WEBVTT - The Great Escape 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.320 Welcome to the stuff of life. I'm your host, Julie Douglas, 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.080 who hasn't at one time or another wanted to duck out, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.280 flip through a portal, or just drift off for a while, 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:20.120 especially in a world that delivers new atrocities each day, 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.759 not to mention the personal battles we wage with ourselves 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:28.920 every time we blink open our eyes into consciousness. Maybe 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:32.280 you've experienced that feeling that you're stuck in the storyline 0:00:32.320 --> 0:00:39.040 you've created for yourself. So if you could escape, unravel 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.160 the tethers that bind you to the anxieties and concerns 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.479 that plague day to day existence. Would you shape shift 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.680 into another species, becoming a different animal it's this kind 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:54.720 of slightly childish dream. Or would you fully embrace your 0:00:54.840 --> 0:01:00.880 human existence warts and all, allowing yourself to just our 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:04.280 minds are not as claustrophobic and screwed up as we 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:07.639 tend to think when we start um. I mean we 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:10.000 we certainly may have plenty of issues to work on, 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:16.560 but there's a larger picture. Or maybe you'd just like 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:29.400 to escape by laughing your ass off. In this episode, 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.080 we explore how we manage the thorny business of life. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.520 Some of us look to mindfulness and embrace our thoughts good, bad, ugly, 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.520 as does Chris Winger of Shambala Meditation Center of Atlanta. 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.120 Some of us fine peace and raucous peals of laughter, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:49.160 like Lorie Sugarman and Debbie Ellis, and some of us 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:56.240 turned to the animal world. The feel of the project 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:00.920 was about trying to kind of achieved sort of freedom, 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.880 just like to escape and kind of gallop, you know, 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:09.359 across across the kind of green Alps and just sort of, 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:23.280 you know, escape kind of accumulation of like work and 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.400 kind of relationships and family just kind of seemed to 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.840 gang up. And He's like, oh God, and sod it. 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.919 So let's become an animal. It's just escape, escape this 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:40.639 and become a goat. That's designer and author of Goatman. 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:44.320 How I took a holiday from being human Thomas Thwaite's 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.240 He once built a toaster from scratch and documented it 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.280 kind of to my dismay. Discovered the inside this object, 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:54.480 which I bought for just kind of three pounds, like 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.760 less than ten bucks. There were kind of four hundreds 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.640 different bits making up this thing. If you really go 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:06.560 down and take everything apart subcomponents, sub subcomponents, and at 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.680 that time, I hadn't yet realized that I was going 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:10.639 to spend the rest of my life making a toaster. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.640 Coming off his toaster project, he found that he was 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.200 in a slump. He had woven a story around himself 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.520 and he couldn't figure out how to get out of it. 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:24.639 That is, until he looked into the eyes of a 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.680 dog he was pet sitting and found his next portal 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.959 to walk through dogs just so kind of happy and 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.240 it's content and you know, just sort of interested in 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:41.840 the world. And yeah, and I, you know, looking looking 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:46.520 at this much, I just sort of thought, yeah, it's um, 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:49.200 you know, it's not a bad life. For dog's life. 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.400 It's this sort of thought that I think you have 0:03:52.600 --> 0:04:01.320 when you're a child. I can remember thinking when I was, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.120 you know, a child and being you know, having to 0:04:04.160 --> 0:04:06.880 go off to school and you know, in the cold, 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:11.240 and looking at our sort of family cat just sort 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:15.800 of reclining on the sofa and just thinking, oh God, 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:22.880 I'm saying, Janus, I was being a cat. I can't 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:24.960 remember how old I was, really, but for some reason, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.599 I just decided to like each part of this house 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.400 plant without using my hands, and it was kind of 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.160 a big, kind of bushy house plant, and it was 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:38.920 kind of like a very interesting experience. It's just sort 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:41.480 of tugging at the kind of the funds of the 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.800 like leaves and sort of just cheering them up like 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:52.320 a sort of cow or indeed goat or anything. I