Speaker 1: In fact, we're wired almost not to be enduring, le happy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Robert Wright, a contributing editor of The New Republic, a
Speaker 1: Slate dot com columnist, and a visiting scholar at the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania. Robert is the co founder of Blogging
Speaker 1: Heads dot tv. He runs the web based video project
Speaker 1: Meaning of Life dot tv, and is the author of
Speaker 1: Why Buddhism Is True, The Science and Philosophy of Meditation,
Speaker 1: and Enlightenment. I have some really exciting news. We are
Speaker 1: about to launch our first one You Feed course and
Speaker 1: I couldn't be more excited to share it with you.
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of the work that we've done with
Speaker 1: this and it will be coming your way for purchase
Speaker 1: on Monday, March nineteen. If you're not on our email
Speaker 1: list and you're interested in the program, be sure to
Speaker 1: sign up because there will be some early v I
Speaker 1: p offers coming via email. The course is called the
Speaker 1: One You Feed Stress Reducer. Five Steps to a more
Speaker 1: calm and productive view. Even if you are the busiest
Speaker 1: person you know, do you ever wonder what it would
Speaker 1: be like if you were productive and present in your
Speaker 1: life instead of overwhelmed and frazzled, Or if you had
Speaker 1: the ability to focus on the stuff that matters and
Speaker 1: you spent more of your time feeling calm and in control,
Speaker 1: not stressed. The program is designed to help you achieve
Speaker 1: those things. It's something that I figured out for myself
Speaker 1: years ago that has helped me over and over and
Speaker 1: over when the stress of working a full time job,
Speaker 1: and whether it's doing the podcast or trying to build
Speaker 1: a solar company, or raising children, doing all of that
Speaker 1: at one time when I kind of hit that point
Speaker 1: where I feel like I can't keep it together anymore.
Speaker 1: This five step process is what I have used for
Speaker 1: myself over the years to help myself function better and
Speaker 1: be more effective, and I'm really excited to share it
Speaker 1: with you. So if you're not on our email list
Speaker 1: and you're interested in the course, i'd encourage you to
Speaker 1: go sign up today, and the course will be coming
Speaker 1: out on March nineteen. I can't wait to see what
Speaker 1: you think of it. And here's the interview with Robert Wright. Hi, Robert,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to have you on and discuss your book,
Speaker 1: Why Buddhism Is True. It's an excellent book, and I
Speaker 1: think listeners of the show are going to get a
Speaker 1: lot out of it. But let's start like we always do,
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear, and the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second and looks up
Speaker 1: at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do well. I think, broadly speaking, it makes
Speaker 1: sense that if you reinforce your better half, that's the
Speaker 1: one that will prevail more often. I think one take
Speaker 1: home lesson of both Buddhism and in a way evolutionary
Speaker 1: psychology is that the challenge sometimes come and figure comes
Speaker 1: in figuring out which is the good wolf and which
Speaker 1: is the bad wolf? Um. In another word, sometimes by
Speaker 1: our nature, we're kind of inclined to think we're doing
Speaker 1: the good thing or the right thing, uh, when maybe
Speaker 1: we're not so uh. Sometimes kind of getting more closely
Speaker 1: in touch with the way our our view of things
Speaker 1: is being distorted is half the challenge. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: great way to segue into where I wanted to start
Speaker 1: with the book. Your background is largely as an evolutionary psychologists,
Speaker 1: and you talk about our feelings that we have about
Speaker 1: things or our perceptions, whether they are true or not.
Speaker 1: And you and you talk about how that evolutionary psychology,
Speaker 1: what we're really wired to do is to do the
Speaker 1: thing that is best to propagate our genes onward into
Speaker 1: the next generation. And that while that might be what
Speaker 1: we are wired to do, that may not be a
Speaker 1: what is best in the sense of for the world
Speaker 1: or even for ourselves, or be necessarily even true in
Speaker 1: the sense of of seeing the truth of reality. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a slight qualification I'd make of that, which is
Speaker 1: it In a modern environment, especially, we sometimes are naturally
Speaker 1: inclined to do things that actually don't even get our
Speaker 1: genes into the next generation, whereas they might have an
Speaker 1: earlier environment. I mean, I guess the classic example is pornography.
Speaker 1: You know, men in particular seem to spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time with it. And that's because in the environment
Speaker 1: of our evolution, being attracted to you know, that kind
Speaker 1: of visual stimulus would have meant being attracted to a
Speaker 1: real woman, while in the modern environment isn't necessarily so. Uh,
Speaker 1: everything you said is right, that you know, kind of
Speaker 1: even in the environment of our evolution, doing what was
Speaker 1: what we're naturally inclined to do to get genes into
Speaker 1: the next generation. Um, you know, isn't necessarily good for
Speaker 1: us or for the world, and isn't necessarily conducive to
Speaker 1: seeing the world. Clearly, in the modern environment, it's even
Speaker 1: more ridiculous than that because it's often you know, not
Speaker 1: even not even getting genes spread in any event, right, Right,
Speaker 1: The desire to eat sweet or salty foods to excess
Speaker 1: being an example another another classic example, right, having a
Speaker 1: sweet tooth in an environment that has only fruit and
Speaker 1: junk food, is is better for you than having a
Speaker 1: sweet tooth in a modern environment. Yeah. Yeah. We had
Speaker 1: a Buddhist teacher on named Noah Levine and he said
Speaker 1: something to the extent of, you know, we're we're wired
Speaker 1: very well for survival, but not so well for happiness. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, we're wired almost not to be enduring lee happy.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if you imagine an animal that was
Speaker 1: easily contented that just a one meal and then just
Speaker 1: sat there contented forever, that would be an animal that
Speaker 1: would never eat again. So a kind of recurring dissatisfaction
Speaker 1: is built into us. And you know, uh, Buddhism's emphasis
Speaker 1: on suffering is kind of part of the human condition
Speaker 1: sometimes sounds a little overstated, and I think maybe maybe
Speaker 1: in a way it is. But but if you recognize
Speaker 1: that the word that's translated as suffering duca can also
Speaker 1: be translated by according to some scholars, as a kind
Speaker 1: of unsatisfactory, then it makes a lot more sense that
Speaker 1: that would be just kind of a pretty pervasive thing,
Speaker 1: because natural selection designed is to be recurring. Lee discontented,
Speaker 1: never contended for too long, so that we would keep
Speaker 1: doing the kinds of things, pursuing the kinds of goals
Speaker 1: that would have gotten Janes into the next generation exactly.
