Speaker 1: What is going to make one different than for you?
Speaker 1: The path to create in the life you want for
Speaker 1: yourself is paved with smaller steps, and you might think,
Speaker 1: in fact, the key to making impactful, lasting change is
Speaker 1: through small, doable steps taking in an environment with the
Speaker 1: right support and know how. In the one You Feed
Speaker 1: Personal Transformation Program, I work one on one with people
Speaker 1: to build healthy habits and achieve their goals through apply
Speaker 1: to behavior science. For example, Barb started working with me
Speaker 1: at a time when she knew she needed some additional
Speaker 1: support in her life. Primarily it was the need for
Speaker 1: additional sort of support, and scaffolding is a word that
Speaker 1: I use, particularly during the pandemic when my normal resources
Speaker 1: were less available and everything felt harder, compounded by my
Speaker 1: mother passing away right before the pandemic as well. It
Speaker 1: was a time when I needed extra support and support
Speaker 1: was available due to our physical distancing and socializlation. All
Speaker 1: that even I'm just a big believer and turning to
Speaker 1: expertise and I needed some help and I thought that
Speaker 1: Eric could provide it. Barb's focus was on bringing mindfulness
Speaker 1: and a daily meditation practice back into her life, and
Speaker 1: we were also working on helping her address a pattern
Speaker 1: of emotional eating. Yeah, the experience was positive, and the
Speaker 1: incremental approach to reintroducing mindfulness and to behavior change in
Speaker 1: general was almost surprisingly effective and rewarding. It was like
Speaker 1: something makes sense, but then to really do it, you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this actually worked. Like let's start with I think it
Speaker 1: was like three minutes, and I was like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can do that. That feels good. Okay, let's go to
Speaker 1: five minutes, you know. And so this very incremental baby
Speaker 1: steps approach really paid off and I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, this this is great and it was nice
Speaker 1: to have some wins. So when I say positive, that's
Speaker 1: what I mean. It was a sense of like building
Speaker 1: on wins and building a sense of maybe confidence through
Speaker 1: seeing results, sort of like cheerleading confidence, but like, oh
Speaker 1: if I did this for three minutes and I can
Speaker 1: do it for five, I've been doing it. Now I'm
Speaker 1: doing it for ten minutes a right not, you know,
Speaker 1: And so sort of building on crement gains was very
Speaker 1: positive for me. With the right support and the right approach,
Speaker 1: your life can radically transform for the better. That's where
Speaker 1: I can help as a behavior coach. To book a
Speaker 1: free no pressure thirty minute call with me to see
Speaker 1: if the program is right for you. Go to Eric
Speaker 1: Zimmer dot coach slash application. As a bonus if we
Speaker 1: decide that we're a good fit to work together. If
Speaker 1: you sign up before January thirty one, I will include
Speaker 1: two additional coaching sessions at no additional cost to you.
Speaker 1: The new year is a busy time in my coaching
Speaker 1: spots fill up fast, so if you're interested, don't wait
Speaker 1: to look into the program to see if it's right
Speaker 1: for you. That's Eric Zimmer dot coach slash application and
Speaker 1: I hope to talk with you soon. Our fear of
Speaker 1: what's weird about us or what's incongruent in us, we
Speaker 1: all have those aspects, and the more we can bring
Speaker 1: them to light and get to the end of the
Speaker 1: book and be like, yeah, I have a monstrous part.
Speaker 1: I have feelings that are monstrous. Everyone does because they're
Speaker 1: just human. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have,
Speaker 1: quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Sensi Cotion.
Speaker 1: Paley Allison, a Zen teacher and co founder with his
Speaker 1: partner Robert Chodo Campbell of the New York Zen Center
Speaker 1: for Contemplative Care. Today, Coach and Paley and Eric discuss
Speaker 1: his new book Wholehearted, Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up.
Speaker 1: Hi Cotion, Welcome to the show. Delightful to see you, Eric. Yes,
Speaker 1: we are recording this again after you and I had
Speaker 1: a wonderful conversation. I don't know a couple of months
Speaker 1: ago that due to sound quality issues, we're having to redo.
Speaker 1: So I am happy to get to spend another hour
Speaker 1: with you, but I am sorry that we lost that conversation.
Speaker 1: But let's start like we always do with the pair double.
Speaker 1: There's a grandfather talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather.
