Speaker 1: Today, It's great to chat with Locke Kelly on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Locke is an author of meditation, teacher, psychotherapist, and founder
Speaker 1: of the nonprofit Open Hearted Awareness Institute. Locke teaches in
Speaker 1: a non sectarian human being lineage, using an adult education
Speaker 1: style based in the earliest non dual wisdom traditions, modern science,
Speaker 1: and psychotherapy. Locke's work is to help people access awakening
Speaker 1: as the next natural stage of human development. He offers
Speaker 1: in person retreats, workshops, and online video and audio courses,
Speaker 1: and he has served on the New York Insight Teachers Council.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad we can finally make time to chat today. Yeah, thanks, Scott.
Speaker 1: This is really fun. Look, yeah there's yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: There's lots of different avenues to go this, but I
Speaker 1: thought we could start if you could just offer our
Speaker 1: listeners a little bit about your own background and some
Speaker 1: of your maybe most seminal teachers in this path that
Speaker 1: you've been on. Yeah. Well, in some ways, I'm, you know,
Speaker 1: really similar to Maslow. I been trying to put together
Speaker 1: the science and the psychology and then wondering what these
Speaker 1: peak experiences are, what these spiritual experiences are? They spiritual
Speaker 1: are they consciousness experience? So early on from childhood, I
Speaker 1: would have these what I call glimpses or I would,
Speaker 1: you know, start by saying maybe what I call now
Speaker 1: peak experiences, I call them pe e K. So they're
Speaker 1: actually peaks into what's already here and what's already awake
Speaker 1: and already who I've always had. Yeah, I really like that.
Speaker 1: So so you know, I would have them in sports,
Speaker 1: I would have them in nature. I would have them,
Speaker 1: you know, after kind of an intense emotional experience of loss.
Speaker 1: And so it just led me to feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is so interesting. Why isn't everyone talking about this?
Speaker 1: You know? So I thought, well, I guess I can
Speaker 1: find out more. And it led me after going and teaching.
Speaker 1: I taught high school for a couple of years after college,
Speaker 1: and then went to graduate school at Columbia University with
Speaker 1: a joint degree program in clinical social work and comparative religion.
Speaker 1: And I went off on a fellowship to Sri Lanka, India,
Speaker 1: Nepal and did a long period of study at a
Speaker 1: university there and then up in the monasteries, and then
Speaker 1: sat you know, a bunch of ten day retreats and
Speaker 1: twenty one day retreat and five day retreats, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, really got a got a good in depth
Speaker 1: experience of kind of the Terravada insight meditation vipassuna tradition.
Speaker 1: And then I went up north and ended up with
Speaker 1: a teacher in the Tibetan tradition whose name was toku
Speaker 1: Ergen Rimpochet and going up to his hut in the Himalias,
Speaker 1: and then you know, giving a little talk, and then
Speaker 1: within three minutes of his pointing out instruction, I felt
Speaker 1: the same day, same way I did at the end
Speaker 1: of a ten day retreat. Wow, that's exciting. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the same the same teacher. Sam Harris studied with him
Speaker 1: as well. You know, having had this experience of meditation
Speaker 1: and studying the tradition and and then getting this immediate shift,
Speaker 1: you know what could be called is it a peak
Speaker 1: experience or is it a peak experience or is it
Speaker 1: a peek And they were saying, this is already here.
Speaker 1: You're not creating it. It's not a meditation state. You're
Speaker 1: actually walking around in a hypnotic state and you're dehypnotizing
Speaker 1: yourself back to your natural condition, to the nature of
Speaker 1: mind and the nature of your identity. So with that
Speaker 1: as the kind of hypothesis, I continue to try these
Speaker 1: practices there, and that second day, I just had this
Speaker 1: experience where I was crying and laughing and just feeling like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, could it be this simple? Could it
Speaker 1: be this close? Could it be this just awesome and connected?
Speaker 1: And not only am I calm, but I'm you know,
Speaker 1: feel creative and connected to everyone else in the world.
Speaker 1: It's not just the absence, it's the present and the
Speaker 1: fullness of being a full human being. Even if I'm
Speaker 1: having emotions or thoughts, there's just this greater capacity of
Speaker 1: identity and mind that just made me feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: whatever this is, this is what I'm going to do
Speaker 1: with my life is figure out how to how to
Speaker 1: experience this. And then immediately I felt like, and I
Speaker 1: want to share it with people if I can figure
Speaker 1: it out, So I yes, yes, go ahead. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I went back and instead of like joining a monastery there,
Speaker 1: you know, which was the thought, Okay, well, should I
Speaker 1: do this in depth, but it just felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can do this within minutes anywhere, So let me
Speaker 1: go back and finish this joint degree. And at that
Speaker 1: time in New York City, there's a lot of homelessness,
Speaker 1: and so I started soup kitchens and shelters and worked
Speaker 1: in psychiatry as a psychiatric social worker inpatient and then
Speaker 1: psych emergency room and then five years outpatient psych So
Speaker 1: I got both the kind of wisdom traditions consciousness, and
Speaker 1: then I worked with people who were ACXIS one diagnosis
Speaker 1: clients and started to adapt a kind of what I
Speaker 1: call effortless mindfulness or non dual mindfulness version of therapy
Speaker 1: with all people. Yeah, well that is really cool. There
Speaker 1: is a dearth of integration between the psychological literature and
Speaker 1: the I don't even know what to call that other world,
Speaker 1: you know, the the mindful. Some people would say the
Speaker 1: woo woo world, but I don't I don't want to
Speaker 1: be disrespectful. That would be the scientist or the psychology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I would say the meditative or the medical. I
Speaker 1: think the word I would use is consciousness, because, as
Speaker 1: we'll see when we discuss some of your work and
Speaker 1: my work, that it's not just about the emotion or
Speaker 1: the personality or the attitude that we're adjusting, but there
Speaker 1: were adjusting the consciousness to which it's all appearing well,
Speaker 1: this is the thing that's so interesting because in this like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a cognitive scientist, so I'm fascinated with
Speaker 1: the mind, brain consciousness. But if you read those journal
Speaker 1: articles and then you put that down and you go
Speaker 1: and listen to even people like you, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a different lexicon, there's a different language being used, and
Speaker 1: and what I lived, I want to map it all.
Speaker 1: There must be the same phenomenon. It's not like we're
Speaker 1: talking about different it's humans or humans, that's right, So
Speaker 1: we could play with that. I mean, I'm glad. One
Speaker 1: of the words to play with is you know, the
Speaker 1: whole realm of self, self and ego, selflessness, self transcendence,
Speaker 1: you know, so you know at some point we you
Speaker 1: and I can go through that and they're very distinct
Speaker 1: and it all actually works together. You know. That's one
Speaker 1: of my you know, interest, was to bring them together
Speaker 1: and to show that it is human experience and that
Speaker 1: when you make those fine distinctions, you're freed of this
Speaker 1: kind of being caught in a dualistic like I've got
Speaker 1: to get rid of myself, you know, I've got to
Speaker 1: transcend my ego. You know, that's what transcendence means I'm
Speaker 1: beyond it, you know, and you realize, oh, no, that's
Speaker 1: a part of me, that's an ego function, that thought
Speaker 1: it was an ego identity. And now there's something greater
Speaker 1: than that that's aware of that. And then you aren't.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not an either or Well this is great.