Speaker 1: And to go a little bit deeper in that, particularly,
Speaker 1: the Buddhist idea of both craving and aversion tie in
Speaker 1: with that perfectly well. The craving to continue to experience
Speaker 1: pleasurable things, which, as we talked about, are wired into us,
Speaker 1: the things that are pleasurable or the things that are
Speaker 1: evolutionarily good for us, and then the desire to push
Speaker 1: away things that aren't is in the same thing. It's
Speaker 1: it's too it's to help preserve the organism. But that
Speaker 1: since that's kind of baked into who we are, it
Speaker 1: brings up that sort of constant dissatisfaction that's driven by
Speaker 1: craving and aversion. Yeah, craving and a version are central
Speaker 1: to Buddhism. Um not following those those as guides is
Speaker 1: central uh to Buddhism. In other words, not reflexively uh,
Speaker 1: you know, pursuing everything that seems as if it will
Speaker 1: bring gratification, and also not necessarily reflexively avoiding everything that
Speaker 1: seems forbidding. Now, obviously you should shy away from truly
Speaker 1: dangerous things. But when it comes to dealing with our feelings,
Speaker 1: Buddhism counsels that we not cling to the pleasant feelings,
Speaker 1: and that we not try to run away from the
Speaker 1: unpleasant feelings that we make in a certain sense, I
Speaker 1: guess uh make our peace with him, but in any event,
Speaker 1: UH experience them uh with a kind of equilibrium that
Speaker 1: gives us some critical distance from them, and and that
Speaker 1: hudes you know, forms of aversive feelings like out and
Speaker 1: out pain physical pain, but certainly includes as well things
Speaker 1: like anxiety, sadness. The Buddhist idea is that if you
Speaker 1: if you don't run from those things, then they will
Speaker 1: actually be less painful, or can become less painful, you know,
Speaker 1: with with enough kind of disciplined practice over time. Right,
Speaker 1: And so one of the key principles of the book.
Speaker 1: You know, why you know Buddhism is true, is what
Speaker 1: you're saying is that the Buddha intuited a lot of
Speaker 1: things that we now know from modern psychology and evolutionary
Speaker 1: psychology to be true, or at least to be you know,
Speaker 1: prominently held theories. You know, he intuited those on a
Speaker 1: different level a long time ago, and now we're starting
Speaker 1: to have the science to show that some of those
Speaker 1: things are indeed correct. Yeah, I think early Buddhist writings
Speaker 1: size up human nature pretty well. I mean, and it
Speaker 1: isn't just in understanding how fundamental just you know, kind
Speaker 1: of positive and negative feelings are in guiding us and
Speaker 1: getting us to either pursue or avoid them, respectively. But
Speaker 1: it's also an appreciating how subtly those feelings guide, like
Speaker 1: our thought, you know, like a lot, like how how
Speaker 1: some thoughts kind of feel good and we cling to
Speaker 1: those thoughts, and some thoughts kind of feel bad, so
Speaker 1: we reject them. I mean, you know, you hear a
Speaker 1: lot these days about what's called confirmation bias. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a cognitive bias that leads us to kind of
Speaker 1: see the evidence that supports our pre existing views and
Speaker 1: kind of not not see or acknowledge or hold on
Speaker 1: to the evidence that doesn't support our pre existing views.
Speaker 1: And I think if you look at the way it works,
Speaker 1: I mean, like if you're on Twitter or Facebook or
Speaker 1: some you know somewhere and you see a piece of
Speaker 1: information and you either you know, want to share it
Speaker 1: with other people, retweeta or share it or like it
Speaker 1: or whatever, um or you don't. If you pay close attention,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll see that it's a feeling about the information
Speaker 1: that's that's guiding you. If you retweet, it's because it
Speaker 1: feels good to retweet. And so cognitive biases in a
Speaker 1: way a misnomer, um you know, so like you know,
Speaker 1: because it's not purely cognitive, it's actually driven by feelings.
Speaker 1: And that's something that I think Buddhist psychology was onto
Speaker 1: very early, and modern psychology is is really only just
Speaker 1: kind of catching up to. Right, You're talking about the
Speaker 1: idea that we're not as rational of creatures as we think,
Speaker 1: that our emotional and feeling centers tend to drive what
Speaker 1: we think, the decisions we make. All that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff you say somewhere in the book something to the
Speaker 1: extent of that modern psychology is sort of coming to
Speaker 1: what Buddhism realize that are effective and are cognitive centers
Speaker 1: are really not separated, right, They're very interdependent upon each other,
Speaker 1: and that feeling is often what will drive what actually happens,
Speaker 1: and then our rational brain will try and come up
Speaker 1: with a good reason for why we feel that way, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, the the opposite view, and a kind of
Speaker 1: traditional view is the kind of metaphor of the chariot,
Speaker 1: where the horses are your feelings and the rational part
Speaker 1: of you is the charioteer, which is controlling the feelings.