Speaker 1: He says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. I
Speaker 1: feel that it's about learning how to drop down into
Speaker 1: the softness of my experience so that I can actually
Speaker 1: wonder about what am I doing, and in order to
Speaker 1: do that, to drop down into what I call it
Speaker 1: my horror, which is from our traditions. Then, and it's
Speaker 1: really about really getting curious about the feelings that are
Speaker 1: rising and the thoughts that are connecting to those particular feelings,
Speaker 1: and then how the words and then the actions, and
Speaker 1: then that turns into habit and character. And so to me,
Speaker 1: it's about really learning how to not feed the wolf
Speaker 1: of greed and resentment and ignorance. Is to really just
Speaker 1: keep coming back to the softness, coming back to the tenderness,
Speaker 1: coming back to curiosity and of equanimity, and so that
Speaker 1: I can be really curious about, like, wow, when I
Speaker 1: leap out and start feeding what is unskillful, what is harmful,
Speaker 1: what is divisive? I can come back and say, oh, oh,
Speaker 1: I did that, and I can take responsibility for that
Speaker 1: and beginning. Yeah, that's really a beautiful idea. And I
Speaker 1: think it's that dropping into the softness that can be challenging, right,
Speaker 1: It is being able to descend a couple of layers
Speaker 1: deeper into our experience. So do you think that's just
Speaker 1: a matter of practice? Learning to do that more skillfully
Speaker 1: and more readily, and even remembering to do it is
Speaker 1: often the hardest part. Remembering is everything you know and
Speaker 1: in many ways, yeah, it's difficult. But you know, for
Speaker 1: forty thousand years, Homo sapiens and embonking people over the
Speaker 1: head because there were different in different ways. And so
Speaker 1: the against the stream teachings of the Buddha or are
Speaker 1: this amazing capacity that? Yes, going against the stream takes
Speaker 1: lots of effort, and to not do the habitual thing
Speaker 1: and react. It takes lots of effort and that it
Speaker 1: can be hard. And I love the image and zen
Speaker 1: of the you know, going against the stream is like
Speaker 1: that them and swimming up dream swimming against the current
Speaker 1: of our minds and our habits and are lineage of
Speaker 1: forty thousand years and you know, leaping up as the
Speaker 1: image comes from China the Yellow River and getting to
Speaker 1: the dragon gate and flinging your whole body up through
Speaker 1: the dragon gate and transforming into a dragon. I love
Speaker 1: the dragon image. Let's bring back the wolf image for
Speaker 1: a second, because there's a wonderful story in your latest book,
Speaker 1: which is called Wholehearted, Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up,
Speaker 1: which is a great book and it's going to inform
Speaker 1: a lot of what we talked about here. But you
Speaker 1: tell a great story about you being on a bus
Speaker 1: at the age of eighteen, and it involves wolves. So
Speaker 1: I thought, hey, it's a great story and be it's
Speaker 1: got wolves in it, can't leave it alone. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: I was a seeker and really love Buddhism, and I
Speaker 1: was really I did about the path and was traveling
Speaker 1: around and as a young person excited about being on
Speaker 1: different retreats and learning and engaged. And I was on
Speaker 1: a bus and this woman, this cool woman, sits next
Speaker 1: to me and she's asking me like, oh, are you
Speaker 1: a Buddhist? And I was so excited that she was
Speaker 1: like and I said, yes, I'm a Buddhist because I
Speaker 1: felt excited I was recognized as a Buddhist. I thought
Speaker 1: that was cool and like, I think I had some
Speaker 1: Malla beads on and you know, so like and she said, oh, so,
Speaker 1: who is your teacher? And I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't have a teacher. I studied with Jack Cornfield and
Speaker 1: Joseph Goldstein and Gaelic Rimpochet and John Dido Loori and
Speaker 1: all these different people. As she said, well, where is
Speaker 1: your song? Where is your community? And I said no,
Speaker 1: I don't have one. She's like, oh, so you're a
Speaker 1: lone wolf and I said yeah. I thought that was
Speaker 1: so cool because she saw that I'm like this lone
Speaker 1: wolf and that's such a great image for many people
Speaker 1: in our culture, being the lone wolf. And she said, well,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about wolves, lone wolves are is that
Speaker 1: they're sick. And I remember thinking, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. It's kind of like being in like
Speaker 1: a lash in the face of cold water, just like,
Speaker 1: my goodness, what am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: as she so rightly pointed out, if you see a
Speaker 1: wolf by itself, there's something wrong with it, something has
Speaker 1: gone wrong. It's not supposed to be alone. I love
Speaker 1: that story because, like you, at that younger age, I
Speaker 1: would have been proud to be identified as first by all.
Speaker 1: They notice I'm a Buddhist, or they notice I'm this,
Speaker 1: or they notice I'm a punk rocker or whatever. It
Speaker 1: was so much identity at that age. I think I
Speaker 1: would have taken the lone wolf moniker is a good
Speaker 1: thing for a long time out of years. I would
Speaker 1: have been like, yeah, that's me, lone wolf baby. And
Speaker 1: now seeing like, oh yeah, that's not really such a
Speaker 1: great idea. How long did it take you to find
Speaker 1: your way into community? And soenga. Not long after that,
Speaker 1: I felt pierced by that comment, and in a way
Speaker 1: that it's kind of feels liberating in a way like
Speaker 1: really hurt, and it was really true, and and I
Speaker 1: realized that I had been running in many ways and
Speaker 1: was sick like that I really did want to connect.
Speaker 1: I really did one community I really did want to
Speaker 1: immerse myself in the teachings and go deep, you know,
Speaker 1: not just kind of stay on the horizontal, but really
Speaker 1: learn how to dive deeper and to really get curious.
Speaker 1: And so it was shortly after that that I just
Speaker 1: went back to John Didalori and started really practicing with him,
Speaker 1: and it was really you know, so I was around
Speaker 1: eighteen when I started sitting in the monastery, which is
Speaker 1: so amazing. Around that time they had their first city place,
Speaker 1: which was in the building now where our center is.
Speaker 1: It was a bit different floor, and so I just
Speaker 1: started practicing here and really starting to steep into the practice.
Speaker 1: And I would say it took still a long time
Speaker 1: for me to move away from my real habits of preferences,
Speaker 1: like I didn't like certain things. I was always going
Speaker 1: in and saying like, well, the community could be better
Speaker 1: if feel in the play right, you know, or if
Speaker 1: we tried this, or what don't we you know, and
Speaker 1: send might be more palatable if I had like a
Speaker 1: lot of those kinds of things right, which is perfectly normal.
Speaker 1: We all have them right. And yet you know, as
Speaker 1: the wonderful zen palm begins, you know, the great way
Speaker 1: it's not difficult for those who don't claim to preferences.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite lines. I love that one also,
Speaker 1: and that at the same time, we certainly don't want
Speaker 1: to cling to our preferences, but we have them, and
Speaker 1: we also have opinions which we don't want to cling to,
Speaker 1: and yet we have them. And there is a certain
Speaker 1: field or way of working in the world in which
Speaker 1: those opinions are important. And so talk me through your
Speaker 1: process of working with that, because I think it's very
Speaker 1: easy to go preferences. I just shouldn't have any. I
Speaker 1: start trying that, and I'm immediately like I have one
Speaker 1: every second. And some of them seem like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: would be a really good improvement for the Zen Center,
Speaker 1: Like maybe if they did do that, that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a bad idea. It might actually make things better. And
Speaker 1: yet those preferences also really lock us and they keep
Speaker 1: us from connection with ourselves with others with deeper reality.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about working with those skillfully. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the key part is not clinging to the preference.