Speaker 1: Let's let's let's build up. Let's build up to it.
Speaker 1: Then let's let's take this piece by piece or us
Speaker 1: all get overwhelmed. I don't know, you probably won't, but
Speaker 1: I will. Let's let's let's take it. Let's take it piecemeal.
Speaker 1: So you use phrases. Let's even just start with the
Speaker 1: phrase awake awareness, right, what does that mean? Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's now. So we've jumped. We've jumped all the way
Speaker 1: to the to the biggest Oh did we? Oh? Maybe
Speaker 1: we should start there that what should we start with? Local?
Speaker 1: Local awareness? What what do you think we should start with? Well,
Speaker 1: so so I can start there. So a wake awareness
Speaker 1: is a word that's translated from Tibetan word rigpa, which
Speaker 1: means nature of mind. And there's a word in uh
Speaker 1: Sanskrit called turia and it means is translated often as
Speaker 1: pure awareness. So it means the consciousness prior to a
Speaker 1: child learning to use words and concepts. So there's a
Speaker 1: so it has a primordial and then a pre verbal
Speaker 1: just consciousness, and then it has a wisdom dimension that's
Speaker 1: beyond thought and that is aware of thought. So when
Speaker 1: you're identified with thought and then you step back to
Speaker 1: a mindful witness, you're in kind of mindful awareness. But
Speaker 1: then if you do this nondual practice, what you do
Speaker 1: is you actually look to see who's behind that mindful witness,
Speaker 1: who's behind the camera, and you can open to this
Speaker 1: feeling of this more spacious, vast awareness that in itself
Speaker 1: feels alert, but isn't orienting to thought to know, so
Speaker 1: that in Buddhism, thinking is considered the sixth sense. So
Speaker 1: we have our five senses. Input. Thought is a rising
Speaker 1: like sound, but it's an internal experience arising to who
Speaker 1: or to what. So arises to this non conceptual alert
Speaker 1: feeling of just being aware, and you could use you
Speaker 1: could move your hand from here, or you could use thought,
Speaker 1: but you don't need to think about it. So this
Speaker 1: is really interesting. I want to wrap my head fully
Speaker 1: around this. It's like meditation without a meditator is what
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're saying and and this is something
Speaker 1: that's a little bit different than the the kind of
Speaker 1: meditation I learned in like an eight week NBSR course.
Speaker 1: You know, so let's let's let's compare and contrast. I'm
Speaker 1: such a nerd, but let's let's between kind of in
Speaker 1: the nbs R practice, I've done it twice. Now I've
Speaker 1: taken the nbs HARD course. It's significantly helped my anxiety.
Speaker 1: I can definitely say that. And in that kind of practice,
Speaker 1: we we were very much focused on returning to the
Speaker 1: breath and and uh. And also there was a bit
Speaker 1: of open, open monitoring meditation, which I'd love to see
Speaker 1: how that maps on to what you're talking about, where
Speaker 1: this kind of open uh awareness of sort of whatever
Speaker 1: arises without trying to grasp for or hold on to it,
Speaker 1: just like being really just aware of it. But I
Speaker 1: feel like what you're describing is something, it's even it's
Speaker 1: different than than all of that, and I really want
Speaker 1: to wrap my head around that. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: like tapping into a certain force field of consciousness that's
Speaker 1: lacking content and concepts and and and and you're tapping
Speaker 1: into it in a way that is effortless, and you're
Speaker 1: not you're not even like a tempting to shine your
Speaker 1: spotlight of attention on it. That you're not even trying
Speaker 1: to do that. So I really want to get into this.
Speaker 1: I want to get in it. I want to get
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, so let me use a few a
Speaker 1: few concepts from psychology and also people's experience who may
Speaker 1: be listening that in some ways it's what people do
Speaker 1: in their free time as something they love. They do
Speaker 1: it to get out of the thought based knowing and
Speaker 1: into a more awareness based, interconnected, embodied a type of
Speaker 1: flow consciousness. So I actually divide flow state into two types,
Speaker 1: which are is kind of my own thing. One I
Speaker 1: call absorbed flow, where you enter into a very concentrated
Speaker 1: place or you're involved in a task and you look
Speaker 1: up in two hours have gone by, so I'd call
Speaker 1: that absorbed and then the second is panoramic flow. So
Speaker 1: like a musician playing could be an absorbed flow. But
Speaker 1: if they're in an orchestra, they are aware of everyone
Speaker 1: in the orchestra that they're totally in tune with. They're
Speaker 1: aware of the audience. They're not self referencing, they're not
Speaker 1: they're using implicit memory rather than self reference. They're in
Speaker 1: the now, which means time isn't being referenced. There's a
Speaker 1: sense of flow, and there's an ecstasy or bliss in
Speaker 1: the activity itself, and they're not you know, just like
Speaker 1: if you're typing, you don't think about typing, You just type.
Speaker 1: You're not using thought to remember the keys. You're in
Speaker 1: a kind of trusting, awareness based mode. So this kind
Speaker 1: of awareness is available and people know it, but they
Speaker 1: don't know they know it because it's not on our
Speaker 1: psychological map. Wow, so you're not even aware of the
Speaker 1: process that you're going through to produce something. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: you're saying, you're actually so in it that you're not
Speaker 1: even aware of what you're doing and you're looking from
Speaker 1: it is why you can't see it. But you mean, wow,
Speaker 1: is this related to because because you could take this
Speaker 1: to the extreme and it starts sounding crazy. Like this
Speaker 1: woman who came up to you and said that she
Speaker 1: went to the supermarket and and and she doesn't remember
Speaker 1: shopping at all, but she just saw the basket and
Speaker 1: and you asked, well, do you like the stuff that
Speaker 1: you picked? So is it like how far can how
Speaker 1: far would you take it that far? No, because that
Speaker 1: I think I even used as an example of somebody
Speaker 1: who's who's more spaced out than in way consciousness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those things that people come to me thinking they're in this,
Speaker 1: but they're not. No, it's more it's more like you know,
Speaker 1: so somebody like, let's say, I'll give a couple examples.
Speaker 1: So let's say if anyone just just you can use
Speaker 1: your imagination or memory. You just step out of your
Speaker 1: car and you're going to take a nice walk in
Speaker 1: the woods. Step out of your car, your activity, you
Speaker 1: close the car, you walk a couple of feet, then
Speaker 1: you walk into the woods. As soon as you walk in,
Speaker 1: you drop. So your consciousness drops and opens and connects,
Speaker 1: and you just now are in this feeling that everyone
Speaker 1: knows when they're in nature of you know what. That
Speaker 1: you could call a peak experience, but I would call
Speaker 1: it an actual, more natural state of consciousness rather than
Speaker 1: self referencing or self consciousness, where you're thinking about what
Speaker 1: am I doing next, where am I going? Where you're
Speaker 1: identified thought, You're in a spacious and pervasive, interconnected but
Speaker 1: you don't know, you're just like, oh, the woods made
Speaker 1: me do it, you know, or you go on a
Speaker 1: walk with a friend and your laugh, Oh it's the friends.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is that this is an you
Speaker 1: can be happy for no reason without cause, that this
Speaker 1: awareness is here and can be intentionally accessed without a
Speaker 1: trigger or without a person, place or thing that most
Speaker 1: people use as their doorway. Can you access it on demand?