guess. Yeah, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.840 that sort of early childhood's dream kind of came back 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:02.479 and hit me in my of adult life, and rather 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:07.240 than just kind of dismissing it, I actually started to think, actually, 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:11.440 that's kind of interesting. You know, if your courds sort 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.920 of become a different animal from while these sort of experience, 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:29.880 what it might be like. Initially, when Thomas applied for 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.440 a grant from the Welcome Trust to fund his human 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.400 to Animal project, his proposal was for him to become 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:40.520 an elephant, but there were serious logistical problems. First, he'd 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.160 have to bring in an external power source to move 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:48.320 about in an enormous exoskeleton. And second, elephants are socially 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:51.919 similar to humans, and being human was what Thomas yearned 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:56.880 to take a holiday from. I ended up going to 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:03.280 see a shaman to ask what animal I should you know, 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:10.760 try and become um? And yeah, and the Shaman told 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:12.960 me that I should you know, I was an idiot. 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.760 Of course I was an idiot for considering that to 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.039 become the eliphon um, and of course I should be 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.640 trying to become a goat um. So yeah, and I 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:33.480 think she was right. Actually, I think that Shaman was 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.200 very focused on this idea that you have to kind 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.359 of know the animal and the only way and you know, 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:45.640 part of knowing the animal was kind of knowing, you know, 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:53.279 being familiar with the environment. So you're probably wondering how 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.159 all this went down. Here are the basics. Thomas decided 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.280 to make his way to the Swiss Alps after mating 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.680 season for reasons I trust you can suss out for yourself, 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:06.479 which meant he to have a short window between fall 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.480 and winter to arrange his transformation into a goat. He's 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:15.280 set to work on goat body prototypes, eventually scrapping those 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.480 and replacing them with prosthetics for his hands and feet, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:22.320 which lengthened his arms and legs, pitching six of his 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.520 body forward, just as a goats would, except in this 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:28.440 case it looked as though he was wearing wedge shoes. 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:31.840 In his book, he describes the look as quote, a 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.320 cross dresser at the back and post World War two 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:38.880 amputee patient in the front. His mom made him a 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.239 waterproof jacket and he finished the ensemble with a chess 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:45.280 protector and a helmet, just in case any goats decided 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:50.080 to head butt them. It was okay when I was 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.400 like testing it out, just kind of clumping around my 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:55.720 flat in London, you know, But it's a whole different 0:07:56.120 --> 0:08:00.640 kettle of fish when you're pitched forwards, heading head first 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:05.600 down a mountain um kind of accompanied by like a 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:18.800 herd of like fifty sort of excited goats. What this 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.720 project about becoming an animal is really getting at is 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:35.719 this desire to experience the world from something else's perspective, 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:41.920 because we're all completely trapped inside our own brain and 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.960 our own perception of the world. And so what I'm 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:51.880 trying to do is to try and kind of get 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:58.720 outside of myself and try and experience the world from 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:08.480 a completely different perspective. I'm doing five million years of 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.000 human evolution to assume the anatomy of a quadrupede was 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.280 more than a little painful, not to mention terrifying, while 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:19.800 trying to navigate slippery rocks there's just now you're getting 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:24.400 around the fact that goats have evolved to springing across 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:31.280 rocky mountain side and humans have evolved to kind of 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:36.560 carry shopping bags. So if you think no big deal, 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.600 I could do that, consider that Thomas also committed to 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:43.320 eating like a goat, so lots and lots of grass. 