Speaker 1: And so in that metaphor there's kind of a sharp
Speaker 1: distinction between the two, and that may be kind of
Speaker 1: apt with with really strong and obvious feelings like rage
Speaker 1: and jealousy and intense hatred. You know, sometimes feelings just
Speaker 1: just take over and it's kind of obvious. But but
Speaker 1: but I think it's important to realize that even in
Speaker 1: a more subtle and fine grained way, feelings can shape
Speaker 1: our thoughts and our perceptions in ways that we might
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Speaker 1: the rest of the interview with Robert Wright. Psychology, or
Speaker 1: at least parts of modern psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology, talk
Speaker 1: about a um model of the mind, that is, is
Speaker 1: based on a lot of different modules, That the mind
Speaker 1: is not this one thing, but instead there are lots
Speaker 1: of different modules that that run different parts of the mind,
Speaker 1: and that there isn't necessarily a central control. We tend
Speaker 1: to think of ourselves as being this person that is
Speaker 1: in control and does all that, and both Buddhism and
Speaker 1: at least the modular model of the mind both say
Speaker 1: that's not true or not as true as we think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have the intuition that like the conscious us, the
Speaker 1: conscious self is this kind of CEO that runs the show. UM.
Speaker 1: But when you start paying attention to your mind closely,
Speaker 1: you start wondering, you know, if that's true. And one
Speaker 1: thing you hear it uh sometimes it meditation retreats is
Speaker 1: a meditation teacher will say, thoughts think themselves, and what
Speaker 1: they mean is that once you get your mind, you know,
Speaker 1: through meditation, into a pretty calm, reflective state, that's the
Speaker 1: way it seems. You realize that thoughts. You don't kind
Speaker 1: of decide to think them, They just show up, they
Speaker 1: enter your conscious mind, and then you normally choose to
Speaker 1: kind of take ownership of them and say, well, I
Speaker 1: thought this thought, but you know, the idea is that
Speaker 1: that's not really what's going on. And and this idea
Speaker 1: that that's not really what's going on does get support,
Speaker 1: as you suggested, from the modular model of the mind,
Speaker 1: which has the support of many psychologists, not all, but
Speaker 1: but that includes a lot of evolutionary psychologists who say that,
Speaker 1: you know, really the mind consists of a lot of
Speaker 1: different kind of players, and they're kind of competing for control.
Speaker 1: So sometimes, you know, you may get a sense for
Speaker 1: this if you're like at a cocktail party and you're
Speaker 1: on the one hand, you're talking to somebody, but on
Speaker 1: the other hand, you can see ther derv's over their shoulder,
Speaker 1: you know, and you might feel some tension. You know,
Speaker 1: you you don't want to be rude, and you want
Speaker 1: them to think highly of you. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: you're hungry. Well, you know, proponents of the modular model
Speaker 1: of the mind would say, well, yeah, that's two different
Speaker 1: kind of actors in your mind competing for control. Now,
Speaker 1: in that case, you can see the competition because it's
Speaker 1: playing out kind of at the conscious level. You feel
Speaker 1: the urge to go get the food. You feel the
Speaker 1: kind of urge to not you know, to be nice
Speaker 1: and and not go get the food. Uh. But according
Speaker 1: to the modular model, a lot of times the competition
Speaker 1: plays out at the subconscious level. And so all oh
Speaker 1: you see is the thought that kind of one, you know,
Speaker 1: the thought that comes from the module, that kind of one,
Speaker 1: the competition. And so we are much less in control
Speaker 1: than we realize, we being the conscious self. But then ironically,
Speaker 1: through meditation we can in a sense, you know, as
Speaker 1: odd and paradoxical as it sounds, we can by recognizing
Speaker 1: that actually come to be in more control, behave more
Speaker 1: reflectively and judiciously. Right, Because going back to feelings, what
Speaker 1: you're proposing is that so there's all these i'll just
Speaker 1: call them parallel processes in the mind that are going on,
Speaker 1: and as you said, they're vying for attention, and the
Speaker 1: theory that you propose in the book is the one
Speaker 1: that has the strongest feeling attached to it is the
Speaker 1: one that tends to win that sort of cognitive battle
Speaker 1: for attention, and that's the one that that sort of
Speaker 1: pops up into consciousness. It's the one that tends to
Speaker 1: capture us more than the ones that might be more
Speaker 1: tepid feeling wise. That's right. And you know, again, if
Speaker 1: you pay attention meditation, I think mindfulness meditation can be
Speaker 1: a big tool here. You will notice I think that
Speaker 1: thoughts tend to have feelings associated with them. I mean,
Speaker 1: a relatively obvious example is if you're thinking about sending
Speaker 1: a kind of irate email. Now, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: that's a thought, you're thinking it would be a good
Speaker 1: idea to send this email to this person in this
Speaker 1: kind of intemperate voice. On the other hand, if you
Speaker 1: pay attention, there's a feeling associated with the thought. You're
Speaker 1: kind of a little angry, or you feel aggreed or something.