Speaker 1: Can have you gotten on demand? Yeah? I mean how?
Speaker 1: So how long? How many years do I have to
Speaker 1: practice this before I can accessit on demand? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's be ready to try it now. I listen
Speaker 1: to your I did all your I did all your
Speaker 1: guided meditations that are on your website and trying to
Speaker 1: really understand the like what the experiences and how different
Speaker 1: from like other kind of meditations I've done. So I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to do this with you right now. So
Speaker 1: I'm ready. I'll say a little bit I'll give I'll
Speaker 1: give the second part of the answer, which is that
Speaker 1: you know that this teacher who I met, tolki Ergen
Speaker 1: said there's two kinds of mindfulness, deliberate mindfulness and effortless mindfulness.
Speaker 1: So what you learned in MBSR and most types of
Speaker 1: mindfulness are deliberate so use your attentional system to focus
Speaker 1: on your breath and then you open to a mindful
Speaker 1: witness and then you can look at contents of consciousness.
Speaker 1: But you're focused, you're pulling back the camera. You're focusing
Speaker 1: the camera of the small self, which actually, in terms
Speaker 1: of neuroscience, the research shows that what you're doing is
Speaker 1: you're putting on your task mode network of your brain
Speaker 1: and you're repressing your default mode network. And the reason
Speaker 1: you get calm is because they're no longer alternating, but
Speaker 1: only one is on. So as soon as you get up,
Speaker 1: you're a little calmer, but then it just comes back again.
Speaker 1: And this research, same research. I give you the study
Speaker 1: that studied this non dual meditation. I was one of
Speaker 1: the subjects with this guy, Joseph Povic at n y U.
Speaker 1: I know him. I was at ny He was a
Speaker 1: colleague of mine. I was He was a colleague of
Speaker 1: mine when I was at NYU. Yeah yeah, yeah. So
Speaker 1: he did the study and I was in the fMRI
Speaker 1: and did this kind of balanced awareness. What happens is
Speaker 1: the task mode network which looks out and the default
Speaker 1: mode network which looks in and can go to daydream
Speaker 1: if if it's not looking in balance. So there's a
Speaker 1: feeling that you're seamless and you're equally aware inside and out. Sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you're were inside out, there's no problem. Everything
Speaker 1: is literally because you're aware. It feels like you're aware
Speaker 1: from you know, almost a field of awareness, the way
Speaker 1: that Andrew Neuberg, you know, talked about the paridal lobe
Speaker 1: being less active, and you feel this sense of spaciousness.
Speaker 1: Then you're aware from that spaciousness of your body inside out.
Speaker 1: Rather than just looking in at your thoughts from a detached,
Speaker 1: mindful witness, you're actually opening and including in a more
Speaker 1: flow consciousness, which is the way a musician or an athlete,
Speaker 1: you know, a point guard on a basketball team is
Speaker 1: in the flow. He's equally aware inside and out looking
Speaker 1: at the audience. The timing knows, the clock knows where
Speaker 1: everyone's moving, looks one way and throws it the other way,
Speaker 1: and it goes, you know, perfectly. So it's highly functional,
Speaker 1: but relaxed and joyful. I really like that. We're we're gonna,
Speaker 1: you're gonna t you're gonna do something live with me,
Speaker 1: right practice. So before we do that, though, let's nerd
Speaker 1: out a little bit about the neuroscience work, because uh,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nuance there in the literature that
Speaker 1: I think doesn't get discussed in the popular treatments of
Speaker 1: the neuroscience of meditation. So Andrew Neuberg happens to be
Speaker 1: a friend and colleague of mine, and we have published
Speaker 1: papers together on the neuroscience of the creative brain, like
Speaker 1: like creative geniuses. I I rat you. This is when
Speaker 1: I worked at Penn with the Imagination Scientific Director of
Speaker 1: the Imagination Institute, and we did all these We scanned
Speaker 1: the brains of all these like really imaginative people. And
Speaker 1: what's really interesting is that when you when you do that,
Speaker 1: when you look at the brains of really really creative
Speaker 1: people when they're doing like creative tasks and even at rest,
Speaker 1: their default mode network is on call. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, the kinds of cognitions that come
Speaker 1: from the default bone network can can be the greatest
Speaker 1: source of imagination and creativity. So so what I really
Speaker 1: like the way you framed it. I like the way
Speaker 1: you framed it as this this wonderful calm accessing and
Speaker 1: flow of the default network as opposed to I've seen
Speaker 1: some other narratives put forward in saying that it's all
Speaker 1: about getting rid of it, like cutting it out, cutting
Speaker 1: it out of the brain, and it's a lot of problems. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's like the like the arch nemesis of meditation
Speaker 1: is the default mode network. Exactly got to get rid
Speaker 1: of them. And I've been really trying to argue that's
Speaker 1: a really shortsighted way of viewing the reality of the situation.
Speaker 1: And you know, so anyway, I'm really glad, I really
Speaker 1: liked I just wanted to double cook. And I really
Speaker 1: like the way you fra the way you phrased that,
Speaker 1: and and and and just you know, just to point
Speaker 1: out that research I did with Andrew, you know, showing
Speaker 1: that or Andy as we call that, that that actually
Speaker 1: really creative people. They they have their they have great
Speaker 1: attentional flexibility, so they can they can be so flexible
Speaker 1: in knowing when it's task appropriate to activate it and
Speaker 1: when it's uh task appropriate to to maybe inhibit the
Speaker 1: activity of the default Does that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And And the other interesting thing is that that Shamata,
Speaker 1: that way of creating calm abiding by doing one pointed meditation.
Speaker 1: It seems the research shows that it does repress the
Speaker 1: default mode network and just have so it creates calm.