Speaker 1: So it's like when I think I'm right, you know,
Speaker 1: we see this in the political climate that we're in,
Speaker 1: you know, that all over the world, not just in
Speaker 1: this country, you know, all over the world, this kind
Speaker 1: of rising of surreness, and when we at least in myself,
Speaker 1: really noticing my attitude towards the unknown, and you know,
Speaker 1: for myself, I'm thinking about my own development with this
Speaker 1: experience of working with preferences. You know, when I was
Speaker 1: a kid and I felt unsafe a lot of the
Speaker 1: time and really didn't know how to not just run
Speaker 1: until I was about a leven, you know, and I
Speaker 1: felt very afraid for actually very real reasons. There was
Speaker 1: all kinds of abusive things happening in my home and
Speaker 1: and some of the communities I lived in a plot
Speaker 1: of violence, and so the feeling of unsafety was real,
Speaker 1: but I carried it around with me everywhere. It started
Speaker 1: to become an identity that, you know, I was in
Speaker 1: the supermarket and would feel unsafe, when actually the unsafe
Speaker 1: experiences were in very specific So they started to become
Speaker 1: very general experiences, which is very common with trauma, you know,
Speaker 1: with any different kinds of trauma. We start to radiate
Speaker 1: out that experience. It's almost like an aura of experience,
Speaker 1: like oh my god, I'm a victim or around that
Speaker 1: time these two movies came out. And this is like,
Speaker 1: you know, shows that I'm an older person because the
Speaker 1: first Star Wars movie came out, the first Karate movie
Speaker 1: came and those two movies had such a deep impression
Speaker 1: on me because I really saw that, wow, you could
Speaker 1: have a teacher. And I was so captivated by how
Speaker 1: whiney Luke Skywalker was. He was always like right right,
Speaker 1: you know, like I don't want to do that. It's hard,
Speaker 1: you know. He was always complaining and actually related to him,
Speaker 1: you know, and just felt like that myself too, like
Speaker 1: he felt kind of put upon, and the same with
Speaker 1: the Karate kid, you know, like he was just you know,
Speaker 1: whacked around. And yet these people both found these teachers
Speaker 1: who was not someone from a school, but someone who
Speaker 1: was like in their life and that they encountered. And
Speaker 1: so I decided to find myself a teacher, and you know,
Speaker 1: as a young gay kid, and I got bullied and
Speaker 1: in the of course, the way it worked out was
Speaker 1: the school bully was actually at my bus stops. So
Speaker 1: every morning it was like running the gauntlet, you know,
Speaker 1: like oh god, you know, like having to wait for
Speaker 1: the bus, you know, with me and the school bully,
Speaker 1: but I started going to the local strip malls. Grew
Speaker 1: up in the suburbs, and so like what you have
Speaker 1: are a lot of strip malls. And in the back
Speaker 1: of one of the strip malls was this the wash
Speaker 1: and Roue Karate School. And the teacher there was named
Speaker 1: sense A White, and he was like very tough and
Speaker 1: very serious, and it was really dingy. It was like
Speaker 1: an a basement, kind of swampy like and down there
Speaker 1: and smell really rank, and had this kind of like
Speaker 1: fake wood floor and we would sit on the wood
Speaker 1: floor and say so, which is when you have your
Speaker 1: legs underneath you, and so you're just kind of sitting there,
Speaker 1: which for people grew up in you know, places like
Speaker 1: where I've trained in Japan, like that's very comfortable, but
Speaker 1: for most of us who grew up here, it's like
Speaker 1: not so comfortable. And it was so painful on this
Speaker 1: wood floor. And we would sit like that for twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: And what I didn't understand at the time, as he
Speaker 1: was teaching us as ozen, which is you know, seated
Speaker 1: zen meditation, and so he said, you have to sit
Speaker 1: and be still with your pain or you'll never be free,
Speaker 1: and that teaching was so important to me and remains
Speaker 1: so important to me because it was the first time
Speaker 1: when I, you know, they of preferences that I began
Speaker 1: to see and then just amazed, like who knows how
Speaker 1: you can understand these things? Like even at eleven years old,
Speaker 1: I was starting to untangle the beginning of seeing my preferences,
Speaker 1: particularly around the identity of being a victim, that I
Speaker 1: felt like that's who I was. And suddenly after going there,
Speaker 1: would go there six seven days a week and just
Speaker 1: like always showing up and it was not really like
Speaker 1: a kid karate school, so I was like this little
Speaker 1: and uh of all these adults who are like pretty rough,
Speaker 1: you know, and I just loved it. It felt scary
Speaker 1: and stinky and important. Somehow it felt important. It felt
Speaker 1: like I was learning how to be a superhero, you know,
Speaker 1: or like a Jedi night you know, like that you
Speaker 1: were just going through this training and it became this
Speaker 1: real place of refuge for me and where I started
Speaker 1: to distinguish my preferences about freedom and actually learning how
Speaker 1: to practice freedom. And again I don't think I could
Speaker 1: have explained it in that way as a kid, of course,
Speaker 1: but now looking back on it, I'm really seeing that
Speaker 1: how that experience forever changed me and maybe saved me
Speaker 1: from a very difficult life. That's a powerful story of
Speaker 1: a really important teaching at a really early age, and
Speaker 1: it's amazing, like, who can understand how that happened? Right?