Speaker 1: There's a feeling associated with the thought. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you meditate a lot, I think you get better
Speaker 1: at noting the feeling that accompanies the thought, and that
Speaker 1: allows you to examine the thought more on its merits,
Speaker 1: you know, without the feeling attached. Um. Now, again, that's
Speaker 1: a relatively obvious example that you know, we all know
Speaker 1: on reflection, that's yeah, okay, sending this irate email was
Speaker 1: kind of a feeling driven thing. Uh. But the point
Speaker 1: is that there are even subtler examples, and and then
Speaker 1: the larger point is that in any event, you know,
Speaker 1: I think at least that meditation can help you get
Speaker 1: clarity with important decisions sometimes kind of separate the feeling
Speaker 1: the affect on the thought and judge judge the thought
Speaker 1: on its merits. Yeah, I think that's very interesting. You
Speaker 1: say something in the book where you say, I find
Speaker 1: it easier to view my feelings with some measure of
Speaker 1: detachment than to view my thoughts that way. And you're
Speaker 1: talking about in in the you know, in the meditative process, right,
Speaker 1: this idea of of just mindfully watching what happens, and
Speaker 1: that you find that it's easier to look at the
Speaker 1: emotional component versus the thought component. And you go on
Speaker 1: to say that that would make sense if indeed, feelings
Speaker 1: are the glue that make thoughts stick to your consciousness,
Speaker 1: that makes you unreflectively take ownership of them. After all,
Speaker 1: presumably you can't start dissolving that glue and so can't
Speaker 1: get a distance from your thoughts until you learn to
Speaker 1: see it clearly and learn to view feelings with some objectivity.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was really interesting because I'm always
Speaker 1: looking for which comes first, the thought or the emotion,
Speaker 1: and and how do that what's the relation between those two.
Speaker 1: So I just thought that was a very interesting way
Speaker 1: to look at it. Yeah, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of meditators have this experience that feelings are a little
Speaker 1: easier to kind of see objectively. So like, if you're
Speaker 1: you know, beset by anxiety and thoughts accompanying the anxiety,
Speaker 1: you know this, this terrible thing is going to happen.
Speaker 1: I know it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen tomorrow. That's
Speaker 1: why I don't want to go to this meeting or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: If you sit down and meditate and have success in
Speaker 1: the in the sense of getting a little objectivity, probably
Speaker 1: what's gonna work first is just observing the anxiety itself,
Speaker 1: the feeling of anxiety. Where in my body is it? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's in my abdomen, and it's in this part of
Speaker 1: my abdomen, and by focusing on the feeling, you start
Speaker 1: getting a little critical distance from the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: but but then, yeah, getting that critical distance from the feeling,
Speaker 1: uh does allow you, in turn to get a little
Speaker 1: distance from the thoughts. And I think it, uh it
Speaker 1: tends to work in that order at to say time though,
Speaker 1: A lot of what you would look at from a
Speaker 1: cognitive therapy perspective would tell you that if you change
Speaker 1: the thought, if you can question the validity of the thought,
Speaker 1: you can diffuse a lot of the emotion that's coming
Speaker 1: from a thought that may not be accurate. And and
Speaker 1: I always find it interesting to to look at which
Speaker 1: of those two levers can I move? You know, Sometimes
Speaker 1: it seems like I can look at the thought and
Speaker 1: I can see the falsity and the thought, and then
Speaker 1: I can let the the anxiety, say, drains away as
Speaker 1: I realize, oh, that's not really true. And then there
Speaker 1: are other times where the thought just seems like, well,
Speaker 1: that's just true, and no looking at it seems to
Speaker 1: do that, Whereas in those cases it's almost by accepting
Speaker 1: the anxiety and looking at the anxiety closely, it goes
Speaker 1: that way. So I've seen it kind of go both directions,
Speaker 1: which is why it's such a question I always have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think in principle it can work either way. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think cognitive therapy works for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and it makes sense and it and it can work
Speaker 1: like that where you just address the logic, like if
Speaker 1: you have some kind of huge distortion involving the prospect
Speaker 1: of public speaking, like you know, some people they really
Speaker 1: imagine themselves like projectile vomiting while doing this public speaking,
Speaker 1: even though it's never happened before. It's just a weird
Speaker 1: kind of phobia. And you might say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: has it ever happened before? And they're like, well, no,
Speaker 1: it's there and before I mean, is have you ever
Speaker 1: don anything remotely like this? Well know, I haven't, and
Speaker 1: and it may that may work. Uh, and when it works,
Speaker 1: you know, that's great. And I think I'm a big
Speaker 1: kind of booster of cognitive therapy. And there is, by
Speaker 1: the way, a a fusion of the mindfulness based cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy. So some people work on it at both ends.
Speaker 1: They in fact, that tends to happen anyway, I mean,
Speaker 1: just with meditation, just with mindfulness meditation. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: question the feeling again tends to lead you to question
Speaker 1: the thought. But you're right, you can. You can in principle,
Speaker 1: start on either side of the problem, the feeling or
Speaker 1: the thought right, and sometimes one or the other will
Speaker 1: be more effective than the other. In my case, like
Speaker 1: I said, sometimes cognitively it's like it just seems like
Speaker 1: my mind is in that place where like, no, this
Speaker 1: is absolutely true. This thought is absolutely true. Whether it
Speaker 1: is or not, that's just kind of where I'm stuck. Um.