Speaker 1: So my one of the sons of my teacher, Sophie Riberschet,
Speaker 1: came to the United States and said, why is everyone
Speaker 1: doing stupid meditation because everyone was doing one point in
Speaker 1: meditation calling it mindfulness and meditation. And what they're doing
Speaker 1: is they just you calm by repressing and then you're
Speaker 1: very calm and it lasts a while, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a nap or a sauna or a you know,
Speaker 1: it's good, it's not bad, but it doesn't. So then
Speaker 1: the other most recent study is the EEG where mindfulness
Speaker 1: and one pointedness you go from beta to alpha. So
Speaker 1: you go from you know, beta's kind of everyday mind,
Speaker 1: chattery mind, and you go to alpha, which is a calmer,
Speaker 1: quiet state. And then when you do this non dual
Speaker 1: meditation similar to what I'm doing, you actually get synchronized gamma,
Speaker 1: so synchronized gamma so gamma, each blip of gamma is
Speaker 1: like an AHA moment, and this is synchronized, so you
Speaker 1: get that creative mind, you get the calm. So the
Speaker 1: the beta goes to alpha and then the s and
Speaker 1: ized gamma comes on, so you're joyous and alert and
Speaker 1: creative and related. And that's that's so, that's the the
Speaker 1: differences in in you know, kind of the neuroscience studies
Speaker 1: that you know, deliberate mindfulness or basic mindless has very good,
Speaker 1: you know, qualities and effects, but it is it's traditionally
Speaker 1: a preliminary practice leading to effortless mindfulness, which is more
Speaker 1: about plateau living a plateau experience. Well, I wonder if
Speaker 1: if we've we both have been kind of working on
Speaker 1: a very similar state of consciousness without you just calling
Speaker 1: it different, having different terms, in a different tradition, with
Speaker 1: different teachers, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't know
Speaker 1: if I ever sent you my raticle for Scientific American
Speaker 1: on my Skeptical Scientist Mindfulness Journey. Did I ever send
Speaker 1: that article? The thing? The thing is that that that
Speaker 1: that that may be very skeptical of the at least
Speaker 1: the kind of in the NBSR course, that kind of
Speaker 1: mind the controlled form of meditation, is that like my
Speaker 1: whole gradual work was well, a big chunk of it
Speaker 1: was with Dromel Singer, the father of daydreaming. Uh, he
Speaker 1: was my one of my advisors and UH and and
Speaker 1: our work together was to show the benefits of of
Speaker 1: of daydreaming, that the creative benefits of mind wandering. We
Speaker 1: distinguished between positive constructive daydreaming and inattentional control UH, which
Speaker 1: is a different you know it. You know, you can
Speaker 1: have great executive control resources and still have positive constructive daydreaming.
Speaker 1: They're not at odds with each other. So you know,
Speaker 1: as we as I say, you can be deeply focused
Speaker 1: on your daydreams, why not so? Uh? So I I
Speaker 1: the thing that you know, when I would go to
Speaker 1: this uh, this meditation you know, NBSR, and they would
Speaker 1: say when you mind, if your mind want, if you're
Speaker 1: d dreaming, go back to your breath. And that the
Speaker 1: rebel in me wanted to be like, you know, come on,
Speaker 1: like sometimes my dadreams are good, you know, like, don't
Speaker 1: tell me to ignore them. So that was like, anyway,
Speaker 1: I just bring this up. Is it just give you
Speaker 1: a context? You know, and you can see that it
Speaker 1: literally shows that you're putting on the task mode and
Speaker 1: you're repressing by doing that practice, which gives you an effect,
Speaker 1: But is it really an effect that is functionally helpful?
Speaker 1: I think it's RESTful, but ultimately it doesn't actually help
Speaker 1: you even go to the next level of mindfulness. And
Speaker 1: there's many other ways that I use now where I
Speaker 1: use the polyvagel theory of working more with the nervous
Speaker 1: system taking breath, breathing in and then breathing out slower
Speaker 1: through the mouth, longer and slower. So you take the
Speaker 1: sympathetic nervous system and move to the power sympathetic, so
Speaker 1: you're calming the animal body and then you you let
Speaker 1: the mind kind of calm down and then you shift
Speaker 1: to this awareness, so you know, so it's it's just
Speaker 1: a it's a different animal. And one of the meditations
Speaker 1: I actually do is, okay, when your mind wanders, focus
Speaker 1: on your wandering mind and follow that as your object
Speaker 1: of meditation and just stay with that, just as you
Speaker 1: did your breath. That's it. Just stay with it, don't
Speaker 1: stop it. Just follow that wandering mind and just be
Speaker 1: attentive or just be you know, focused or curious about
Speaker 1: what's going on with that without analyzing or you know,
Speaker 1: getting involved with the story, and then come back to
Speaker 1: your breath whenever the journey switches, so you follow it,
Speaker 1: and that is the alternate you know what's happening. You
Speaker 1: know in this cycle of neuroscience is the brain is
Speaker 1: alternate hitting these two systems of going task mode looking out,
Speaker 1: then it looks in. So if you're trying to watch
Speaker 1: your breath, it will go in, and your mind will
Speaker 1: wonder because it's going to default mode. So follow it
Speaker 1: there and then follow it back. It's really interesting. It
Speaker 1: seems to me like what you're teaching is actually very
Speaker 1: very conducive to creativity and creative flow. I feel like
Speaker 1: I want to, like now, I want to like collaborate
Speaker 1: with you on like a like like linking explicitly your
Speaker 1: work to the work of doing creative flow, because it
Speaker 1: seems now I can see it much more clearer now.
Speaker 1: So I'm really glad that we're having this conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then one of the you know, Jud Brewers, Jud
Speaker 1: Brewers research paper on this gamma synchrony, So that's that
Speaker 1: will show that it's more creative. I'll send you that,
Speaker 1: please do Jud. I just spoke with Jud for the
Speaker 1: PO podcast and I actually back channel. I brought together
Speaker 1: a zoom call with Jud and my creativity of neuroscience
Speaker 1: researchers to kind of talk about get a conversation started
Speaker 1: on how we can integrate all these different findings in
Speaker 1: these different fields like the creativity field and the mindfulness field.
Speaker 1: So I'm really I'm really interested in building those bridges. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great. Good. So so let me give a little
Speaker 1: prep for this, this little practice and you may have
Speaker 1: done it in so the sense of what you know,
Speaker 1: a wake awareness or awareness based knowing rather than thought
Speaker 1: based knowing, which is both prior in a child. You know,
Speaker 1: it's even it's not exactly primary process versus secondary process,
Speaker 1: but it's even just the consciousness of a child prior
Speaker 1: to developing conceptual thinking. And then so it's something that's
Speaker 1: awake and aware without using thought to have it to
Speaker 1: be alert. So what happens then when secondary process thinking happens,
Speaker 1: we develop thoughts, and then at one and a half
Speaker 1: to three years old, we develop what's called self awareness
Speaker 1: in psychology, which is interesting because what that is is
Speaker 1: the ability to look in a mirror when you have
Speaker 1: a mark on your nose and realize, oh, that's me.
Speaker 1: I'm aware of me. And that's the external version of it.
Speaker 1: But the internal version is something we all know well
Speaker 1: but we're not aware of, you know, you better not
Speaker 1: say that, what are you going to do? Are you
Speaker 1: going to do this? Are you going to do that?
Speaker 1: So who's the you that's talking to you? That's self awareness,
Speaker 1: that's aware of your thoughts. It's not mindfully so yet,
Speaker 1: but it's it's the way we operate. So that self
Speaker 1: referencing that shows up in the PCC of the brain
Speaker 1: ends up creating this small, separate sense of self that
Speaker 1: feels like it's in our head looking out of our eyes.
Speaker 1: So it's one kind of constellation of consciousness. And when
Speaker 1: that ego function that's supposed to function by saying, you know,
Speaker 1: what's going on out there? What's going on out here?
Speaker 1: Is there some danger? There? Is there some thing I
Speaker 1: need to be aware of here? So it's trying to
Speaker 1: problem solve all the time. So the function is problem solving.
Speaker 1: We identify with it, and we're always looking for a problem.