Speaker 1: But it did, you know? And that's the amazing thing
Speaker 1: to me, the mystery of it all could be open
Speaker 1: to their unfolding mystery. I was much more the Han
Speaker 1: Solo identifier. About the time that all started coming out.
Speaker 1: I was already always in trouble, you know. I was
Speaker 1: a kleptomaniacs. Was like he's a smuggler, you know, and
Speaker 1: just that disdain for anything meaningful, like yeah, whatever, kid,
Speaker 1: And I think I carried that for a long time,
Speaker 1: although I think underneath it there was always something deeper moving.
Speaker 1: In the book, you talk a lot about being open.
Speaker 1: Two things you you started off kind of saying that
Speaker 1: by you know, dropping down and really being open to
Speaker 1: what's happening. And a term that you use a lot.
Speaker 1: You use this several times, which is being receptive is
Speaker 1: essentially being open to learning from everything. And you've referenced
Speaker 1: this a little bit. We're right in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know when we'll release this, so I don't
Speaker 1: know what the world will look like then. But today
Speaker 1: we are two days after the election. We are in
Speaker 1: very uncertain times, and there's a lot of divisiveness. As
Speaker 1: you said, now most listeners of this show, not all,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are going to share my
Speaker 1: political leanings towards not Trump. I'm assuming that's probably your
Speaker 1: political leanings, such as they are. How do we work
Speaker 1: with this divisiveness in healthy ways? Because as much as
Speaker 1: I see who's in office, you know, okay, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a problem. The policy, Yeah that's a problem. More deeply,
Speaker 1: I see the deep divisiveness and what feels like this
Speaker 1: big rift and even if, as a lot of people
Speaker 1: I think wisely point out, we might even be that
Speaker 1: far apart on a lot of the issues, if we
Speaker 1: could even get there, But how do we start to
Speaker 1: heal this divisiveness because some of the things that were
Speaker 1: divided on feel like deeply moral issues. I don't know
Speaker 1: how we do it, but I can tell you remember
Speaker 1: as a teenager, we had lots of friends of our family,
Speaker 1: like dear people who had thought of his uncle's like Jane.
Speaker 1: One of them was named Jerry and that was Michael
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, and before they even had
Speaker 1: a name for it, they were dying of AIDS and
Speaker 1: it was the beginning of that pandemic. And I remember
Speaker 1: so much anger towards the government and the lack of
Speaker 1: care and the lack I think it was Reagan perhaps
Speaker 1: in an office at that time. And my parents were
Speaker 1: socially engaged, and so we would go to protests and
Speaker 1: things like that at and but my dad also was
Speaker 1: a big fan of ram Das and so we used
Speaker 1: to go see Ramdas whenever he would come around. And
Speaker 1: I remember him. It must have been around I don't know,
Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen or so, and we went to see ram
Speaker 1: Das and round us, you know, had his little table
Speaker 1: there and there was a picture of Reagan and his
Speaker 1: Guru on the table and he said, until I see
Speaker 1: them as equal, I won't be free. And it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Someone sent me this like it's a trump Buddhist statue.
Speaker 1: Is what it really is? Yea, And that says on
Speaker 1: the bottom, imagine m hm. And so like every day
Speaker 1: I go, I kissed him and I feel like I
Speaker 1: learned that from Ramdas And I think that there's something
Speaker 1: really important about not splitting off the darkness in ourselves
Speaker 1: into someone else. And I feel like that's what's happening
Speaker 1: in this time and actually throughout time, and it's nothing
Speaker 1: actually special about this time. We read history like it
Speaker 1: just there's waves of fit and then it goes away,
Speaker 1: then it comes back, and when we're in trouble, and
Speaker 1: certainly ecologically and a lot of other reasons were in
Speaker 1: trouble COVID nineteen, we're in a pandemic even before this
Speaker 1: of social isolation. When there's that kind of trouble, people
Speaker 1: look and this happens every you know, at least every
Speaker 1: seventy years. There's this big cycles of this of kind
Speaker 1: of totalitarian splitting because people are afraid, and they all
Speaker 1: want to feel good and they want to feel safe,
Speaker 1: and they want to feel secure, and they want to
Speaker 1: feel happy, and most people are looking for someone to
Speaker 1: tell them how it's going to be and whose fault
Speaker 1: it is, you know, blamed seems to be a popular thing.
Speaker 1: And so to me, learning how to rest in ourselves
Speaker 1: and to realize that yes, I have that in me
Speaker 1: to blame, to point fingers, you know, it's your fault
Speaker 1: it's your fault. And who has not gone through a
Speaker 1: day feeling that? And so for me, my work is
Speaker 1: to really bring that into myself and to really realize that,
Speaker 1: you know, how I'm racist, homophobic, how those things are real, misogynist, time, transphobic,
Speaker 1: like all of these things like that are really coming
Speaker 1: to light at this time, and to really reckon with
Speaker 1: that and say, yes, that's also me, that's also me.
Speaker 1: Trump is also me throughout time, you know. And then
Speaker 1: we chant this verse of atonement where we say all
Speaker 1: evil karma are committed by me since of old, on
Speaker 1: account of my beginningless greed, resentment and delusion born of
Speaker 1: my body mouth, and thought, now I a toned for
Speaker 1: it all, like every day we say that and really
Speaker 1: learning how to mean it and just realize, yes, throughout time,
Speaker 1: since the beginning of time, like Tyrannosaurus Rex, like eating
Speaker 1: a little dinosaur, like we're responsible for that and we're
Speaker 1: part of that. And and some people say like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's too much, and I said, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: For me, it really looks to how I can build
Speaker 1: a bridge of compassion. I feel like we're in that
Speaker 1: upswing of this kind of polarization where there's no bridge,
Speaker 1: you know. I keep looking at the map, you know there,
Speaker 1: as many people do, and as right during elections, and
Speaker 1: it's red and blue and red, and like what's be
Speaker 1: red and what's going to be blue? And a lot
Speaker 1: of feelings about that, and how do we like to
Speaker 1: me what I've been imagining? It's like what would purple
Speaker 1: look like? How do we come together? You know, across difference?
