Speaker 1: The very thing that we are afraid of is the
Speaker 1: very thing we're liable of replicating. That's what a mythology does.
Speaker 1: That's what a prophecy does. I call it a self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy or self fulfilling mythology. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction. They feed their good wolf.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Dr Miles Neal. He's among the leading voices of the
Speaker 1: current generation of Buddhist teachers and a forerunner in the
Speaker 1: emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy. Miles is a licensed psychotherapist
Speaker 1: in private practice and international speaker and faculty member of
Speaker 1: the Tibet House US and Wild Cornell Medical College. Today,
Speaker 1: Eric and Myles discussed his book Gradual Awakening, the Tibetan
Speaker 1: Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human. Hi Miles, Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Hey Eric, and thanks for having me pleasure
Speaker 1: to be with you. Yeah, it's a real pleasure to
Speaker 1: have you on. We're gonna be talking some about your book,
Speaker 1: Gradual Awakening, the Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human.
Speaker 1: But before we jump into that, let's start like we
Speaker 1: always do with the parable. In the Parable, there's a
Speaker 1: grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and 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 granddaughter stops. She thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second. She looks up at her grandfather and
Speaker 1: she said, 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. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for that is a very powerful story and
Speaker 1: think very fitting way to start any of your conversations,
Speaker 1: which I've been enjoying tremendously on my morning runs going
Speaker 1: through some of the really great, great test speakers that
Speaker 1: you invited. On one thing I'd like to draw our
Speaker 1: attention to the fact is that the question is being
Speaker 1: posed to a young granddaughter, and I just think that,
Speaker 1: you know, one thing that's important to me is that
Speaker 1: in the young mind of undeveloped or perhaps naive mind
Speaker 1: of child, everything appears in very clear, black and white categories.
Speaker 1: There isn't much sophistication. It's the child's mind that is idealized.
Speaker 1: And so one thing I want to just position at
Speaker 1: the outset is that the very question is coming from
Speaker 1: and being answered in a way that is uh, It's
Speaker 1: a motif that is idealized, and to me, it's far
Speaker 1: from the reality of the complexities of human nature. And
Speaker 1: so one of the things that I do in my
Speaker 1: work and one of the things I try to draw
Speaker 1: attention to, though it doesn't end up having much success,
Speaker 1: and certainly false deaf on the ears of contemporary culture.
Speaker 1: So I like to I like to emphasize the underdog,
Speaker 1: the wolf that nobody gives a shit about, what about
Speaker 1: and and so I mean one of the things that
Speaker 1: I just in our culture. If you just look at
Speaker 1: our culture right now with the binary thinking between there's black, white,
Speaker 1: there's good and bad, there's red and blue. It's problematic
Speaker 1: from the outset to have these binary categories because it
Speaker 1: means one is privileged and therefore the other one is sacrificed.
Speaker 1: And at least in terms of psychology, depth analysis, and
Speaker 1: shadow work, if you move through life in these very
Speaker 1: binary and superficial categories, you're bound to run into trouble.
Speaker 1: It may be really worthwhile to the child in us
Speaker 1: to make generalities and uncomplicated answers, but in the reality,
Speaker 1: for those of us that are trying to navigate our
Speaker 1: lives in the world, the greater levels of complexity that
Speaker 1: we can bring to our thinking, the better that we're
Speaker 1: going to deal with reality. And I think we don't
Speaker 1: have to look much further than the general election last
Speaker 1: year and the way that our at least the United
Speaker 1: States is absolutely split among itself into two camps. This represents,
Speaker 1: in my estimation, some very very superficial thinking, and we
Speaker 1: have lost nuance, and we have lost middle ground, and
Speaker 1: everything is categorically us versus them, black versus white, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just find that we're in a very rigid dilemma.
Speaker 1: And we could trace the origin of that to just
Speaker 1: very primitive thinking. There isn't much room for complexity, There's
Speaker 1: no longer much room for nuance. We cannot sit together
Speaker 1: in the same conversation and hold and respect different points
Speaker 1: of view because we are buttressed and divided and marshaling
Speaker 1: tremendous forces to hold our ground around. Really just I
Speaker 1: mean mask no mask, vas, no vas, you know, Trump, Biden,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. The world can't exist in that framework.
Speaker 1: And that's why things are falling apart, and that's why
Speaker 1: there's tremendous forces arising right now that are kind of
Speaker 1: eroding the very fabric that we live in. So that's
Speaker 1: one little spinoff that came to my mind, is just
Speaker 1: how the framework of that at Most people will tend
Speaker 1: to look at the good wolf and the positives, the virtues.