Speaker 1: So if that constellation of consciousness would relax, we might
Speaker 1: be able to almost have our awareness open the way
Speaker 1: Andrew Neuberg longtime meditators open to this more spacious alert,
Speaker 1: awake awareness. So that simple inquiry to understand with your
Speaker 1: mind and then to let your awareness feel is what's
Speaker 1: here now when there's no problem to solve. They're just
Speaker 1: understanding the words, letting the problem solver, relax and then
Speaker 1: let your awareness be aware of what's here, and then
Speaker 1: just curious. What's it like to rest as that which
Speaker 1: is here when there's no problem to solve. I think
Speaker 1: I'm resting in that space right now. Yeah, as you
Speaker 1: went through that, and it's very interesting because it's a
Speaker 1: I feel a little bit dumb. It's it's the it's
Speaker 1: the alternative to chattering mind. So it's you know, the
Speaker 1: chattering mind or the ego is going to say, that's
Speaker 1: called dumb. Don't go there. That was obviously a conceptual
Speaker 1: label I put on that, but I did that. I
Speaker 1: did that after when I was trying to reflect on it,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. Yeah, and it can't
Speaker 1: so so there is some kind of So it's almost
Speaker 1: like you're moving from trying to clean up the cloud
Speaker 1: of your identity and you just let the problem solve,
Speaker 1: a relax and then open to the day sky what's
Speaker 1: here now when there's no problem to solve. So it's RESTful,
Speaker 1: that's the calm. It's non thought based, so it's not
Speaker 1: chattery or smart in the usual sense, but it is alert, right,
Speaker 1: and you could respond. But that's the question. What's it
Speaker 1: like to not orient to thought and yet be here?
Speaker 1: What's it like to not be? I think? Therefore I
Speaker 1: am what's it like to go into be? You know being? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems like you associate well, love, you know, an
Speaker 1: open heartedness to this kind of vast, expansive form of consciousness.
Speaker 1: And do you think that's going to be the case
Speaker 1: for everyone? Like I'm so, I'm so curious with like,
Speaker 1: like psych if you had psychopaths, do this practice? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's this is These are obvious questions,
Speaker 1: I think, but I think they're important questions. You know,
Speaker 1: are there people who in their ordinary consciousness don't access
Speaker 1: the love state of quite frequently at all that you
Speaker 1: can do some practices with them that they can start
Speaker 1: to be like, Oh that's what that's what that feels like.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't had psychopaths, but I have had schizophrenic, bipolar,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, with people with complex trauma, you know something
Speaker 1: I've you know, explored with them. So these are people
Speaker 1: who really have not bonded and you know, have a
Speaker 1: lot of lot of early trauma and I'll ask them, Okay,
Speaker 1: is there a part of you some they'll even be
Speaker 1: have suicidal thoughts, you know, is there part of you
Speaker 1: that wants to hurt yourself? And they go, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. I said, well, where is that? Well,
Speaker 1: it's like right here in my throat, like choking me.
Speaker 1: And is there part of you that would like he
Speaker 1: has come here to kind of feel better or hope
Speaker 1: that there's some Well I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: there's a little bit, you know, a little lower than
Speaker 1: that in my body. And then I'll ask, well, who's
Speaker 1: aware of those two parts? And they'll go, well, I am.
Speaker 1: And I'll say, well where are you? Well, I'm the
Speaker 1: one that's aware of the other two parts of me,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm here, I'm like everywhere, I'm I'm the
Speaker 1: real me, you know. So they'll open to this spacious,
Speaker 1: pervasive kind of and it has this welcoming quality. So
Speaker 1: it's not like necessarily bliss love, but it's it's not
Speaker 1: a neutral. It can start neutral in the practices like
Speaker 1: what's here now and there's no problem to solve. That
Speaker 1: can be kind of an alert awareness. It's awake, but
Speaker 1: then if you ask, well, then what does it feel
Speaker 1: like to be aware from the air of your body
Speaker 1: in the world, You'll start to kind of drop and
Speaker 1: feel this safety and connection. And once you feel the
Speaker 1: connection from the awareness base knowing so that it feels
Speaker 1: almost like an ocean and wave rather than a small,
Speaker 1: separate self looking out of your eyes from the middle
Speaker 1: of your head that's constantly worried, you feel this non fear,
Speaker 1: non worry. So it's really what a peak experience is like.
Speaker 1: But you can when you intentionally do it. Through these
Speaker 1: this non dual meditation you start to learn what the
Speaker 1: consciousness constructs are or what the station you're tuning into.
Speaker 1: So you tune out of that chattering mind or that
Speaker 1: emotional contraction into this more spacious and then embracing or
Speaker 1: pervasive you know, open mind or open heart, and you
Speaker 1: just feel like you're something greater than yourself, that is yourself.
Speaker 1: And so this can be done intentionally and people are
Speaker 1: you know, both in therapy and in meditation or in
Speaker 1: flow consciousness. While you're walking or just doing an activity. Here,
Speaker 1: I hear you and it just makes me think that
Speaker 1: and this might sound a bit cheeky, but I think
Speaker 1: you'll really really resonate with it. You know. It's funny
Speaker 1: we use the word transcendence, but this feels like the
Speaker 1: opposite of transcendence. This feels and there's no word for that, Like,
Speaker 1: what is the what is the exact d descendants? Anyway?
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that is what it is, descendants. You're descending.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm trying to grasp for a lexicon to
Speaker 1: describe this what this is, because it's not like you're,
Speaker 1: you know, transcending the ego. That's not the right narrative here.
Speaker 1: It's it's like you're descending into your being. It's like
Speaker 1: you're getting so much in touch with your your being
Speaker 1: itself like pure like mas Well called it pure pure being. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so so, I mean there there are some terms of
Speaker 1: of the you know, transcend and include or fully divine
Speaker 1: and fully human or you know, and I say, the
Speaker 1: inseparable pair of awareness and aliveness. So there's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the magic move of this non dual practice. That
Speaker 1: isn't so even a mindful witness, you know, that's just
Speaker 1: an open uh awareness. That's why things come and go.
Speaker 1: Is a detached observer. It's not embodied. It's a separate
Speaker 1: witness consciousness, whereas this is embodied and interconnected. So that's
Speaker 1: the move. So I call it waking up from the ego,
Speaker 1: waking to the wake awareness, waking as the awareness and aliveness,
Speaker 1: and then waking in and then waking out to create
Speaker 1: and relate. So it's a multiple And if you only
Speaker 1: stop halfway, if you just transcend and stop at selflessness
Speaker 1: or no self, you may stumble into this. But you
Speaker 1: also like Willoughby Britain's studies at Brown with people who
Speaker 1: are doing five day retreats that she said something like
Speaker 1: thirty to forty percent of them will get flooded by
Speaker 1: their unconscious because if you deconstruct without finding this, which
Speaker 1: is the awareness, embodied true nature, so you know, self
Speaker 1: with a capital S, then you you've just taken away
Speaker 1: not only the ego but the ego defenses. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is quite quite different than uh yeah, like
Speaker 1: witness consciousness, which is what like which is all the
Speaker 1: rage in in in a lot of these mindfulness training,
Speaker 1: you know, sessions. And I think the point here is
Speaker 1: not that like we're hating on that, it's that's not
Speaker 1: the point at all. It's that there's there's a step
Speaker 1: further that people might not be aware of. You know,
Speaker 1: that's funny to even say that it might not be
Speaker 1: aware of. But there's this, but there's that there's a
Speaker 1: step or a few steps further that can take you
Speaker 1: more into the uh I think really where you can
Speaker 1: really tap into your creative juices that are that are
Speaker 1: just so naturally there already. I really like this, I
Speaker 1: really do. Have you worked with people who who suffer
Speaker 1: from a d D, you know, in the sense that
Speaker 1: they feel like they cannot you know, they can't make decisions.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're they're they're paralyzed by their ability, their
Speaker 1: inability to make a decision to concentrate on a task
Speaker 1: for more than a couple of minutes. You know, it's
Speaker 1: in the most extreme cases. You know, what do you
Speaker 1: how do you work with these kinds of individuals using
Speaker 1: these approaches? So so I call it instead of attention
Speaker 1: definit deficit disorder, I called it attention overload disorder. So
Speaker 1: in other words, they're trying so hard to use their
Speaker 1: attention to do it that's overloaded. So yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 1: the thing is the attention can't do it. So this
Speaker 1: method of non dual mindfulness is upgrading to a spacious awareness.