Speaker 1: You know, as we were talking about earlier than for
Speaker 1: forty years, we've been bonking people over the head because
Speaker 1: they were different. And whether we're like we're bonking people
Speaker 1: over the head for peace or bonking them over the
Speaker 1: head for a capitalism, it doesn't matter. We are responsible
Speaker 1: for our actions, what we're putting into the world. And
Speaker 1: I really have no interest doesn't mean not good at it,
Speaker 1: you know, feeding that as you're talking about the wolves
Speaker 1: in the beginning, like beeing the wolf of separation, like
Speaker 1: like who needs more of that? And that's a hard
Speaker 1: and deep practice. It's everything intellectually and even experientially, and
Speaker 1: cases I totally agree with that. I get the like
Speaker 1: hate was never dispelled by hate, Like, oh I'm hating
Speaker 1: you because I see you hating other people. Like, wow,
Speaker 1: that this doesn't make any sense. And yet in these
Speaker 1: moments when we see certain things occur, boy, is it
Speaker 1: a deep practice for me not to see myself as
Speaker 1: being fundamentally different? You know, you look at it and
Speaker 1: you go on the surface, it looks like the values
Speaker 1: are so different here, and and I think what I
Speaker 1: hear you saying is we've got to keep similar to
Speaker 1: where you started, keep dropping deeper. Yeah. I have a preference,
Speaker 1: of course, you know. And yet if I cling to
Speaker 1: that preference, because the reality is, whatever happens, other people
Speaker 1: are listening to this conversation will know what happened, perhaps,
Speaker 1: I hope so, although I guess we never really know
Speaker 1: what happened because things just go on and on. Stories
Speaker 1: never end, They don't exactly. And but I think that
Speaker 1: what's so important is that how do you want to live?
Speaker 1: And no matter what happens, that bridge of compassion still
Speaker 1: needs to happen. So there's still you know, one side
Speaker 1: has like seventy million votes, right, a lot of votes,
Speaker 1: and the other side is like sixty eight nine million votes.
Speaker 1: Those are like big groups of people that need to
Speaker 1: figure out some way to come together. I mean, the
Speaker 1: divide has always been there and how do we each
Speaker 1: take that responsibility. To me, it's like the juiciest, most
Speaker 1: interesting work, and so to me in a way, I do,
Speaker 1: of course have a preference of what happens and who
Speaker 1: might be the winner, but I I still feel like
Speaker 1: the work is the same, and it's one way it
Speaker 1: appears will be year, but the work is still there
Speaker 1: to do. And I feel like that's you see this
Speaker 1: happening across the globe. It's not an American issue, and
Speaker 1: it's not you know, some people's it's about the current
Speaker 1: President's not about that either, you know, I dinna talk
Speaker 1: about this Karmak cause and effect pattern that has been
Speaker 1: around for millennium and we have to atone for it
Speaker 1: and just realize, here it is again, and what are
Speaker 1: we going to do about it? Right? I just got
Speaker 1: done doing a virtual retreat with zen peacemakers to Auschowitz,
Speaker 1: which is normally a retreat that is done in person,
Speaker 1: and it was done virtually this time. But it's a
Speaker 1: really powerful practice. And you start talking about these totalitarian
Speaker 1: cycles and you look at it and you're like, oh boy.
Speaker 1: You know, and I've been asking myself the question a
Speaker 1: lot lately, what was the proper response of the average
Speaker 1: German person, because I consider myself just an average person,
Speaker 1: of the average German person in nineteen say thirty eight,
Speaker 1: what was the proper skillful response. And on one hand,
Speaker 1: you go, well, it matters and it doesn't matter, and
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is, of course it matters
Speaker 1: in that person's life and the people around them. And
Speaker 1: on the other hand, you go, well, maybe it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter in the grand outcome of what happened there. But
Speaker 1: you know, at these I'm just finding these are really deep,
Speaker 1: powerful questions right now because we look at where that
Speaker 1: hatred and totalitarianism can go. And you can't even put
Speaker 1: it into words how horrific. I used to go on
Speaker 1: those retreats with Bernie and very powerful, you know. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I experienced going on those
Speaker 1: retreats was that, you know, I went there. You know,
Speaker 1: my family, extended family were killed by their neighbors before
Speaker 1: the Nazis came because they felt like, oh, like we
Speaker 1: could you know, get rid of that and take all
Speaker 1: their stuff. But literally their neighbors they're rounded up in
Speaker 1: one group, We're rounded up in a barn and set
Speaker 1: on fire, and you know, my other extended family and
Speaker 1: great grandparents. You know, we're fleeing you know, different places,
Speaker 1: and it happens everywhere, and you know, and these are
Speaker 1: four different countries. And so I think that the habit
Speaker 1: of destruction and it starts with what we do with
Speaker 1: what we're feeling. Right, we started to feel afraid and
Speaker 1: then the fear gets attached to a thought. I mean,
Speaker 1: Dogan laid all of this out, the founder of the
Speaker 1: soto Zen School. You know, the feeling turns into a thought,
Speaker 1: and the thought becomes words, and the words become actions,
Speaker 1: and actions become habit. Habit becomes your character. So we
Speaker 1: have this incredible opportunity to, like a really pay attention,
Speaker 1: be intimate and curious and soft and be like, oh man,
Speaker 1: I can feel that wolf. Wow, you know, like that
Speaker 1: like the monster. You know, there's a book that I
Speaker 1: loved as a kid and it's called I Think the Monster.