Speaker 1: I think they're incredibly powerful in my own work, and
Speaker 1: especially coming from a Buddhist tradition. We want to celebrate
Speaker 1: virtue as much as we want to cultivate virtue much
Speaker 1: as a smooth we can. But I've also just recognized
Speaker 1: that people that try to just focus on the good
Speaker 1: and don't respect the latentforces in their unconscious that would
Speaker 1: propel them towards lack of virtue, they short change themselves
Speaker 1: and they put themselves at odds with their own psyches.
Speaker 1: And when they do that, we get blindsided, and that
Speaker 1: can be blindsided by trauma, that can be blindsided by
Speaker 1: so many other elements. I really like to use the
Speaker 1: relationship with the wolf that most people don't want to
Speaker 1: deal with that ends up being really important. In order
Speaker 1: to strive for the the virtue, you have to deal
Speaker 1: with vice. You have to include that wolf somehow. You
Speaker 1: have to get closer to the things that you don't
Speaker 1: like in order to free up energies. Listen, I know
Speaker 1: that it's everybody's intention right now. For example, in the
Speaker 1: wellness space, I'm sure you're very well familiar with people
Speaker 1: that are just absolutely killing it with their books and
Speaker 1: programs about optimal health and optimal healing. How do you
Speaker 1: become more productive and how do you how do you
Speaker 1: absolutely take your business to a massive, massive gain. But
Speaker 1: what's not spoken about is that if it were so
Speaker 1: easy as just following a program, everybody would do it.
Speaker 1: What gets in the way is the question that comes
Speaker 1: up in my conversations with people who are trying to succeed,
Speaker 1: trying to win relationships, trying to improve themselves, trying to
Speaker 1: get healthier. If it were as simple as just embracing
Speaker 1: the good and feeding the good, everybody could do it
Speaker 1: and we'd all be well. So it ends up being that,
Speaker 1: at least in psychotherapy and shadow work, it's not sexy. Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll grant you that it doesn't fill the airspace Instagram
Speaker 1: space that well, But I don't give a damn because
Speaker 1: it's it's true to life that most people need to
Speaker 1: actually spend a lot more time with the unsavory elements
Speaker 1: of their psyche in order to actually get closer to
Speaker 1: achieving their goals. Yeah, yeah, it's funny. I often say
Speaker 1: that a lot of my personal philosophy and and what
Speaker 1: I work with and what I teach people is just
Speaker 1: about how not to make things worse. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: sell very well. It's just not that exciting. But if
Speaker 1: you think of how constantly we are capable of making
Speaker 1: things worse in our lives. Just to simply stop that
Speaker 1: process can really be so helpful, to simply not add
Speaker 1: suffering on top of suffering. Yeah, and it, but again
Speaker 1: it assumes that you have the choice to do that,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we don't necessarily have the choice to do that,
Speaker 1: which begs the difference why what's at play and the
Speaker 1: unconscious that would prevent us even from doing something like
Speaker 1: do no harm. Yeah, so let me ask kew about that.
Speaker 1: What you just said is sometimes we don't even have
Speaker 1: that choice. So I think what you're speaking to then
Speaker 1: our forces that are operating below consciousness, that are reducing
Speaker 1: the range of conscious choice that we actually have. Is
Speaker 1: that what you mean by that? Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: one way of putting in and then and then we
Speaker 1: can nuance it further by saying that we live according
Speaker 1: to mythologies and mythologies dictator mandate that we're you know,
Speaker 1: bad people, or that we have certain negative results. And
Speaker 1: as long as that mythology lays um intact and under
Speaker 1: the surface, we are going to live by those mandates
Speaker 1: despite our best intention, the best conscious intention, as long
Speaker 1: as the mythology lays intact, then we're bound to replicate it.
Speaker 1: So say a little more about that and whatever way
Speaker 1: you want. I know I'm opening a door to a
Speaker 1: vast and complex topic. But say a little bit more
Speaker 1: about depth, psychology, shadow work. What is the landscape of
Speaker 1: venturing into that world? Look like? Well, I'll just give
Speaker 1: you an amalgamum of a patient, you know, just so
Speaker 1: that there's some point of reference, even though this doesn't
Speaker 1: want to one describe someone singular that I'm working with.
