker 1: here the sounds. I'm hearing the sounds. Notice something in
Speaker 1: your body, and notice your body, notice your breath. What
Speaker 1: I find is really interesting, though, is if I try
Speaker 1: and merge all those into one moment where I go,
Speaker 1: can I hear, see, feel all of it at the
Speaker 1: same exact time. And when I do that, it almost
Speaker 1: feels like it's short circuits. It's almost I feel like
Speaker 1: my thing keen brain just explodes and it goes, oh,
Speaker 1: it's too much, and this space emerges. That's a wonderful
Speaker 1: form of meditation. And you know, meditation can take two
Speaker 1: different paths. That the most common is to try to
Speaker 1: slow things down, and so the thinking mind becomes terribly bored.
Speaker 1: And that's why people first get so bored when they meditate,
Speaker 1: because it's just too slow a pace. But I like
Speaker 1: to go with that other form that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: where you sit outside and first you notice the birds,
Speaker 1: and then you notice a couple of cars in the background,
Speaker 1: and then you're seeing how open consciousness can be to
Speaker 1: everything happening at once. And this is so interesting because
Speaker 1: when you do consciousness research, there's such a confusion right
Speaker 1: now between the thinking mind and consciousness. So many consciousness researchers,
Speaker 1: even very well known consciousness researchers, will say, well, you
Speaker 1: can only be conscious of one thing at a time.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that even something like music or an orchestra.
Speaker 1: How many things are you simultaneously conscious of all at once,
Speaker 1: but you're not thinking about it. You can't think. If
Speaker 1: you slow down and you try to think about it,
Speaker 1: then you have to pick one instrument in one line
Speaker 1: and one melody. So I like that. That's a very
Speaker 1: powerful type of meditation when you open up. That's a
Speaker 1: great way to disconnect a thinking mind from consciousness because
Speaker 1: so many of us get confused. We think that thinking
Speaker 1: mind and consciousness are one and the same. But you
Speaker 1: need those types of experiences like you've just described. When
Speaker 1: you experience everything happening at once, you realize consciousness has
Speaker 1: to be far more vast and this tiny little thinking
Speaker 1: mind and thinks in language and when that becomes obvious
Speaker 1: to consciousness researchers, we're going to have to reevaluate exactly
Speaker 1: what we think consciousness is. Right, It's almost as if
Speaker 1: what we're saying there is we can only left brain
Speaker 1: narrate one thought at a time. But to think that
Speaker 1: the brain is only doing one thing at a time
Speaker 1: seems to me to be profoundly crazy. It is. Right now,
Speaker 1: I'm regulating my body temperature. You know, I've got eighty
Speaker 1: seven or eighty six billion neurons in my head, and
Speaker 1: I'm creating all of that right now. I'm doing all
Speaker 1: of that. And that's the interesting thing about the notion
Speaker 1: of the self. There's something about the thinking mind that
Speaker 1: wants there to be a captain. Yes, thinking I wants
Speaker 1: her to be a pilot. And the problem is is
Speaker 1: that that's just thought. There is no world pilot. I'm
Speaker 1: doing all this stuff right now simultaneously. And of course,
Speaker 1: one of the things psychology is historically guilty of, as
Speaker 1: I'll say, well, these are all unconscious processes. Well, to
Speaker 1: the thinking mind, anything that isn't thinking, it immediately assumes
Speaker 1: is unconscious. But that's the interesting thing. When we start
Speaker 1: exploring different forms of meditation when you when you start realizing, well,
Speaker 1: how much can I hold in consciousness at once? And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden we have these wonderful experiences
Speaker 1: where you're holding in an entire orchestra information. It's all
Speaker 1: happening and it's just, you know, beautiful moment. It's just
Speaker 1: you can't think about it. And that's a really nice
Speaker 1: way to realize the limitations of the thinking mind. We
Speaker 1: don't want to throw the thinking mind out. It's really useful,
Speaker 1: it's very helpful. We just want to put it in
Speaker 1: its place and recognize it's just a it's a useful tool,
Speaker 1: but it's not synonymous with consciousness, and most importantly, it's
Speaker 1: not who I am. You know, thinking mind is a
Speaker 1: wonderful tool, but if you confuse it for who you are,
Speaker 1: which is probably the most common mistake in Western culture.