Speaker 1: Another idea is similar to this, going back to the
Speaker 1: modular model of the mind and that the you know,
Speaker 1: the one that comes up and wins is the one
Speaker 1: that has the most power. And talking about um self
Speaker 1: discipline in this case, and I thought this was a
Speaker 1: really fascinating way to say that. You say, there's a
Speaker 1: difference between thinking of the goal as strengthening the self
Speaker 1: discipline muscle versus thinking of the goal is weakening a
Speaker 1: module that has grown dominant. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what you mean by that. Yeah, So there
Speaker 1: there is a specific kind of mindfulness based therapy for addiction,
Speaker 1: for examples, and the idea is that when you feel
Speaker 1: the urge to smoke a cigarette. You don't push the
Speaker 1: urge away. You know, you don't say, I'm in a
Speaker 1: you know, I'm an exercise self discipline. I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna think about cigarettes. What you do is you allow
Speaker 1: the urge to go ahead and assume full form, but
Speaker 1: then you try to observe it mindfully. So so, uh,
Speaker 1: the urge to smoke a cigarette comes and it materializes,
Speaker 1: but you don't smoke the cigarette. You just sit sit
Speaker 1: there and entertain the urge. And and of course it
Speaker 1: takes some practice of meditation to to get good at this,
Speaker 1: but it's doable. Um. And the idea is that what
Speaker 1: that does is it's like, I mean, if you think
Speaker 1: of the urge as an actual like an animal, like
Speaker 1: a rat in a laboratory, you know you're not giving
Speaker 1: it the food pellet, right, I mean, if you keep
Speaker 1: giving a rat a food pellet, it will keep pressing
Speaker 1: the bar if you keep if you keep giving the
Speaker 1: module in you that once to smoke cigarettes. I mean
Speaker 1: there isn't, of course, an evolved module for that purpose.
Speaker 1: But metaphorically speaking, if you if you keep feeding the
Speaker 1: urge to smoke a cigarette by giving it a cigarette,
Speaker 1: well the urge will keep showing up. Um, but if
Speaker 1: you if you let the urge show up fully and
Speaker 1: then it doesn't get the cigarette. The idea is, uh,
Speaker 1: that's a very effective way to disempower the urge. And
Speaker 1: there's some actual evidence that that this works, that that
Speaker 1: this can be a very valuable therapy. Yeah. I've been
Speaker 1: in recovery from addiction most of my adult life. And
Speaker 1: the phrase I like is it's kind of like stray cats, right,
Speaker 1: if you just stop feeding them, eventually they stopped coming around.
Speaker 1: But if you feed them, they're gonna you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're gonna, they're gonna keep coming. The modular model of
Speaker 1: mine in this sense works very well with the kind
Speaker 1: of your your kind of rubric paradigm or or you
Speaker 1: know parable I mean, for for the podcast, it's you
Speaker 1: know it really with with the modules, some of which
Speaker 1: lead you to good things and some bad things. Um,
Speaker 1: it's very much like feeding them if they get positive reinforcement.
Speaker 1: I mean, the way the mind is designed is that
Speaker 1: if they get the gratification, and what qualifies gratification is
Speaker 1: different for different modules, but if they get the gratification,
Speaker 1: then they will grow stronger, you know, like if hating somebody,
Speaker 1: if you feed that by then going around and saying
Speaker 1: the negative thing about the person, right, that's reinforcement for
Speaker 1: the feeling of hatred, I think, And and so the
Speaker 1: reinforcement can differ. But but but the basic parable that
Speaker 1: that this podcast is under actually makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense in terms of the modular model of the mind
Speaker 1: and right, And so I think the other thing that's
Speaker 1: important in what we're talking about, and it's you know,
Speaker 1: threads through the whole book and speaks right to the
Speaker 1: topic of mindfulness, is the answer isn't to force these things,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not to not reinforce them by forcing
Speaker 1: them away. It's by examining them. And you actually have
Speaker 1: a phrase, and I can't find it right off the
Speaker 1: top of my head, but you say something about, you know, paradoxically,
Speaker 1: by looking really really closely at something, we managed to
Speaker 1: get distance from it. Right. That is the one of
Speaker 1: the fundamental ironies of mindfulness meditation is that if you
Speaker 1: have something like anxiety or stress or sadness, and you
Speaker 1: don't run away from it, like if you're just feeling sad,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to be like a practice meditator
Speaker 1: to try this. If you're just feeling really sad and
Speaker 1: you sit down and rather than go you know, rather
Speaker 1: your normal reaction is to go, well, how can I
Speaker 1: get unsad? You know, maybe I can have some chocolate,
Speaker 1: Maybe I can talk to somebody who will cheer me up.
Speaker 1: And that can be fine if you talk somebody choose
Speaker 1: you up. But but if you instead take the path
Speaker 1: of just sitting down and xamining the feeling, just going okay, fine,
Speaker 1: I'm sad. Uh, let's experience it. What's it like to
Speaker 1: be sad? What part of my head is the feeling
Speaker 1: of sadness located? And how exactly does it make me feel?
Speaker 1: If you let yourself get close to it in that
Speaker 1: in that way the irony is then you get some
Speaker 1: distance from it, at least when it works, and and
Speaker 1: you you may find that Wow. I sat down and
Speaker 1: just you know, sat with the sadness for a while,
Speaker 1: and the more closely I looked at it, less of
Speaker 1: a problem it was. I was doing this today. I've
Speaker 1: been having back pain lately more than the normal, and
Speaker 1: what I realized is that it's generally the thread of
Speaker 1: thoughts that are going through my head about the back
Speaker 1: pain that are far worse than the pain itself. I
Speaker 1: find myself saying things like, oh, it's on my back's
Speaker 1: killing me. It's terrible, I can't take it. And then
Speaker 1: if I just stop and actually pay attention to what
Speaker 1: the actual back pain is, then I'm like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't really that big of a deal. I mean,
Speaker 1: like it just puts it in a totally different perspective,
Speaker 1: and it's it's the story that I'm adding on top
Speaker 1: of it that is causing me so much, so much challenge,
Speaker 1: And that's really that that looking closely at the thing
Speaker 1: itself instead of what we think the thing means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in the extreme case, they're really adept meditators
Speaker 1: who can become pretty much completely indifferent to physical pain.