Speaker 1: So you literally can feel like your awareness drops from
Speaker 1: thinking to seeing and then goes to hearing and then
Speaker 1: opens to this space in the room, and then the
Speaker 1: feeling is all right, and you're aware of the open
Speaker 1: view or you're aware from the open view, and now
Speaker 1: can you focus on your breath and can you focus
Speaker 1: on the keyboard? So while you're kind of still open
Speaker 1: and embodied and connected versus from, Yeah, I understand the of,
Speaker 1: but okay, what's the from? What's the from? So that's
Speaker 1: you know, that is the peak. That's one of the
Speaker 1: markers of a peak experience. That's Andrew Neubergh's marker for
Speaker 1: the Buddhists and the Christian is the bridal lobe relaxes
Speaker 1: from being aware from your body, and their feeling is
Speaker 1: that you're aware from an open mind or a flow consciousness,
Speaker 1: which is has no is interconnected or is aware from
Speaker 1: you know, a little more boundless feeling of where your
Speaker 1: mind is, so it just has a little more open mind,
Speaker 1: open heart, and you're aware from there. So you're not
Speaker 1: aware from this point of view in your head. You're
Speaker 1: kind of dropped opened and then aware from this kind
Speaker 1: of field or feeling. And it's what you feel when
Speaker 1: you walk into the woods or you even when you
Speaker 1: drive a car. You can't drive from a pinpoint. I
Speaker 1: mean you can. You see people doing it. They're like
Speaker 1: looking over, but you have to do it. You have
Speaker 1: to do so one of my practices is is to
Speaker 1: let your eyes rest and realize that hearing is receiving. Right, hearing,
Speaker 1: the sound comes from outside and comes to their ears,
Speaker 1: but seeing is also receiving light reflects off of objects
Speaker 1: and comes to your eyes. Is this so does this
Speaker 1: relate to that you talk about local awareness? Is this
Speaker 1: related to that? Yeah? So the A D D practice
Speaker 1: is what so that explains local awareness. So the spacious
Speaker 1: or wake awareness is when you shift the center from
Speaker 1: your your thoughts to your seeing, to your hearing to
Speaker 1: more spacious awareness. And now when you focus on your
Speaker 1: breath or a task from a wake awareness, you're not
Speaker 1: using attention. In fact, in flow consciousness, they talk about
Speaker 1: hypo frontality, which means when you're in flow, you're not
Speaker 1: using your frontal attentional system, you're using your whole more
Speaker 1: of a whole brain. And it feels like what it
Speaker 1: feels like is you're aware from an open, interconnected space.
Speaker 1: So what it is literally maybe just you know, the
Speaker 1: pride lobe is less intense or it feels more open.
Speaker 1: But whatever that is, you don't have to explain it
Speaker 1: or what you know. How can you be aware from
Speaker 1: an open It's like, what does it feel like? Oh
Speaker 1: it feels vast or open or connected? Okay, So then
Speaker 1: you've just shifted your consciousness and now focus from here
Speaker 1: on typing. Oh my god, people will say, so, I've
Speaker 1: worked with kids with add I have a little add
Speaker 1: I've had it, I played sports, and I did this.
Speaker 1: So receiving light when your eyes now, so then just
Speaker 1: let your eyes rest and receive, and then just don't
Speaker 1: move your eyes, but begin to open awareness up so
Speaker 1: that your peripheral vision starts to follow. Don't strain, but
Speaker 1: take your time and breathe in and smile. Look up
Speaker 1: so you get a little endorphins and you get this safety,
Speaker 1: which is when you're looking up, your brain is saying
Speaker 1: it's safe. Open your awareness up, and when it gets
Speaker 1: to the side, just let somehow your awareness continue around
Speaker 1: to the sides in which sound is coming going, and
Speaker 1: then just somehow it feels like awareness continues around three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty degrees, So you feel like you've opened
Speaker 1: your view and then you're aware as this open field
Speaker 1: of awareness that's equally inside and out. And from this
Speaker 1: open awareness, and now when you focus on something like
Speaker 1: your breath, you're not using attention, you're using local awareness,
Speaker 1: which just kind of makes it light up from the
Speaker 1: field you're aware. It feels like you're aware from this
Speaker 1: open field of awareness and bodied awareness. And then your
Speaker 1: breath just it's actually you almost feel like you're aware
Speaker 1: from all around and from your stomach. When you're aware
Speaker 1: of your breath, you're not you don't have to establish
Speaker 1: this intentional, dualistic point of view. And that's kind of
Speaker 1: the mystical. It's what Maslow is called the peaks. Well
Speaker 1: he is, yeah, let's let's let's start. Let's start linking
Speaker 1: a bunch of this to Maslow, but not just Maslow,
Speaker 1: but also dare I say Kaufman, because I have I
Speaker 1: have new stuff? I have new stuff? No, but uh,
Speaker 1: there's a quote from Maslow. He says, I think of
Speaker 1: the self actualizing man not as an ordinary man with
Speaker 1: something added, but rather as the ordinary man with nothing
Speaker 1: taken away, as you're talking. It seems like this is
Speaker 1: very much in line with his way of thinking about
Speaker 1: self actualization. As again, I keep going back to, it's like,
Speaker 1: not transcendence, It's like it's descendants, descendants, ascendants or inclusion
Speaker 1: or yeah, waking in rather than waking up. Waking in, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: at tuning in, tuning into it. But but also also unlearning.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, yeah, I'm learning that secondary process thinking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if that's you, well, even Freud would have liked this
Speaker 1: ship he had evenly hovering attention. H yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, primary secondary thought process thought thinking. This is
Speaker 1: tertiary process, is what I call so awake. Yeah, awareness
Speaker 1: is tertiary process. Knowing. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: I like that, I really do like that. So let's
Speaker 1: link this to the Plateau state of consciousness, because this
Speaker 1: is what Maso this was. This was an unfinished symphony. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that I've been trying to uh to, you know,
Speaker 1: take the baton and move forward. I love it. So
Speaker 1: you a as Ronnie talked a lot about this state
Speaker 1: of consciousness. Now many people have not heard of you
Speaker 1: a as Ronnie, but I think he's an East Indian
Speaker 1: mystic have you ever encountered him? Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of him? I've heard of him, I've I remember reading
Speaker 1: him at one point, but I don't never study them
Speaker 1: or Yeah, he's not as you know, as popular, as
Speaker 1: well known as but but Maslow was very captivated by
Speaker 1: his writings on the Plateau Experience, and so he co
Speaker 1: opted he co opted that term. And I have I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd love to share the letters between the two where
Speaker 1: whereas he sends as Ronnie his papers on the Plateaux Experience,
Speaker 1: and I was rann to give him like forty point
Speaker 1: you know, point by point critique and and and and
Speaker 1: and and it's just beautif it's beautiful, uh, you know
Speaker 1: dialogue that they had about this that just in letters.