Speaker 1: The thinking mind is geared around finding problems, and we know, listen,
Speaker 1: there's some really interesting research that if you eliminate all
Speaker 1: of the possible problems, the thinking mind just creates new
Speaker 1: ones constant. It's amazing. When you look at the things
Speaker 1: that we complain about, it's it's really remarkable. You know,
Speaker 1: it's cloudy today. You know what I mean, it's two
Speaker 1: degrees cooler than I wish it would be. You know,
Speaker 1: my car doesn't through zero to sixty and under six seconds.
Speaker 1: You know something, you know, it's just continuous totally hopefully
Speaker 1: you know. When I leave people from the left bring
Speaker 1: and explain what the mechanics of the thinking mind are.
Speaker 1: And one of the outcomes of that we create this
Speaker 1: idea of a cell. And when you use a kind
Speaker 1: of cliche, but we're expanding your consciousness or at least
Speaker 1: recognizing your consciousness is far more vast than the thinking mind.
Speaker 1: Then a lot of those problems that were associated with
Speaker 1: the self disappear. And that's what I think is the
Speaker 1: real function of neuro psychology. I don't think neuro psychology
Speaker 1: is here to tell us who we are. I think
Speaker 1: it's here to tell us who we're not. And so
Speaker 1: we'll take all these functions of the brain and we
Speaker 1: started mapping everything out and say, well, here's the language center,
Speaker 1: here is the and every time we do this, we
Speaker 1: figure out that's not who I am, that's not my
Speaker 1: true self. Like you do a Buddhism, you eliminate the
Speaker 1: whole list, and then what are you left with You're
Speaker 1: left with the mystery that cannot be put in the words,
Speaker 1: but you also at the same time recognize that's it,
Speaker 1: that is who I am. Yeah, I agree, and I
Speaker 1: think that this idea of no self, it can be
Speaker 1: very abstract. To take this all the way to no self,
Speaker 1: we go, well, hold on a second, that doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense, and it gets very abstract. We can start
Speaker 1: approaching this with I think as you're sort of saying,
Speaker 1: sort of starting to shed layers of identity, and it's
Speaker 1: that Buddhist process or the Nettie Nettie process, not this,
Speaker 1: not that right of just slowly going all right, I
Speaker 1: defined myself as a podcaster. Well, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of my life I wasn't a podcaster. I was still me. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that must not be what I'm at. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: a Democrat. Well maybe I wasn't always. And if I
Speaker 1: changed and suddenly became a Republican, would I still be me?
Speaker 1: As near as I can tell. Yeah, And whatever amount
Speaker 1: of that we can do, whether it's two layers of
Speaker 1: identity or the whole enchilada opens up these increasing levels
Speaker 1: of freedom, has been my experience anyway. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: it really just gave the Buddhist second lecture. That was
Speaker 1: really the approach he took. Buddhism was once summarized as
Speaker 1: everything changes. You know. That was like the shortest summary
Speaker 1: of Buddhism ever given. And of course, if everything changes,
Speaker 1: how can I have be a stable self? You know,
Speaker 1: I can't. There's no stability in reality. Everything is changing,
Speaker 1: everything is flowing. And so we see how these are
Speaker 1: a little you know, temporary, and I like, you know, again,
Speaker 1: like the idea of theater, like you know, political stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just something that you're playing, and you know,
Speaker 1: and you may change. People change all the time. They
Speaker 1: change political parties, they change their philosophy, and sometimes people
Speaker 1: have very profound changes. The persistent nature of the South
Speaker 1: is remarkable, which again I think even shows more strongly
Speaker 1: that it's an illusion. Yeah, you've got a great quote
Speaker 1: in the book. And I can never say this guy's name,
Speaker 1: niz Guardata Maharaj I might have been in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: of that would Yeah, but this quote really blows my mind.