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.000 But how to break down all that cellulose without his 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.120 own handy room in which is a kind of second 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:54.640 stomach that goats use. First he looked into a fecal 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.640 transplant from a goat, essentially infusing his gut bacteria with 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.840 goat feces to promote similar digestion, but he quickly realized 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.880 that prospect was rife with unknowns. Then he explored the 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.720 idea of breaking down the plant material by mixing it 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:15.240 with industrial grade purified cellulose enzyme, But the company that 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.720 initially supplied him with a small quantity got wind of 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.160 his intentions and shut off his supply, urging him to 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.360 immediately dispose of it. So he settled on chewing up 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:29.760 the grass, spitting it into an external pouch, and then 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:33.040 breaking it down in a pressure cooker, adding an acid 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:38.080 hydrolysis to create a leafy stew. You're definitely like in 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:44.160 nature when you're kind of eating grass, like, you know, 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:48.920 just going down and paring a big clump of JC 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.840 fresh sweet green grass with your teeth and chewing it up. 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:59.520 It's a nice experience. Yeah, I'd recommend it, Oh when 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:02.280 I should all so tell you that Thomas didn't neglect 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.480 the mental aspects of becoming a goat. In fact, he 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:10.319 sought out something called transcranial magnetic stimulation of his frontal lobes. 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:16.960 I thought, could I use this technique to induce lesions 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.000 in the parts of my brain that kind of made 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:24.480 me different from a goat? And so I emailed James 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:31.560 Devline at University College London. He uses TMS in his research, 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:37.120 and yeah asked him, could you make me feel more 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:42.719 like a goat? He said, well, you know, he said no, 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.520 but I could. You can come in and we can 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.400 sort of at least try and switch off your ability 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:55.240 to vocalize using TMS. And so that's what we did. 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.480 And while Thomas wasn't able to replicate this particular mental state, 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.600 he was able to dip into it without the aid 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.760 of super strong magnets. I kind of was very much 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.080 just kind of in the moment, But then there were 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.640 times when I just couldn't help my human sense of shame, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.600 maybe shaven embarrassment, kind of coming to the four or 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.240 like you know, the times when okay, it's sort of 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:30.040 the end of the day or something, and you're tired 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:36.520 and starting to rain and start getting a little bit cold, 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.480 and suddenly you know, it just doesn't seem that fun anymore, 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:45.439 and you know that there's a place, you know, the 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.200 place with like a nice hot fire and all that 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:55.079 kind of stuff. So how close did Thomas get to 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.840 becoming a goat? Probably kind of later than you might expect, 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:06.640 realized that becoming a goat is actually impossible, um at 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:11.040 the moment at least, But I think I've got close, 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.800 maybe as close as anyone has ever got. Um. I 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.360 don't know. I mean, there could be In fact, I'm 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:24.280 sure there's somebody out there maybe lives in the wild 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:27.800 with the goats all the time. But yeah, I think 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.880 I I don't know, it's hard to say. How can 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.680 you how can you put a sort of percentage on, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.240 you know, how close you've got to transforming into a gate. 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:48.720 What Thomas did was extraordinary, But the impulse to do 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.240 so is more ordinary than we think. It's actually an 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:58.080 ancient human dream of ours. You don't have to look 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.160 very far to kind of find that kind of repeated 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.360 idea of taking on characteristics of animals. Um you know, 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.240 through history. You know, you like all the hundreds of 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.240 kind of Greek myths where there's you know, this kind 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:19.880 of human animal kind of transformation, and you would find 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:23.880 this kind of transformation taking place, and the sort of 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:28.240 you know, the earliest kind of cave paintings, cave art, 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:41.320 you know, half human, half kind of beef. It's no 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.920 surprise that we humans read a sense of liberation into animals. 