Speaker 1: But let's say that a gentleman and his warnies comes
Speaker 1: to work with me. He presents his stated intention, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, he wants to have a decent relationship and
Speaker 1: he wants meaningful work. Now, who doesn't, Okay like these
Speaker 1: Freud recognized this a very long time ago, that the
Speaker 1: modus operanda the human being played itself out in terms
Speaker 1: of successful work and loving relationships. But he can't fulfill them,
Speaker 1: you know, So back to the two wolves scenario, if
Speaker 1: it were just about feeding the wolf of success and love.
Speaker 1: He's tried and it hasn't worked out for him, And
Speaker 1: so we look a little bit about his life and
Speaker 1: we look for symptoms. We're starting we're starting the Buddha's
Speaker 1: First Noble Truth and looking at the presenting problems and
Speaker 1: going into the ideology and looking at the symptoms. And
Speaker 1: what we see is like, you know, he's a broker.
Speaker 1: He makes millions of dollars, but he spends it really poorly,
Speaker 1: and he you know, doesn't show up for work and
Speaker 1: he gets reprimanded, puts on probation with his team, and
Speaker 1: he's a bit of a maverick, and you know, and
Speaker 1: it creates friction at work and in a way it
Speaker 1: e roads trust. And so he's created a kind of
Speaker 1: environment in which he's basically just handing a hanging on
Speaker 1: for dear life in his work environment, because he doesn't
Speaker 1: have any accountability, doesn't have any follow through. He lives
Speaker 1: sort of impulsively and it's a little bit of addictive
Speaker 1: to his money and gambling. And that's why, despite his
Speaker 1: stated and conscious aspiration to have meaningful work, he fails
Speaker 1: at it miserably and puts himself in a position where
Speaker 1: he may not have any work and it may actually
Speaker 1: run through his money, which is an enormous amount of
Speaker 1: money which most of us in our lifetime can't imagine,
Speaker 1: but in very short order, he could decimate it. And
Speaker 1: the same is true in his relationship life. He's at
Speaker 1: the stage in his life where he wants marriage and
Speaker 1: family and children. That's his stated conscious intention and goal,
Speaker 1: and yet he finds himself unable to be discipline, sexually
Speaker 1: acts out, he goes and has an extra marital affairs.
Speaker 1: He's basically acting, in my estimation, like a fucking child. Okay.
Speaker 1: He's really just in this very primitive and immature base impulse,
Speaker 1: low disciplined, low capacity to tolerate, ambiguity, frustration, to lay
Speaker 1: his dabt to gratification. He's like a child, okay, And
Speaker 1: and it would be quick to judge him. So what's
Speaker 1: the shadow work. Well, there it comes an interesting point
Speaker 1: in our relationship where we're somewhere between you know, three
Speaker 1: months and six months, where it starts to get a
Speaker 1: little dicey between him and I. You know, there's something
Speaker 1: in psychotherapy called a frame, which is like there, these
Speaker 1: are the agreed upon contracts that we can keep accountability towards,
Speaker 1: Like I will show up at a certain time and
Speaker 1: I will serve, and you will pay me on a
Speaker 1: particular kind of time frame, and you will show up
Speaker 1: or give me a cancelation. Notice these are very basic
Speaker 1: things to help operational processes, but in psychotherapy they end
Speaker 1: up being some of the very subtle domain in which
Speaker 1: we can analyze the unconscious players that are playing out
Speaker 1: their motifs. And for example, he doesn't pay me one week,
Speaker 1: he doesn't actually pay me for a month he does,
Speaker 1: and I repeatedly asked him to pay me, and he's
Speaker 1: unable to do it, and he in a way kind
Speaker 1: of acts out childishly, won't tell me why he won't
Speaker 1: follow up on emails. The money hasn't arrived. And what
Speaker 1: happens to me? You get angry. I get angry, and
Speaker 1: so I become another player in the metaphor or the
Speaker 1: mythology that is haunting him everywhere he goes. And so
Speaker 1: in that moment, I'm at a crossroads with him where
Speaker 1: I can do to him and relate to him and
Speaker 1: fulfill the prophecy of cutting him off and sending him
Speaker 1: and casting him out. And that's my crossroads. And if
Speaker 1: I don't know his mythology, I'm liable to step into it.
Speaker 1: And if he doesn't know his mythology, he's liable of
Speaker 1: replicating it. It doesn't matter what his conscious and stated
Speaker 1: intention is. The mythology is alive, and so what's his mythology?