Speaker 1: But this this state of consciousness is you know, being
Speaker 1: able to see the miraculous in the every day and
Speaker 1: to kind of he said, it's like lounging in heaven,
Speaker 1: not getting so excited about it. Right, that's right, it's
Speaker 1: heaving on earth. Yeah, as if having it, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's as if you're you're with you're not getting
Speaker 1: rid of anything. So pleasant and unpleasant experiences are just
Speaker 1: the human experience. And it's it becomes not about what's here,
Speaker 1: but what it's arising to. So what it's arising too
Speaker 1: is what's is what changes. So nothing needs to be
Speaker 1: gotten rid of or taken away, right, It's just you're
Speaker 1: shift shifting your view. And this ties in so much
Speaker 1: with you know, all my research on openness to experiences
Speaker 1: you know, and and the person you know. It's a
Speaker 1: personality trait, but it's also a state. And and this
Speaker 1: this notion of uh Masow called it newness of appreciation, right,
Speaker 1: being able to have gratitude for what you see it
Speaker 1: over and over again every single day, and constantly awakening
Speaker 1: to the newness of that. It seems like all this
Speaker 1: is just so strongly tied to. Here might take on
Speaker 1: the plateau. How the peak and the plateau different are
Speaker 1: different because a peak experience is almost like it's happening
Speaker 1: to you, so it's almost like a high. It could
Speaker 1: be drug induced, it could be love induced through sex,
Speaker 1: or through intense state of nature. But the plateau means
Speaker 1: that the ground of being or you've discovered the essential
Speaker 1: self that has its own natural qualities that can't be perturbed.
Speaker 1: So it's no longer it's not a state. It's not
Speaker 1: even a trait, it's a stage, or it's actually even
Speaker 1: more of an identity, like your essential identity that's been
Speaker 1: revealed that you're now awhere from. So first it would
Speaker 1: peak through pe e k as you know, as a
Speaker 1: kind of a moment, but then you realize, oh, it's
Speaker 1: just in the background, it's already installed, but it's covered
Speaker 1: over by this fast moving you know, constellation of consciousness,
Speaker 1: ego centeredness, uh, secondary process functioning. And then as soon
Speaker 1: as that relaxes, nothing needs to be gotten rid of.
Speaker 1: It just comes forward and it's background becomes foreground and
Speaker 1: then becomes all ground. I love it, and it's the
Speaker 1: only thing that's tripping me up here is is you
Speaker 1: still you still use the word identity, like the identity
Speaker 1: What does a dentity mean in that context? Because Maslow
Speaker 1: thought transcendence was a big part of transcending identity. You know,
Speaker 1: this is kind of one of the more important things
Speaker 1: where normal psychology Maslow, meditative consciousness, and nondual theory can
Speaker 1: all meet. So you know, so the normal psychology is
Speaker 1: either that there's an ego or a small center of
Speaker 1: self and that you're trying to make it healthy, a
Speaker 1: healthy ego, and you know you're you're getting your you
Speaker 1: want work and love and functional, you know, good life
Speaker 1: that's not overwhelmed by emotion and that you know lives
Speaker 1: in society. And then but then the smarter you get,
Speaker 1: the more neurotic, or the more anxious or the more uptight,
Speaker 1: or you end up in a role, you end up
Speaker 1: kind of shutting yourself. Well, hello, they're nice to see you.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm very successful. You know,
Speaker 1: like you get caught in some either a tight role
Speaker 1: or too loose. You're either too much energy and you're anxious,
Speaker 1: or you've repressed too much and you're depressed. Because the
Speaker 1: small ego identity can't really handle a fully intimate human life.
Speaker 1: It's always kind of shutting the battery down or becoming
Speaker 1: a workaholic, or it can't it's self referencing so much.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel bliss or pleasure because it's you know,
Speaker 1: can't get what it wants because it thinks it's out there,
Speaker 1: so it goes to addiction or you know, something like that.
Speaker 1: So self transcendence is an attempt to say, okay, the
Speaker 1: problem is this limited sense of identity. Okay, it's not
Speaker 1: what you're feeling, it's who's feeling it. So whether it's
Speaker 1: Maslow or Buddhism. So the first schools of Buddhism say,
Speaker 1: you know, we're going to deconstruct it, and we're going
Speaker 1: to look and see that it actually isn't there's no itself.
Speaker 1: There's just thoughts, feelings, sensations coming and going. But then
Speaker 1: they don't say what else there is, So you end
Speaker 1: up sitting in a monastery watching your thoughts because or
Speaker 1: your kid, yourself, because once you get off the cushion,
Speaker 1: you have a calmer ego. But so that what Tibetan
Speaker 1: Buddhism and this North Indian Mahamudra says is Okay, there's
Speaker 1: the small self, then there's the no self, then there's
Speaker 1: the true nature. So there is an operating system that
Speaker 1: isn't the small self, but it's not just the absence
Speaker 1: that it has. Actually it relieves suffering and it reveals
Speaker 1: natural positive qualities. So that's the system that I'm working with.
Speaker 1: So even the way I do it myself and the
Speaker 1: way I teach my students is let's not spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time deconstructing or in the transitional, no self
Speaker 1: or selflessness, step out and then into that which is,
Speaker 1: wakes back in and is interconnected and feel that now
Speaker 1: include your emotions or anything else or chattering mind, and
Speaker 1: what do you notice? And so the key, the key
Speaker 1: for me is in self transcendence or self inclusion is
Speaker 1: you've got to have definition of what there is besides
Speaker 1: the small self. Otherwise you end up just making them
Speaker 1: qualities of the small self. Oh there's more joy, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's more awe, or there's more Oh, now I have more?
Speaker 1: Well who does Oh is it that small self? No,
Speaker 1: I've transcended that. Well, then who are you? Or where
Speaker 1: are you? Or what are you? Oh? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I transcend it. I don't know, you know. So the
Speaker 1: the Tibetan system is willing to say there is this
Speaker 1: nature of mind, this true nature that does have a
Speaker 1: feeling that's spacious, pervasive, interconnected, and when you feel like
Speaker 1: you feel like, oh this is me, this includes everything
Speaker 1: and nothing's threatening. And yet I'm in a unique individual
Speaker 1: and I'm connected to everyone and that's that's who I am.