Speaker 1: I mean I've had some success with it, like when
Speaker 1: I was on retreat and I developed an abscess too
Speaker 1: that I kind of fooled around with with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I would drink enough liquid to really make it
Speaker 1: because what would normally be tremendous pain and it was
Speaker 1: way less painful than than usual. Um, but you know,
Speaker 1: even but you're right, you don't have to you don't
Speaker 1: have to meditate for days at a retreat to get
Speaker 1: some value out in the fact that usually even with
Speaker 1: physical pain, I mean, with with anxiety, it's often entirely
Speaker 1: in your head, so to speak. Right, But even with
Speaker 1: physical pain, there's often a certain amount of english that
Speaker 1: you are adding to it in the way you either
Speaker 1: anticipate it before it's actually showed up or you lament
Speaker 1: it when it has showed up. And if you can
Speaker 1: can do less of that, you know, physical pain can
Speaker 1: be less of a problem. I don't want to trivialize it,
Speaker 1: to minimize it. I mean, physical pain is a serious,
Speaker 1: serious thing. But you're right, and this is something that's
Speaker 1: emphasized in Buddhism, is that there is the intrinsic pain,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the actual suffering is not part
Speaker 1: of the intrinsic pain. So let's talk about the idea
Speaker 1: of essences and the the fact that we impute in
Speaker 1: essence to everything, and this sort of ties into the
Speaker 1: Buddhist idea of emptiness. Can you kind of walk us
Speaker 1: through tying those things together? Sure? I mean emptiness is
Speaker 1: in a way an unfortunate term. It is a very
Speaker 1: fundamental Buddhist concept, especially in what's called mahayana. Buddhism, which
Speaker 1: is a good part of the Buddhism in Asia. Um.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like, you know, the claim that look,
Speaker 1: everything is actually empty. Uh. That sounds kind of depressing. Um.
Speaker 1: But let me let me uh by way of an
Speaker 1: anecdote from my very first meditation retreat, tell tell you
Speaker 1: what I think emptiness is best thought of his meanings.
Speaker 1: So I was taking a walk through the woods and
Speaker 1: I saw a weed called a plantain weed, which had
Speaker 1: invested a couple of yards of in houses, you know
Speaker 1: that that I had owned. And so I had spent
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time trying to kill it uproot
Speaker 1: and dig it up whatever. And I had you might say,
Speaker 1: hostility towards it. But all of a sudden I looked
Speaker 1: at it, and I thought, well, why have I been
Speaker 1: trying to kill this thing? It's exactly as beautiful as
Speaker 1: all the other stuff in the forest. And in one
Speaker 1: sense that's kind of a trivial observation. But I mean
Speaker 1: to say, if I say to you, will look, it's
Speaker 1: not like the word weed is written in the d
Speaker 1: n A of what we call weeds, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: weed is just a cultural construct. It's like some cultures
Speaker 1: consider there's some things weeds. Some consider other things weeds.
Speaker 1: We all know that in a sense. But when you
Speaker 1: have uh, such a powerful feeling, such a perceptual shift,
Speaker 1: right you, and a weed looks to you like it
Speaker 1: has never looked before, you realize that you have uh
Speaker 1: in the past, been kind of imputing essence of weed
Speaker 1: to it, and a really deep seeded way. I mean,
Speaker 1: it shapes your very perception of it, Like you just
Speaker 1: look at it and it seems to have this kind
Speaker 1: of are a badness, um, But it doesn't. That's not
Speaker 1: an intrinsic part of it. And and and and that's
Speaker 1: what Buddhists mean by emptiness. I mean things are empty
Speaker 1: of essence, okay, And we go around attributing essence to
Speaker 1: things kind of perceptually and cognitively to some extent, when
Speaker 1: in fact it's just a human construct. It's not really
Speaker 1: an intrinsic part of things. And with weeds, you may say, well,
Speaker 1: it's not that big a deal, right, Okay, so you
Speaker 1: tried to kill a weed. That's not a grave moral transgression.
Speaker 1: But we also do this with other people, right. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like you know my rival for you know,
Speaker 1: some some guy who wants a job I want, right,
Speaker 1: or is getting more attention than me? I mean I
Speaker 1: I you know, I I start to see essence a
Speaker 1: bad person in the guy right, and Uh, sometimes we
Speaker 1: do it with entire groups of people. That's called bigotry
Speaker 1: or racism or xenophobia, um so. And and you know,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of thing that leads to wars and
Speaker 1: deep social conflict or in the current environment. And maybe
Speaker 1: it's political, it's ideology. It's ideological. You hear that some
Speaker 1: one is a member of the other ideological tribe, and
Speaker 1: you just look at them in a different way, you
Speaker 1: and and that, and that affects the way you process
Speaker 1: information about them in all these subtle ways we're learning about.
Speaker 1: So what emptiness means is that, in really subtle ways,
Speaker 1: without realizing it, we go through the world seeing essence
Speaker 1: of this and essence of that. And often it's innocuous,
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's no big deal morally, but sometimes it
Speaker 1: really does get us into trouble. And in those cases,
Speaker 1: the kind of distortion uh that essence brings is worth
Speaker 1: doing something about. Um And Again, my view is that
Speaker 1: meditation can can help here. And so going back to
Speaker 1: the emptiness, idea. It's it's not saying that nothing exists.