Speaker 1: Asked me, what my what the mythology is? The mythology
Speaker 1: is the motif inside the unconscious that had its framework
Speaker 1: formation in early childhood development and maybe even earlier in ancestry.
Speaker 1: So this is someone who was abandoned emotionally by his mother,
Speaker 1: who had a severe mental health crisis and was just
Speaker 1: not available to him. And this is also a person
Speaker 1: whose father paid attention and needed to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the mother rescue the mother. And so he's abandoned by
Speaker 1: both parents, and so he's like a feral child. This
Speaker 1: is how I start to understand his process. He's like
Speaker 1: a feral child. His instincts of gratification are very premature.
Speaker 1: He's just trying to get love in all the wrong places.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know how to be in relationship. He doesn't
Speaker 1: know how to delay his gratification. He doesn't know how
Speaker 1: to restrain his impulses. He doesn't know how to think
Speaker 1: about tomorrow. He's thinking only about today because he's so
Speaker 1: starved and he hasn't had the infrastructure. He has no infrastructure,
Speaker 1: he has no tribe, and so he's definitely afraid of
Speaker 1: being rendered abandoned again. However, he sets up the abandonment himself,
Speaker 1: where his program sets up the abandonment. So the very
Speaker 1: thing that we are afraid of is the very thing
Speaker 1: we're liable of replicating. That's what a mythology does. That's
Speaker 1: what a prophecy does. I call it a self fulfilling
Speaker 1: prophecy or self fulfilling mythology. So the shadow work involves
Speaker 1: I appreciate all kinds of tactics to sort of get
Speaker 1: him to follow through kind of coaching, Like, let's set
Speaker 1: up the goals. So you want to have a successful relationship,
Speaker 1: You want to win the graces back of your employers
Speaker 1: so that your team actually feels that you're a team member.
Speaker 1: What do you have to do? Sort of think about
Speaker 1: all these things that you have to do. It would
Speaker 1: be me me like saying, well, what we have to
Speaker 1: pay me at the end of the session. So you
Speaker 1: state that thing, but the minute you stated it presents
Speaker 1: for him or his uncom as an opportunity to disrupt
Speaker 1: the relationship. So then what do you do if you
Speaker 1: if you just if you try to remain at that level,
Speaker 1: it's only a matter of time before the photo complete
Speaker 1: destroys itself. So you're left with one other option, which
Speaker 1: is the option that we spent the top of the
Speaker 1: session with. It Just go towards the wolf that we
Speaker 1: don't like, go closer what's happening. So just at that
Speaker 1: moment where I'm about to fire him, and also guess what,
Speaker 1: there's two unconsciousness. Okay, so let me disclose. Disclose in
Speaker 1: my life, I was manhandled by a narcissistic father, and
Speaker 1: so I have a lot of fear of authority, inadequacy
Speaker 1: overcompensatory behaviors where I usually tiptoe around people. I'm usually
Speaker 1: really relaxed about the payment because I don't want to
Speaker 1: create conflict and I've learned over time that that doesn't
Speaker 1: serve me and it doesn't serve anybody else. But maybe
Speaker 1: in him not paying me once or two ice or
Speaker 1: three times after asking, I'm also activated in my mythology,
Speaker 1: and so now we have dual activation of two mythologies.
Speaker 1: And so like, okay, I'm the professional or so I
Speaker 1: have to like spend a little time between sessions working
Speaker 1: with my own sense that here's another person in my
Speaker 1: life disrespecting me because I'm I'm not worth it. So
Speaker 1: that's my shadow work. I have to go closer to
Speaker 1: the vulnerability of the inner child that whose father basically
Speaker 1: treated me like a puppet on strings, and anytime I
Speaker 1: didn't appease him, he would pull the string on the
Speaker 1: dependency string, the fact that I needed how shelter, pocket money,
Speaker 1: or whatever, love or whatever. He would yank that and
Speaker 1: I would come backing like a like a wounded dog.
Speaker 1: And there's a long legacy of anger and resentment about that.