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.120 After all, they can do things we can't, like gallop 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.200 over the alps, or, in the case of the Tibetan 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:58.240 wind horse, gallop into the infinite. In the Buddhist teaching, 0:14:58.360 --> 0:15:02.640 windhorse is the fundamental energy of basic goodness, a kind 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.360 of reality available to everyone. We're not talking goody two 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.880 shoe or Pollyannic goodness here, but a strength and integrity 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.960 found in many forms, from a walk in nature to 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:19.360 a genuine conversation with someone. Nobody possesses a nobody controls that. 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.920 It's very dynamic, but it's Uh, it's available to help 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.600 us with our lives. Uh, and so there are various 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:34.160 ways we tap into it. I'm Chris Singer, and i 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:39.120 am director of Practice and Education for the Shinbala Center 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:45.320 of Atlanta. It seems to me when people come in 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.480 the door a lot of times, what's maybe top of 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:51.120 mind is a couple of questions. One would be what 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:56.160 does meditation have to offer me? And number two, percolating 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.040 beneath that, which people may or may not be aware of, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.760 is why do I do with my fear? What do 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.120 I do with my pain? What do I do with 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.200 my loneliness? Um? Depending what they're going through, that may 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.240 be quite an urgent question for them at that time. 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.560 Shambala's aim isn't to create a utopia, nor do they 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.520 have a political agenda. Rather, it's about something more basic 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:29.080 and integral to our existence. We're we're of Adriana Buddhist 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:34.520 community that is offering the wisdom I guess of ancient 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:41.080 lineages in a way that is meant to benefit larger society. 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:46.520 And we grow out of two particular lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:52.400 the Kagyu and the Nyingma, which is what chogm Trupam Bache, 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.040 who is the founder of Shambala International, trained in as 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:06.399 a young uh Tolco and Tibet. There's a sort of 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:14.080 fundamental wisdom that humans have already. Um, obviously we we uh, 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:16.560 we missed that. A lot we get out of touch, 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:18.560 and there's a lot of injustice in the world, a 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:23.480 lot of horrible things that happened. But still there is 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:28.280 a lot of wisdom at the root of our human 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:32.000 nature and of human society. If there weren't, we probably 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.040 wouldn't even be in a room together able to talk 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:39.639 to each other. Connecting with that fundamental wisdom means that 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.439 you have to be willing to sit with yourself, to 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.440 be alone with your thoughts. And for anyone who's ever 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.479 sat down to meditate for more than thirty seconds, well 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.440 you know how hard it can be, especially when you're 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:55.720 after the holy grail of mindfulness, waiting for nothingness or 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:59.879 maybe even enlightenment to wash over you. It's really tempted, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:05.880 ng Um to try and approach meditation as a way 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.159 of kind of creating a certain level of consciousness or 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:17.040 tapping into it or whatever. Um. Honestly, my experience is 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.560 probably just best not to let that go. Uh, just 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:26.320 not even worry about that, because otherwise what you're doing 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.359 is you're kind of grasping at your experience or grasping 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:34.879 at some aspect of your experience, and h this style 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:39.080 of meditation, which is called shamata peaceful abiding is basically 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:47.520 opening to whatever is arising, and peaceful abiding people hear 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.480 that and they think, oh, okay, well I'm gonna create 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:54.080 a peaceful state. And actually, I think what's more pertinent 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.800 for people is the peace has to do with not struggling, 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:03.119 not going to war with yourself whatever comes up, so 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:08.040 that when you realize that your tents, you acknowledge that 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:13.040 very honestly, um, and you hold that and there's some 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.960 curiosity about it without exactly trying to figure it out, 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.040 just sort of an open intelligence that's directed towards it, 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:23.200 and some warmth particularly you know it's probably going to 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:28.560 be uncomfortable, and just some kind of genuine warmth towards 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:33.520 that sense of uncomfortable tension. And just holding that without 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:37.119 trying to diagnose, get rid of, solve, or find some 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:44.679 other sort of thing, and asking ourselves not to solve something, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.760 to just let it be is a mentally herculean task. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:51.240 We like to fix whatever it is and move on. 