Speaker 1: At the end of the book, do you know that book.
Speaker 1: It's a great book and it's like a deep, dharmic
Speaker 1: truth book and it starts Grover from Sesame Street and
Speaker 1: he's like in the front page, he's like, don't turn
Speaker 1: the page. There's a monster and then to the book,
Speaker 1: don't turn the page, and he's like the whole book
Speaker 1: saying don't turn the page. He's like trying to like
Speaker 1: bricks up the page. He tries to tie the page.
Speaker 1: He's like trying to he keeps telling you not to
Speaker 1: turn the page because there's a monster. And of course
Speaker 1: at the end of the book it's Grover is the monster,
Speaker 1: and he's like, oh, and so many times like our fear.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's quite a sophisticated book in many ways,
Speaker 1: you know, and our fear about what's weird about us
Speaker 1: or what's incongruent in us. We all have those aspects.
Speaker 1: And the more we can bring them to light and
Speaker 1: get to the end of the book and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a monstrous part. I have feelings that are monstrous.
Speaker 1: Everyone does because they're just human, you know. The feelings
Speaker 1: of disgust and rage are universal feelings, you know, and
Speaker 1: part of like the seven universal feelings that exist in
Speaker 1: every single culture, and so how do we reckon with that?
Speaker 1: To me, actually, the more I get in touch with
Speaker 1: those feelings and myself and the more I say yes,
Speaker 1: that's me too, I feel, the more free I am.
Speaker 1: And it kind of brings me right back to sense
Speaker 1: A White in that dingy karate school and saying that
Speaker 1: if you can be still in your pain, you can
Speaker 1: be free. But if we're running from that monster at
Speaker 1: the end of the book, will never be free. From
Speaker 1: your perspective, is that the primary role of practice, or
Speaker 1: let me say that a different way is one of
Speaker 1: the best ways to improve that ability to be with
Speaker 1: what we feel typically cultivated through a seated meditation practice,
Speaker 1: or in addition to that, what are the other ways
Speaker 1: that you have cultivated that ability the wonderful question, Well,
Speaker 1: they took me eighteen minutes to get it out in
Speaker 1: my case, Yeah, it's usually more than is needed. But
Speaker 1: I guess no is exactly what is needed, right And
Speaker 1: I think for me the point of practice is actually
Speaker 1: to begin to cultivate unconditional love. You know, I'm really
Speaker 1: lately more and more clear about that, at least for myself,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like it's actually teaches you really what
Speaker 1: love is, which is to love all the things about someone,
Speaker 1: even the things about someone or something or some country,
Speaker 1: even the things that you don't understand or that scare you,
Speaker 1: but that you can be intimate and engage with it,
Speaker 1: and again it doesn't mean spiritual bypassing and just like
Speaker 1: oh whatever is fine, doesn't mean you don't say no,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't mean that you don't work for change.
Speaker 1: But it's about how you are with that. And for me,
Speaker 1: a lot of these things are so easy to say,
Speaker 1: As my teacher often says, it's an easy thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it's it takes everything to do. And for me,
Speaker 1: part of the path is, you know, really have an
Speaker 1: amazing therapist, she's gorgeous her mind and her being in practice,
Speaker 1: you know, and having wonderful friends you know who call
Speaker 1: you on your ship. And I feel like those parts
Speaker 1: are really important. So to have kind of a base
Speaker 1: of support where there's some inquiry and some fun. I
Speaker 1: need to have a little fun and not take ourselves
Speaker 1: so seriously and being kind of too sacrony. And I
Speaker 1: think that the more I can in touch with even
Speaker 1: you know, I have this experience with my sense students,
Speaker 1: you know, like I feel like we get to this
Speaker 1: point where that they finally are like you just appointed me,
Speaker 1: and the boom boom boom, and they get really mad,
Speaker 1: you know, which I always find is like a thrilling
Speaker 1: moment because we do disappoint each other, you know, like
Speaker 1: there's not kind of going back to that kind of
Speaker 1: lone wolf, and that's where a lot of people flee.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh no, this is not perfect, which of
Speaker 1: course nothing is truly perfect, imperfectly perfect, but not perfect.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that was also what was feeling me,
Speaker 1: Like I would just jump around to these different groups
Speaker 1: and like, oh yeah, I don't really like that, or
Speaker 1: it's a little weird or a little culty or whatever
Speaker 1: that is, and to find a good enough group where
Speaker 1: actually I like when people are quite different from each other.
Speaker 1: There's not like one vibe of what a student looks like,
Speaker 1: and I find that to be exciting and enlivening. But
Speaker 1: to learn how to settle down and really learn what
Speaker 1: love is just takes time. And for some people it's
Speaker 1: they're quick learners, and some people like myself, I'm a
Speaker 1: rather dense person. It takes me a long time, and
Speaker 1: so it goes. It's one of the reasons why you know,
Speaker 1: there's two main schools, and and one is Rinzai, which
Speaker 1: is also part of our Mazoomi Roshi lineage, and which
Speaker 1: is kind of values that kind of sudden awakening and
Speaker 1: can show experience and then that experience has approved and
Speaker 1: then you've arrived somewhere in some way. But then Soto School,
Speaker 1: that just feels like it's just about endlessly unfolding, and
Speaker 1: I feel so resonant with that. I was having a
Speaker 1: conversation with somebody. We were using different words than Soto
Speaker 1: and rinse I, but we were using these terms of like,
Speaker 1: is it these big moments of really deep opening, is
Speaker 1: it sudden awareness? Is it just this long path? And
Speaker 1: I said, well, I think honestly the answer is it's both.