Speaker 1: It's saying that these things of themselves do not have
Speaker 1: most of the um. Going back to emotions and feelings,
Speaker 1: we're we're put in the feeling or emotion into most
Speaker 1: everything that see out there, were imbuing it. The word
Speaker 1: we're using is essence. We're giving it this essence that
Speaker 1: we then react to one way or the other, but
Speaker 1: of its own self, it doesn't have those things right.
Speaker 1: It's another case of feelings infiltrating our perception and cognition
Speaker 1: more subtly then we realize and and the feelings are
Speaker 1: giving shape to this thing called essence that isn't really there.
Speaker 1: And and and one reason emptiness is really not a
Speaker 1: great word is that, you know, when I no longer
Speaker 1: saw essence of weed in this thing, it was part
Speaker 1: of a generally more beautiful this that I had. And
Speaker 1: in general, people who really adept meditators who say that,
Speaker 1: you know, they kind of go around seeing emptiness. They
Speaker 1: report things being beautiful. It's not like they don't see
Speaker 1: the things. It's not like they can't tell the difference
Speaker 1: between one kind of plant and another. But the experience
Speaker 1: of emptiness apparently tends to make things more beautiful, it
Speaker 1: makes you more appreciative of them. Excellent. Let's now talk
Speaker 1: about what has been one of my favorite topics as
Speaker 1: of late, the idea of not self, and you talk
Speaker 1: a lot about it. I'm gonna ask you to to
Speaker 1: to explain it more. But one of the things that
Speaker 1: you say, and I think this is really useful, is
Speaker 1: that you say, you know what, if you hear all
Speaker 1: this and it doesn't make any sense, do you fine?
Speaker 1: Just let it be and you know, you don't you
Speaker 1: get you don't have to get all caught up in it.
Speaker 1: Do the other parts of you know, contemplative practice that
Speaker 1: go around that and kind of see what happens. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because that's what I did. You know, I've
Speaker 1: been reading about and studying Buddhism and practicing meditation for
Speaker 1: a long time, and most of that time that just
Speaker 1: idea did not resonate with me, did not particularly interest
Speaker 1: me until I had an actual experience of it. And
Speaker 1: I think that's really good advice because I would start
Speaker 1: to try and occasionally throw all the baby out with
Speaker 1: the bath water because I look at the not self
Speaker 1: thing and be like, well that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And then I'd say, well, this is the rest of
Speaker 1: the makes sense. And so I think you're your idea
Speaker 1: of you know what set that to the side of
Speaker 1: it doesn't doesn't make a lot of sense. Is good.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about what not self means. And and
Speaker 1: you've got what I'll call a UM, a gradual approach
Speaker 1: to it um and and so can you walk us
Speaker 1: through that. You know, Buddhism is kind of famous for
Speaker 1: saying that what you think of as the self uh
Speaker 1: does not exist. And one version of that is something
Speaker 1: we mentioned, the idea that the conscious self is not
Speaker 1: as in control as you might think. That's part of it.
Speaker 1: But there are also other dimensions to the idea of
Speaker 1: not self, the idea that the bounds of the self
Speaker 1: or in some sense of lusory. You know, when you
Speaker 1: add up all the parts of the not self doctrine,
Speaker 1: it sounds pretty radical and crazy, and maybe less so if,
Speaker 1: as you said, you've had some experiences like I've had experiences,
Speaker 1: especially in retreat, where the bounds of the self seen
Speaker 1: to dissolve. But if you haven't had some kind of
Speaker 1: dramatic not self experience, and I haven't had the full
Speaker 1: on version myself. I think the idea can still be
Speaker 1: of some use in a more kind of incremental way,
Speaker 1: as you suggest, And and what I mean by that
Speaker 1: is that if you do what we mentioned and look
Speaker 1: at a troublesome part of your experience, like some anxiety,
Speaker 1: and you you look at it meditatively and you go,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have to consider that part of myself. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've had the experience with anxiety of
Speaker 1: just suddenly I was like, you know, I meditate on
Speaker 1: it for fifteen minutes and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this feeling in my abdomen. It's still there, but it's
Speaker 1: as if I'm looking at like a piece of abstract
Speaker 1: art new museum, right, So it just no longer seems
Speaker 1: like part of me. It's neither good nor bad. It's
Speaker 1: just interesting. And I think, you know, the incremental approach
Speaker 1: to not self is just to remind yourself that these
Speaker 1: various feelings you have, specially including troublesome uh feelings and thoughts,
Speaker 1: you have, identifying yourself with them is optional. Strictly speaking,
Speaker 1: you don't have to think of that thought as part
Speaker 1: of you. You don't have to think of that feeling
Speaker 1: as part of you, and in fact, meditation can help
Speaker 1: you really, uh, you know, kind of in a way,
Speaker 1: in a certain and separate yourself from them. And I
Speaker 1: think I'm not just playing word games, you know. When
Speaker 1: I say that is a version of you know, that's
Speaker 1: an incrementive not self experience experience. The fact is that
Speaker 1: if you go to the fundamental discourse on the not self,
Speaker 1: what is thought to be the Buddhist's second discourse after
Speaker 1: his enlightenment, where he goes through the logic of not self, uh,
Speaker 1: to some extent, this is the way he puts it.