Speaker 1: That's essentially who I am. And then I have imperfect
Speaker 1: stuff that's still coming up from childhood or from you know,
Speaker 1: just not knowing stuff or whatever emotions you know are
Speaker 1: happening based on who you are. But there's a new
Speaker 1: operating system rather than just the absence of the old.
Speaker 1: But what's the identity there? What is the identity of
Speaker 1: that operating system. So one of the metaphors is you
Speaker 1: are a wave in the ocean of reality. So there's
Speaker 1: a very unique individual here, but I'm connected through the
Speaker 1: ocean to everyone and everything, So I'm essentially it's like
Speaker 1: a sallable out of four. Perhaps yeah, but you're you're
Speaker 1: not an individual sailboat that can sing. You're But that's
Speaker 1: the key is that you feel like you're this unique
Speaker 1: creation that has an expression and a shine and a
Speaker 1: sparkle to it. But it's not either or that's the key.
Speaker 1: It's not it's like, oh, am I somebody? Or am
Speaker 1: I nobody? It's like, no, you're You are an individual,
Speaker 1: but you're not separate. So the word, the word emptiness,
Speaker 1: which is often misunderstood or kind of defined in a
Speaker 1: limited way in Buddhism. People say, oh, emptiness means you're
Speaker 1: there's no self, so you're empty. So it's like a void.
Speaker 1: But what the word means is that you're empty of
Speaker 1: a separate self nature. So it means that a tree
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a tree in itself without water, sun, earth,
Speaker 1: an air. So a tree is empty of being a
Speaker 1: separate self. Therefore it's interdependent. Therefore emptiness means interconnected. Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: well this is well, this is this is this is
Speaker 1: this is very very very simp relevant to the way
Speaker 1: I even define self transcendence as more horizontal than vertical,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's definitely how I've been thinking about it. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I call healthy transcendence at the very least.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of spiritual narcissism going around these days.
Speaker 1: I wrote an article about that as well. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of this I'm enlightened in You're not effect in
Speaker 1: psychology that can happen when Sullen has a certain amount
Speaker 1: of hours of practice, they start to think, well, well,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing I'm more awake than you are. You know.
Speaker 1: But first, the first premise is everyone's already awake, it's
Speaker 1: just we don't know it. So it's like a game
Speaker 1: of hide and seek. Yeah, so the awaken awakenesses are
Speaker 1: essential nature, and it's just covered over and so there's
Speaker 1: you're not doing anything. If you happen to you know,
Speaker 1: the awakeness happens to peak through and become more essential.
Speaker 1: You didn't do anything, You're not as special, You're just
Speaker 1: you know, say come on, let's play hide and seek,
Speaker 1: come on out. So that's the feeling is like come
Speaker 1: on in the pool, the water's great, let's go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's there's so much part of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm hearing you and I'm saying, uh, this makes complete sense.
Speaker 1: But then there's also the individual difference. As psychologist in
Speaker 1: me that's trying to see how we can integrate the
Speaker 1: idea that people's essential nature do differ from one person
Speaker 1: to a next in terms of their genetic temperament, in
Speaker 1: terms of their talents, in terms of their back life background,
Speaker 1: their experiences, their memories. So you know, where does that
Speaker 1: come into the fold? You know, I do think there's
Speaker 1: a domean generality, but also a demean specificity. There's there
Speaker 1: there are things that make us unique, there are things
Speaker 1: that we can tap into that uh, we tap into
Speaker 1: universal nature for sure as well. I think there's perhaps both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely those It's not either or it's always both and
Speaker 1: you know, I mean so part of you know, that
Speaker 1: sense of what is the root of suffering, what's the
Speaker 1: existential root is is not realizing your plateau or your peak,
Speaker 1: or your sense of universal nature that's here, it's like here,
Speaker 1: not it's not universal like whoa you know, like right,
Speaker 1: it's it's this, it's this this universal that's particular. And
Speaker 1: then and that's a particular person is just you know,
Speaker 1: they're just who they are. And and then there's you know,
Speaker 1: things you know to learn and to grow and and
Speaker 1: to develop that needs psychological help too, that can really
Speaker 1: be helpful. I gotcha, luck, I gotcha. I think we
Speaker 1: should end our conversation today on this note, but with
Speaker 1: a caveat of to be continued, because this is a
Speaker 1: really elucidating for me. I I I really, I think
Speaker 1: I get it, and I see its relevance to a
Speaker 1: lot of things. I'm gonna my brain is going to
Speaker 1: be bringing. I know that I'm probably not going to
Speaker 1: sleep tonight because I'll be thinking about it, which which
Speaker 1: is the you know, which is not the state that
Speaker 1: you're referring to. So I need to maybe do your
Speaker 1: guided meditation to get to bed. But no, I get it.
Speaker 1: I get it, but but I also am a nerd
Speaker 1: and I and I also do like to to to
Speaker 1: think deeply about things, even in an effort full way
Speaker 1: sometimes uh and uh. I think that the key here
Speaker 1: is is to be able to have the capacity to
Speaker 1: tap into those the beauty and riches of this, uh,
Speaker 1: of this pure being that we're talking about, and also
Speaker 1: know when maybe it's not the most appropriate time in
Speaker 1: one's life to tap into that, where to tap into
Speaker 1: being and then do from being. You know, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. You start to do from being and then
Speaker 1: everything you know becomes like that. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you bumble along at certain things, you're that's so good
Speaker 1: at it. But it's it's better than beating yourself up,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. I mean, like I said, my brain,
Speaker 1: my head really is brimming. I'm thinking about lots of things.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about. Uh. You know, you said you apply
Speaker 1: this in your psychotherapy practice. And I'm trying to compare
Speaker 1: and contrast this versus like the c B the CBT approach.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe maybe maybe CBT is just going about
Speaker 1: it all wrong. It's like the opposite, It's it's going
Speaker 1: down a different alley. It's going down the Yeah. Yeah, different,
Speaker 1: it's different. It's different, and it's in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: I think it's more in line with Stephen Hayes and
Speaker 1: his approach and acceptance and commitment therapy and and and
Speaker 1: maybe even some of Steven's critiques, you know, if you
Speaker 1: ever get a chance to listen to him on my podcast,
Speaker 1: because he uh critiques CBT a little bit as a
Speaker 1: little too in your head, a little too cognitive and
Speaker 1: and saying like, well, why do you have to wait
Speaker 1: to change you know, your thoughts and all this when
Speaker 1: you can just tap into what's already there. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's in a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: ways similar to some of what you're saying. So look, look,
Speaker 1: I I just really appreciate you coming a podcast today,
Speaker 1: and like I said, to be continued, because you brought
Speaker 1: up a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I think we're on the we're on the same you know,
Speaker 1: adventure together, and I think we can we can help
Speaker 1: each other and and bring a lot of this languaging
Speaker 1: together of our different experiences. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Great,
Speaker 1: Thanks Lock, all right, thanks so much, Scott. Great to
Speaker 1: see you. Thanks for listening to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way
Speaker 1: to something you heard, I encourage you to join in
Speaker 1: the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, if you'd prefer a completely
Speaker 1: ad free experience, you can join us at Patreon dot
Speaker 1: com slash psych Podcast. Thanks for being such a great
Speaker 1: supporter of the show, and tune in next time for
Speaker 1: more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.