Speaker 1: At least for me, they've both been there. There have
Speaker 1: been moments of whether that can show be I think
Speaker 1: that term Ken Show meaning sort of a sudden awakening, right.
Speaker 1: I've had Ken Show moments psychologically for sure, where I'm
Speaker 1: like boom, WHOA hang on a second, like everything is
Speaker 1: different now. I just see things like one light went on.
Speaker 1: And I've had them spiritually, and I've had an awful
Speaker 1: lot of just one foot in front of the other,
Speaker 1: very boring, day after day, moving along. And it's really
Speaker 1: been both. And I'm struck by our first conversation, the
Speaker 1: one that didn't get released. Maybe we should just release
Speaker 1: the low audio quality conversation to our Patreon listeners as
Speaker 1: an extra bonus if you love Cohen that much that
Speaker 1: you're willing to listen to him on low quality sound,
Speaker 1: here it is. It was a great conversation. But one
Speaker 1: thing is we talked about a lot that you just
Speaker 1: touched on and we haven't is good enough community and songa.
Speaker 1: We hit it in the beginning about the lone wolf idea, Well,
Speaker 1: I remained a lone wolf a lot longer than you
Speaker 1: did because I would do the exact same thing. I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh great, this is the thing, and I'd
Speaker 1: start to wade into it. Whether it be a community,
Speaker 1: whether it be a belief system, whether it be a
Speaker 1: Sana church, you name it. I've wandered into a lot
Speaker 1: of them, and I go into a certain point and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden I hit these things that I
Speaker 1: go wait, I don't think that's true, I don't believe that,
Speaker 1: or that seems wrong or and then boom gone, over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over. In the conversation I
Speaker 1: had with you, and listeners have heard this that you
Speaker 1: know not too long ago. You know, several years ago
Speaker 1: I made the decision that I was going to start
Speaker 1: working in Zen. I was going to pick a teacher,
Speaker 1: and it had been the tradition that I was first
Speaker 1: drawn to, the one that I keep getting pulled back to.
Speaker 1: I was going to just pick a teacher, and I
Speaker 1: was just going in staying, and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I gave myself an original six months, which I know
Speaker 1: is laughably short in the spiritual path, but I had
Speaker 1: to give myself a time like for the next six months,
Speaker 1: you can't evaluate this. And it's gone on far longer
Speaker 1: than that, but it's been really valuable for me to go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's things I don't agree with here, Oh that doesn't
Speaker 1: quite make sense. Maybe it will someday, maybe it won't.
Speaker 1: I don't have to accept the whole thing, but I
Speaker 1: can just remain and learn and grow and that there's
Speaker 1: some value in being part of something, even if that
Speaker 1: something is not perfect. I used to do this in
Speaker 1: a a You had to get a sponsor in a right,
Speaker 1: and it was like, you know, in my mind, it
Speaker 1: was like I was looking for the person that I
Speaker 1: was going to become. I had to find that person
Speaker 1: so that I could then just follow them and and
Speaker 1: everybody I find, I'd be like, well, they're not perfect.
Speaker 1: They're not like me in this way, or they're not
Speaker 1: like me in that way, or they're not And I
Speaker 1: finally went like, the only person that's going to be
Speaker 1: the mature version of me is me. Like what I'm
Speaker 1: looking for an impossibility, and in the meantime, I'm missing
Speaker 1: the experience, the relationship, the learning, the wisdom that's available
Speaker 1: there because I'm holding out for some perfect that didn't
Speaker 1: exist exactly. You know, it's just it's not even possible.
Speaker 1: It reminds me so much. One of my favorite stories,
Speaker 1: Da Cornfield tell us about when he was studying with
Speaker 1: Agen Cha and and he said, you know, who's the
Speaker 1: who's that guy over there? Do you know this story? No,
Speaker 1: I don't. Wonderful and here and him, you know, he
Speaker 1: comes around here for a little while, and after a
Speaker 1: while this place inks, and then he goes back to
Speaker 1: Tibet and you know, and goes there for a while
Speaker 1: and starts Tibetan Buddhism. Then after a while that that
Speaker 1: place stinks, and then he goes to Japan and tries
Speaker 1: Zen and after a while that stinks, and then he
Speaker 1: goes back home to America and tries another tradition there
Speaker 1: and then after a while that stinks, and then he
Speaker 1: comes back here again, and he's been doing this for years,
Speaker 1: and Jack said, you know, what's his deal? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: he doesn't realize that he's just carrying around his own
Speaker 1: ship bag. And once he gets somewhere, he puts it down,
Speaker 1: and after a while he starts to smell it, and
Speaker 1: then he blames everybody else, picks up his ship bag
Speaker 1: and goes to the next place, and then puts it down,
Speaker 1: does the same thing. And it's so amazing how we
Speaker 1: do that. You know, it's like a to me, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a grittier version of that. You know what
Speaker 1: John kebots And says. You know, wherever you go, there
Speaker 1: you are. It's just I like this version better. That
Speaker 1: is a great version. I think this is a really
Speaker 1: interesting question though, because on one hand, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to discern when is the smell that's coming from here
Speaker 1: my own ship bag, and when is this not the
Speaker 1: right fit, the right thing for me, the right like
Speaker 1: these are really challenging questions and important questions. I've been
Speaker 1: wrestling with us a little bit as my jazen. It's
Speaker 1: just become difficult all of a sudden, like just plateau flat,
Speaker 1: like what am I doing here? And I find myself
Speaker 1: just suddenly going Maybe what I need is I've never
Speaker 1: really fully explored Hinduism. I think I should chant more.
Speaker 1: I think I need more more musical chanting. Maybe I
Speaker 1: need more body work, Maybe I need more. And it's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing because you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: blindly just go, well, I just keep staying here because
Speaker 1: everybody says that's what I should do. And yet I
Speaker 1: don't want to jump around. I want to trust my intuition.