Speaker 1: It says identity is merely a pattern of events in
Speaker 1: time and space. Change the pattern and you have changed
Speaker 1: the person. And I think that's such a powerful statement
Speaker 1: and really uh speaks to this idea of you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just this collection of events. I'm just this collection
Speaker 1: of causes and conditions. Well, you're getting to the point
Speaker 1: of how people change, and it's always very small. You
Speaker 1: go buy small changes. You don't wake up one morning
Speaker 1: and say that's it. I'm I'm not just when some
Speaker 1: people do. You know, you hear these stories that people
Speaker 1: like or totally. I mean, he just had such a
Speaker 1: radical change one morning. He woke up a completely different
Speaker 1: self than he was. But I don't think that holds
Speaker 1: for most of us. For most of us, it's it's
Speaker 1: small little habits where we get up and instead of
Speaker 1: watching the news, you listen to the birds, you know,
Speaker 1: tying little things to disconnect. If you want to think
Speaker 1: about rewiring or updating the mind, one point, oh program,
Speaker 1: you want to really talk about reprogramming it. It's not
Speaker 1: going to come in one process. It's going to be slow,
Speaker 1: but you're always free to do this. And that's I
Speaker 1: think where we get to our choices and there's small
Speaker 1: little things, but they build up and suddenly, over a
Speaker 1: few months, you're totally different self. You know, sometimes people
Speaker 1: say well you've got to start meditating, and we get
Speaker 1: this image, well I had better sit down for thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: And I don't really buy into that very much. And
Speaker 1: actually the research is kind of showing that you can meditate. Well,
Speaker 1: how much time do you need in the timeless state?
Speaker 1: How much time do you need in a state of timelessness?
Speaker 1: And that's a wonderful thing about like my cheeks and
Speaker 1: mind called it flow. But when you're in this state
Speaker 1: of flow, there is no such thing as time. All
Speaker 1: the concepts of time and space, all the concepts of
Speaker 1: who I am, it's all gone. So how much time
Speaker 1: do you think you need to spend there? I mean,
Speaker 1: the question doesn't make it doesn't even make any sense really,
Speaker 1: So I'm not this advocate of like, sit down, you
Speaker 1: need an hour day of meditation? For me, I meditated.
Speaker 1: How when I meditate? I don't keep track of it.
Speaker 1: One of the practice has been working on is something
Speaker 1: that affects our lives a lot more than a lot
Speaker 1: of people think of, and that's counting. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of strange to realize that there's this small part in
Speaker 1: your left brain. And this is true for left handers
Speaker 1: and right handers. The reason this article came out a
Speaker 1: few years ago, and the reason it was so significant
Speaker 1: because the way a left handed person's brain is organized
Speaker 1: is usually very different than a right hander. But in
Speaker 1: this case, it doesn't matter if you're lefty or right.
Speaker 1: This part of the left bring lit up anytime you're
Speaker 1: counting and using numbers, and it occurred to me that's
Speaker 1: another illusion of the thinking mind. Numbers have come into
Speaker 1: our lives as this reality, like I think, really right now,
Speaker 1: you know it's three o'clock or it's it's four o'clock
Speaker 1: or it's marked. You know, we've taken time, We've given
Speaker 1: numbers to every aspect of like I'm supposedly fifly four
Speaker 1: years old. You know, if I buy into the socially
Speaker 1: constructive reality, that's taken a continuous reality and broken it
Speaker 1: up into years years of what you know. And so
Speaker 1: even something as simple as counting is another way that
Speaker 1: we've taken a continuous, ultimately timeless state, selfless state of
Speaker 1: consciousness and brought all these abstractions into it. And and
Speaker 1: those are fine, but we've also taken those abstractions really seriously,
Speaker 1: and and of course the issue is that they bring
Speaker 1: along all kinds of problems that we also take seriously
Speaker 1: you talk about in the book. I like the way
Speaker 1: you talk about this. You say that this pattern perception
Speaker 1: machine in the left brain is a biological function that
Speaker 1: is working all the time, and it's virtually impossible to stop.