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.280 But even the idea that we could do that is 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.080 an illusion, a story we tell ourselves in the moment 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.720 to make ourselves feel better. Really nothing is ever solved, 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:05.159 because this meditation is about not kind of creating a 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:07.959 special place or a special level of consciousness, but it's 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:12.800 sort of like how can we inhabit our life more fully, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.239 more sanely. And of course we all have challenges, you know, 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:22.040 we come from different sorts of backgrounds and sets of conditions, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:26.640 and within that we can make a relationship with whatever 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.280 all that stuff is rather than fighting against it, rather 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.920 than denying it. We can make a relationship with our tension, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.359 our anxiety, our loneliness, our fear. That's really pretty much 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.439 where actually all of us have to start. And um, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.360 we can make a relationship with that of friendliness and 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:51.679 openness and curiosity. And that does take a lot of 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:55.359 courage to be willing to do that, because we would 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.040 like to think that that's all going to just disappear. Uh. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.000 And while meditation and does definitely have some benefits, those 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.200 benefits really come from being willing to kind of relax 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.080 with those things, be with those things without fighting against 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.120 him without because that's what really piles on the suffering, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:26.199 is when we're struggling against things like that. Constantly sitting 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:28.680 down and letting your thoughts come and go without judgment 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:32.600 takes courage and trust at bottom, is because we really 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:37.080 don't trust ourselves. And that's one thing Trumper Impochet said 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:42.239 to his students again and again is trust yourself. You 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:44.880 know you can trust yourself. You actually have a lot 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:49.479 of wisdom, you have a lot of goodness, a lot 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.560 of warmth. You know you can trust yourself. And of 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:55.840 course you know where people will make mistakes. We may 0:21:55.880 --> 0:22:01.240 make horrible mistakes, but um, but the we cannot really 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:07.680 fundamentally damage uh the sort of ground, the basic goodness 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.920 of our being that that's always there, always available to us, 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:17.520 always uh um, waiting for us so to speak to, 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:21.320 to connect with. But in opening up the space to 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:23.800 do that, we're also opening up to space to see 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:26.240 the play of our habitual patterns, some of which have 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:34.080 tormented us for a very long time. Chris also points 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:37.639 out another teaching one about the confusion that can arise 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.600 when you sit with your thoughts. Now, no one enjoys 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.439 confusion because you're grappling with uncertainty and the unknown. But 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:48.080 as Chris says, it's a condition for wisdom. Confusion is 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:52.000 useful for bracketing off a space for insight into what's 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:56.560 at the bottom of your anxiety and fear. The three 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.680 qualities that are really important to carry when you meditate 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:10.199 or in your life altogether, our gentleness, curiosity, and bravery. 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:15.120 That's what really makes it all possible to move forward. 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:20.400 And it's really quite a powerful process. It's it's not 0:23:20.880 --> 0:23:23.960 the sort of thing that's going to sort of solve 0:23:24.000 --> 0:23:26.320 all your problems in the next couple of weeks, or 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.200 you'll still have plenty of ups and downs, but there's 0:23:30.240 --> 0:23:34.080 this sense that life really is not only worth living, 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:42.679 but just remarkably rich and remarkably wonderful, which brings us 0:23:42.720 --> 0:23:45.840 back to the windhorse idea that we could enter the 0:23:45.960 --> 0:23:49.679 vastness beyond the fog of our own thoughts. And the 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:54.480 traditional image and in Buddhist teaching is that in fact, 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:58.359 our our minds, our beings are like the sky, and 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:01.359 what's going on is the weather, is the storms, and 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:03.479 all of that. We tend to be very fixated on 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:07.000 that all of that stuff and we forget that actually 0:24:07.040 --> 0:24:10.240 there is this vastness, this vast quality to our being, 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.040 which is open and fathomless. But when we sort of 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:21.240 relax into it, there's a sense of tremendous expansion and 0:24:21.440 --> 0:24:37.280 wealth and relaxation that is available for some people entering 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:41.840 that vastness takes another route to that end. Debbie Ellis 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:46.360 and Lori Sugarman host the Southern Fried Laughter Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. 