Speaker 1: He goes through different parts of human experience, you know,
Speaker 1: thoughts and feelings and so on, um and says, you know,
Speaker 1: is it He's kind of he can be interpreted as saying,
Speaker 1: given the fact that you don't really have control over
Speaker 1: these things, given the fact that they can lead to affliction, right, uh,
Speaker 1: they can make you, you know, not happy, does it
Speaker 1: make sense to say this is mine? I mean, doesn't
Speaker 1: make more sense to say no, this is not mine?
Speaker 1: And and then he does say, you know, if you
Speaker 1: say that with everything, then you attain complete liberation. Then
Speaker 1: you have the full on not self experience. But but
Speaker 1: I think even if you stop short of full on liberation,
Speaker 1: which you know takes time to say least, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how many people have actually attained it. Um, even
Speaker 1: if you stop short of that, you can have incremental
Speaker 1: gains by just starting to question how much of your
Speaker 1: psychological quote self you really have to think of as
Speaker 1: part of yourself. Yeah. I really like that that way
Speaker 1: of looking at it and explaining as you did in
Speaker 1: the book about I think they call him the five
Speaker 1: aggregates of the five heaps, right, the different things that
Speaker 1: the Buddha walks through. You know, your thoughts, your perceptions,
Speaker 1: your emotions, your body. You know that you can look
Speaker 1: at each of those things and and becoming a little
Speaker 1: bit less identified with each of those things, you are
Speaker 1: walking the path towards the not self peace. And I
Speaker 1: just found that a very helpful way to think about it.
Speaker 1: And I know, you know, for listeners I've been you know,
Speaker 1: they know I've been talking about this affair amount lately,
Speaker 1: and so I really wanted to bring your perspective in
Speaker 1: on it because I thought it was a really good one. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad, I'm glad it makes sense to you. Um,
Speaker 1: it is something a lot of people have lashed onto
Speaker 1: who have read the book, and I think it's the
Speaker 1: I mean, the larger thing that I'd like to emphasize
Speaker 1: that even if you're doing meditation and kind of therapeutic way,
Speaker 1: like you know, stress reduction and dealing with anxiety, you
Speaker 1: are closer than you may realize the kind of deep
Speaker 1: ideas in Buddhist philosophy, and and I think sometimes it
Speaker 1: helps to understand the philosophical underpinnings of the meditative practice.
Speaker 1: And so um, we're kind of at the end of
Speaker 1: our our time here. But just to kind of wrap
Speaker 1: up you are you you refer to yourself as a
Speaker 1: not very likely meditation candidate. Could you kind of talk
Speaker 1: about why you thought that and what you've personally gotten
Speaker 1: out of meditation, just because I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people who also think I'm not I'm not a
Speaker 1: good meditator or I'm not really cut out for meditation,
Speaker 1: and so I always find it helpful to to to
Speaker 1: provide other views on that. Yeah, well, I have real
Speaker 1: problem focusing on things I have, you know, probably a
Speaker 1: modest version of attention deficit disorder, but a but a version.
Speaker 1: I I have a very limited attention span. UM. I
Speaker 1: also think I'm actually kind of emotional person. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to compare yourself to other people you've never
Speaker 1: been them. But um, I would say that calm and equilibrium.
Speaker 1: People who know me would agree that calm and equilibrium
Speaker 1: do not come naturally to me. UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think I'm I'm capable of, you know, doing many things,
Speaker 1: very capable doing many of the things that meditation is
Speaker 1: designed to make you do less of. I I you know,
Speaker 1: I think really negative thoughts about people, think really negative
Speaker 1: thoughts about yourself. UM. So I think I'm, on the
Speaker 1: one hand, somebody who's not naturally good at meditation. I'm,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, somebody who needs it. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a common thing. I mean, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: often the case that people who need it the most
Speaker 1: are are naturally the worst at it. UM. But I
Speaker 1: have found that, UM, it's doable, even for somebody like me.
Speaker 1: For me, it was very helpful to go to an
Speaker 1: actual one week silent meditation retreat. And if you're really
Speaker 1: really poor candidate for meditation, you might think about that.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people pick it up more easily,
Speaker 1: you know, they do these needs. They may use these
Speaker 1: apps like Headspace or ten percent Happier, or they may
Speaker 1: you know, find a local community of meditators, or take
Speaker 1: online lessons or whatever. Is a lot of ways to
Speaker 1: do it. But I would just say to people, even
Speaker 1: if you don't take to it easily the first time
Speaker 1: or the first few times, I wouldn't necessarily give up
Speaker 1: on it. It is challenging, and even once you feel okay,
Speaker 1: I know how to do it, it can be challenging
Speaker 1: to sustain the daily practice in some days. The rewards
Speaker 1: are very meager at best. But in my experience, you know,
Speaker 1: sticking with it UH is just a very good thing
Speaker 1: and changes the way UH you view the world and
Speaker 1: changes it for the better and changes you for the better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would definitely agree. I am not a naturally good
Speaker 1: at meditation for whatever. I don't settle into it easily,
Speaker 1: but I found it to be really helpful. And I've
Speaker 1: also found that doing it for a longer period of time,
Speaker 1: as in a retreat, that can make a big difference.
Speaker 1: It can be a good way to recharge your practice.
Speaker 1: Just do that every once in a while. Yeah, absolutely well, Robert,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. Thank you for the book. I'll have
Speaker 1: links in the show notes to UH to get the
Speaker 1: book and to some of your other works. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Thank you, Eric, I really appreciate it. Okay,
Speaker 1: take care all right bye. Yeah. If what you just
Speaker 1: heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation
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