Speaker 1: And then you go on to say the trick is
Speaker 1: to become less identified with your thoughts, not to take
Speaker 1: them so seriously, to see them as happenings rather than
Speaker 1: the way things really are. And this is what's so
Speaker 1: interesting to me about meditation is that it took me
Speaker 1: a long time to really see what was happening. And
Speaker 1: by that what I mean is I was so focused
Speaker 1: on thinking I should be able to shut it off,
Speaker 1: and feeling like I was failing that, I then just
Speaker 1: clamped down tighter instead of the realization that came to
Speaker 1: me later, which was like, well, I'll be damned, look
Speaker 1: at that thing. Go I don't seem to be having
Speaker 1: anything to do with this, at least the eye as
Speaker 1: I know, the me that has some sort of consciousness
Speaker 1: choice is sitting here trying to let's say, count breaths
Speaker 1: or I got the counter going right, But this whole
Speaker 1: other thing is happening whether I wanted to or not.
Speaker 1: And that can be really disconcerting, and we can feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a failure, but it can also be tremendously liberating.
Speaker 1: If we go ah, okay, then well I guess that's
Speaker 1: not really me. A big part of it to me
Speaker 1: is to go, oh, look, there it goes. I can't
Speaker 1: seem to stop it. I certainly have no control of
Speaker 1: what pops up, and so maybe I can relax around
Speaker 1: it a little bit. To me, it's one of those moments.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you've had these, they seem
Speaker 1: that happened to me all the time where I think
Speaker 1: I lost my phone, I'm looking around for it everywhere,
Speaker 1: and then I noticed it's in my hand. It just
Speaker 1: happened with my boxer shorts. Recently, I cannot find my
Speaker 1: parrot Boxers and we were getting ready to go to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I looked everywhere first thing I did, and we got
Speaker 1: to Atlanta because they're my favorite boxers. That's probably more
Speaker 1: than anybody needs to know. Listeners know I love parrots.
Speaker 1: Ran in, run around looking I can't find them. And
Speaker 1: then of course that night, when I'm climbing into bed,
Speaker 1: I'll be like well that's where they are there on
Speaker 1: my body. Yeah, and you laughed, right, I mean, you
Speaker 1: just can't help laughing. And I can't help thinking on
Speaker 1: some kind of cosmic level that that's the game that's
Speaker 1: being played. You know, we forget who we really are,
Speaker 1: you know, and forgetting it. It's just this kind of
Speaker 1: funny little thing we're playing, because you know, here we
Speaker 1: are not the thinking mind, but are true cosmic reality
Speaker 1: of who we are, and it's always right in our hand,
Speaker 1: and it's just we've forgotten about it because we've gotten
Speaker 1: tied into the thinking mind. But when you have those
Speaker 1: moments and you recognize, oh, that was never who I
Speaker 1: was to begin with. For me, at least, I can't
Speaker 1: help laughing a little bit reflects that the universe has
Speaker 1: some sense of humor to it. That's wonderful. Well, you
Speaker 1: and I are out of time. In the post show conversation,
Speaker 1: you and I are gonna talk. I'm actually going to
Speaker 1: get back to the threat I dropped earlier of some
Speaker 1: exercises that we can do that help us to identify
Speaker 1: with the left brain less or identify with the right
Speaker 1: brain more, or however we want to say that. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you give us a couple of those
Speaker 1: practices in the post show conversation listeners. If you'd like
Speaker 1: access to the post show conversation, you can go to
Speaker 1: One You Feed dot net slash Joint. You can get
Speaker 1: all the post show conversations. You can get ad free episodes,
Speaker 1: you can get a special episode I do each week
Speaker 1: called the Teaching, a song and a poem, And you
Speaker 1: can also get the joy of supporting a show that
Speaker 1: you love to listen to, and that as an independent podcast,
Speaker 1: we can always use your support. That's when you Feed
Speaker 1: dot Net slash Joint. Chris, thanks so much for taking
Speaker 1: the time to come back on. It's been a pleasure
Speaker 1: to have you on. We'll have links in the show
Speaker 1: notes to your book and to your website and your
Speaker 1: YouTube channel and all that great stuff. So thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
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