0:24:49.200 --> 0:24:53.760 There's laughter yoga, storytelling workshops, dancing, and sometimes kazoos make 0:24:53.800 --> 0:25:02.560 an appearance. I think we we're actually laughter yoga leaders. UM. 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:07.600 Laughter yoga started dor and Hindia dr Modern Qataria Um 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:09.959 when he saw the benefits of laughter, so he decided 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:13.399 to start this this this movement he and it's spread 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:16.200 all over the world. Um. It's now in like sixty 0:25:16.680 --> 0:25:21.040 countries and uh sixty people are doing it around the world. 0:25:21.080 --> 0:25:24.440 It's just been amazing. And it starts on the premise 0:25:24.520 --> 0:25:27.680 that if you don't feel like laughing initially, you just 0:25:28.080 --> 0:25:30.679 go ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, because your 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:33.360 brain doesn't know whether you're faking it or whether it's genuine. 0:25:33.520 --> 0:25:35.440 And of course when you're with other people, we all 0:25:35.480 --> 0:25:40.600 know how contagious lefter laughter is. To be clear, this 0:25:40.680 --> 0:25:45.720 is not a jokey conference. We do silly exercises um 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:47.920 to make people laugh. We don't use humor. We don't 0:25:47.920 --> 0:25:49.920 talk jokes or anything like that's not based on humor 0:25:50.040 --> 0:25:52.520 at all, because humor comes from your brain. And we're 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:55.320 trying to teach people to be childlike and play front 0:25:55.359 --> 0:25:57.679 with their bodies from their bodies, and so we do 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:03.639 silly exercises like, uh, would you like to see a demonstration? Okay, 0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:05.800 so we pretending like we're making milkshake, and then we 0:26:05.840 --> 0:26:07.600 pretend like we're drinking it. We laughed, so it looks 0:26:07.640 --> 0:26:15.280 like this. So we do lots of the theories of 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:27.399 silly acts. For Debbie, laughter yoga came to her in 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:31.560 an unexpected way. Yeah, Debbie had a lifelong desire to laugh. 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:35.719 She came out of the womb laughing. No, I didn't. 0:26:43.480 --> 0:26:46.080 I was working with a piece of human rights organization. 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:49.920 We were working with inmates, and we decided to take 0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:53.480 the training. One day, the director called me and said, 0:26:53.480 --> 0:26:55.440 we're gonna take the laughter yoga training because we're gonna 0:26:55.440 --> 0:26:58.720 take laughter into the prisons. And that's why I started 0:26:58.760 --> 0:27:01.320 doing it and now I I just love it so much. 0:27:01.440 --> 0:27:05.440 Is like my life's passing, helping spread joy in the world. 0:27:14.240 --> 0:27:17.119 You may not think of laughter as explicitly therapeutic, but 0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:21.480 consider what's happening at the physiological level. First, your brain 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:25.040 hears or see something funny, accused muscle function and emotion. 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:28.240 Then the body deals with the dual tasks of laughing 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:30.879 and breathing at the same time, and your heart pumps 0:27:30.880 --> 0:27:34.320 faster to replace the oxygen that your mouth expels. And 0:27:34.359 --> 0:27:36.919 though your face and stomach muscles engage, the rest of 0:27:36.960 --> 0:27:40.080 your muscles weakened taking a break while the energy hog 0:27:40.119 --> 0:27:44.160 of laughter siphons off the body's resources, the stress hormone 0:27:44.200 --> 0:27:47.160 cortisol takes a brief holiday, and at the same time 0:27:47.320 --> 0:27:50.520 endorphins release. In other words, a hearty laugh can take 0:27:50.560 --> 0:27:53.960 you to a brief yet altered state in seventy five 0:27:54.080 --> 0:28:03.160 milliseconds or less, and you move into a state where 0:28:03.160 --> 0:28:10.360 you're just laughing hysterically. Um. You know, there's just nothing 0:28:10.440 --> 0:28:13.480 like it. Um. Because of this sense of joyfulness and 0:28:13.560 --> 0:28:17.560 to me, spirituality, whether you call your spirit God, whether 0:28:17.640 --> 0:28:20.600 you call it the divine, whether you call it higher energy, 0:28:20.680 --> 0:28:24.280 whatever you you call that, that force or that field 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:28.919 that's bigger and outside of us. UM. Whenever you feel 0:28:29.000 --> 0:28:35.560 this sense of incredible joyfulness and and happiness, UM, no 0:28:35.600 --> 0:28:38.360 matter who you directed to, who are what you directed to, 0:28:38.560 --> 0:28:42.360 whether it's in prayer, whether it's in meditation, whether it's 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:46.720 laughing with someone and you're connecting as from human to human. 0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:51.560 I think that, Um. You know that's incredibly spiritual. Yes, 0:28:51.680 --> 0:28:55.760 it's like being in an enlightened state. It's an enlightened state, 0:28:56.000 --> 0:28:59.000 like a higher consciousness, because it takes you to the joy, 0:28:59.240 --> 0:29:25.040 the joy rapture. If humans were paintings from far away, 0:29:25.080 --> 0:29:28.480 you might perceive a cohesive, finished image, but if you 0:29:28.520 --> 0:29:31.200 could see under the layers of paint, your eyes would 0:29:31.200 --> 0:29:35.480 trace the wrecked early sketches beneath the erasial lines, the 0:29:35.600 --> 0:29:38.880 day the entire image was blotted out and black paint, 0:29:39.320 --> 0:29:42.160 and the day the painting was started anew That we 0:29:42.240 --> 0:29:45.120 are works in progress is given, but that we could 0:29:45.160 --> 0:29:49.680 ever appear as something completely finished and perfected is pure illusion. 0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:53.520 So maybe it's not so much escape that we yearned for, 0:29:53.680 --> 0:29:57.680 but to tap into the untamed and boundless, those early 0:29:57.760 --> 0:30:04.600 sketches of ourselves that exist outside of time, To be 0:30:04.640 --> 0:30:08.280 a goat a breath on the wind, I'll laugh. Released 0:30:08.320 --> 0:30:10.640 into the wild, to be more than the pain and 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:14.640 suffering we endure, more than the war we wage against 0:30:14.640 --> 0:30:17.600 each other, more than the loops of thought that run 0:30:17.720 --> 0:30:32.720 over and over again in our minds. The Stuff of 0:30:32.760 --> 0:30:35.640