Speaker 1: I just you know, these are things that I know
Speaker 1: I wrestle with in lots of listeners wrestle with I
Speaker 1: think anybody in a spiritual tradition does. But you've managed
Speaker 1: to sort of say this place feels like home long enough.
Speaker 1: How has that played out for you? Well? I think originally,
Speaker 1: you know, I needed a strong containers and my first
Speaker 1: teachers were very strong about liturgy and form, and that
Speaker 1: was really important to me and really stays with me.
Speaker 1: And you know, for the last almost ten years, you know,
Speaker 1: working with this teacher who really her teaching truly is
Speaker 1: about unconditional love, and she's you know, a successor of
Speaker 1: Peter Mathison, as she comes from that line of folks.
Speaker 1: But it's just also this like real focus and clarity.
Speaker 1: So for me, it's been following. I've been always felt
Speaker 1: very connected to Dogan and very connected to my Assumi
Speaker 1: Roshi's lineage, and in particular my Assumi Roshi, you know,
Speaker 1: who was a deeply imperfect, perfect person and you know,
Speaker 1: I had, you know, lots of scandal and I met
Speaker 1: him after all those scandals, and I was so amazed
Speaker 1: by him insofar as someone could do something that was
Speaker 1: harmful and he took responsibility for it, and there's something
Speaker 1: about the way he was and he said, I would
Speaker 1: never defend what I did. There's no excuse, and it's
Speaker 1: just I was like, wow, I had experienced so much
Speaker 1: perpetration myself, and I had never met someone who had
Speaker 1: perpetrated other people, who was non defensive and took responsibility.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm responsible. Your responsible. That's the end of it,
Speaker 1: you know, totally taking the responsibility. And I feel like
Speaker 1: I want to be like that when I grew up,
Speaker 1: Not that I want to do the things that he did,
Speaker 1: but to have that kind of courage to be able
Speaker 1: to fall down so badly and hurt people, and to
Speaker 1: like fully take responsibility for it. I said, if he
Speaker 1: can do that, I certainly can do that. And I
Speaker 1: felt like wow. So that his lineage has always been
Speaker 1: very important to me because of who he was, in
Speaker 1: particular after his fault, that's when many people left him,
Speaker 1: but I found like, that's the person that was interesting
Speaker 1: to me. It was also what I was so moved by.
Speaker 1: You know, I had this experience of you know, doing
Speaker 1: chaplaincy work with guys and sing sing, and I also
Speaker 1: felt very similar with them, like that they were like
Speaker 1: totally committed and totally serious and totally open and loving,
Speaker 1: and they had done terrible things and they were at
Speaker 1: one with that. To kind of go back to that
Speaker 1: theme that we're talking about tonight too, about atonement, like
Speaker 1: being at one with like, yes, I did that, I'm responsive.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to divide. I'm not going to divide.
Speaker 1: You know, like many people when they do things, they
Speaker 1: don't take any responsibility for it. But for me, as
Speaker 1: someone who has experienced you know, physical and emotional and
Speaker 1: sexual violence and anti Semitic violence, to have people taking
Speaker 1: responsibility felt radical. And to live a life where you
Speaker 1: could really be responsible and also responsible for the division
Speaker 1: that lack of responsibility creates. And I think that's another
Speaker 1: thing about we're talking about this time and all the
Speaker 1: divisiveness and all the polarity. It's like both sides are
Speaker 1: not taking responsibility for the injury of the divide. They're
Speaker 1: just blaming. There's a habit. I'm not saying everyone, but
Speaker 1: like there's a habit in the pattern in the society
Speaker 1: of blaming another instead of like, oh, it's their fault,
Speaker 1: it's the red fault, it's the blue fault. And there
Speaker 1: was this great little thing that I saw the other days.
Speaker 1: One forward to me like it was, what are your
Speaker 1: fears about this election? And they had people on both
Speaker 1: sides of this like talking about like I would leave
Speaker 1: the country. I'm gonna move to Mexico and I moved
Speaker 1: to and like they just clipped it together the way
Speaker 1: they edit it. All the people were saying that they're
Speaker 1: going to leave the country and they were from both sides.
Speaker 1: It was so brilliant and to see that, Wow, like
Speaker 1: that's what we're like, we don't really know how to
Speaker 1: be at one with our own pain. And going back
Speaker 1: to sense a white in the back of the drug
Speaker 1: store in the strip mall. To learn how to be
Speaker 1: with our pain is the place of freedom and how
Speaker 1: do we do that with ourselves as a society, as
Speaker 1: a culture, as a value. To me, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: by that as a potentiality. Well, that is an absolutely
Speaker 1: beautiful place to leave it. I've got a hundred more
Speaker 1: things I'm gonna say, but I'm gonna leave it there.
Speaker 1: You and I, though, are briefly going to talk in
Speaker 1: the post show conversation where you are going to tell
Speaker 1: us a hilarious story about some of your maybe your
Speaker 1: first night as a chaplain and you and your serious
Speaker 1: zen robes and then things sort of devolved from there.
Speaker 1: So you and I are going to do that story
Speaker 1: and some other stuff in the post show conversation. Listeners
Speaker 1: you can get access to that as well as special
Speaker 1: episode I do each week called Teaching Song and a
Speaker 1: poem and all kinds of other good stuff at one
Speaker 1: you feed dot Net slash joint coach, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much for not only coming on well you are
Speaker 1: a guest a long time ago, for coming on a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago and doing the interview and then
Speaker 1: me having to toss it actually doing it yet again.
Speaker 1: Very gracious. Thank you so much. I'm enjoyed to be
Speaker 1: with you. If what you just heard was helpful to you,
Speaker 1: please consider making a monthly donation to support the One
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