Speaker 1: And underneath that there's a fundamental sense of deficiency in
Speaker 1: my mind. Because I've done a lot of work, it
Speaker 1: doesn't take me very long to get out of the
Speaker 1: heated moment between session and see how he stepped on
Speaker 1: all my buttons or tread on all my triggers, and
Speaker 1: I have to get some perspective. But I don't also
Speaker 1: just think it's my problem here. I think that too
Speaker 1: unconsciousness is collided, and I'm now using it Instead of
Speaker 1: using it as a point of contention that we shouldn't
Speaker 1: work together, I'm now using it, trying to use it
Speaker 1: therapeutically in order to really deeply empathize with this person
Speaker 1: that here is a person who is just on the
Speaker 1: verge of destroying every single relationship and and able unable
Speaker 1: to be accountable and commit in any way despite his
Speaker 1: greatest aspirations. So then his unconscious we look at his archaeology,
Speaker 1: will look at his abandonment, and we look at his
Speaker 1: juvenile structures. He hasn't had the kind of mentoring that
Speaker 1: would re required over the long, hasn't had enough consistency
Speaker 1: and enough container and enough of a caring authority that
Speaker 1: has that both the measure of kindness and grace but
Speaker 1: also the discipline to help him grow into the surety.
Speaker 1: He hasn't had the rights of passage, and no one's
Speaker 1: held him to the fire, and no one's held him
Speaker 1: to the test, because what happens is he comes right
Speaker 1: up to the rupture, and then the rupture happens, and
Speaker 1: he's never been provided the opportunity to see it through
Speaker 1: and repair. So in this session, with some of the
Speaker 1: few sessions that happened after this, we're going into the shadow,
Speaker 1: into the unpleasantries and helping him really process what it's
Speaker 1: like to have been abandoned and what the consequences of
Speaker 1: that have been. And you get a lot of rage
Speaker 1: he's fucking angry at everybody, you know, including me, when
Speaker 1: I asked him to pay me. What he hears? What
Speaker 1: do you imagine he hears when every time I send
Speaker 1: him a reminder to pay me? What do you think
Speaker 1: he hears that you don't care? That I don't care.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's uncanny what's happening on the surface,
Speaker 1: and what what the reverberations of echoes of our past
Speaker 1: is really interpreting, isn't it. So let me ask you
Speaker 1: a question about this unraveling process of the mythologies, because
Speaker 1: I do a lot of coaching work with people, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the work that I do is sort
Speaker 1: of what you would describe as that step by step
Speaker 1: like I got to do this, that I'm gonna do this,
Speaker 1: and there's some emotional regulation work in there. And what
Speaker 1: I get is a lot of people who come and say,
Speaker 1: you know, I've gone to therapy a lot, and I've
Speaker 1: now understand why I'm doing everything that I'm doing, but
Speaker 1: understanding it hasn't changed my doing of it. And so
Speaker 1: where is the breakdown in your mind between somebody who's gone, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've done the work to understand it. I may have
Speaker 1: even done the work to go back and feel some
Speaker 1: of it. Maybe, but it's not translating into current life.
Speaker 1: That's a great question, and that's a very common experience.
Speaker 1: I think people who have done a very thorough analysis
Speaker 1: and have got some very good sound conceptual understanding, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't actually call that insight. I think it cheapens insight.
Speaker 1: We throw around this words. I've gotten a lot of sight.
Speaker 1: I've gotten a lot of insight from my therapy, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't translated into behavioral change. I actually would challenge
Speaker 1: that that the insight, if it's not a deep noses
Speaker 1: and deep and intuitive direct understanding, that it's not going
Speaker 1: to translate or parley into any effective change in one's life.
Speaker 1: So I would hope that we can sanctify the word
Speaker 1: insight instead of loosely throw it around. But I take
Speaker 1: your point, and it's a good point, and it's a
Speaker 1: very common experience. And there's a couple of different factors
Speaker 1: you mentioned, one of them which is conceptual understanding or
Speaker 1: seeing something clearly. Seeing the mythology is only one part
Speaker 1: of it. I mean you also have to process and
Speaker 1: actually embody and feel the disenfranchise aspects of the self
Speaker 1: that have never that have never been given the light
Speaker 1: of day. So, for example, you know, if you look
Speaker 1: at this guy's story, his rage that he was abandoned
Speaker 1: is not a very savory thing to feel. It's not
Speaker 1: condoned by culture. And this is one of my bones
Speaker 1: I have with spirituality is it's it's a big no
Speaker 1: no in spirituality, big no no. You can't get angered,
Speaker 1: you can't get angry. Now, one of the things that
Speaker 1: we noticed very powerfully from the social justice movement is
Speaker 1: that we are seeing that underneath the surface there are
Speaker 1: very very deeply traumatized segments of our population. Once the
Speaker 1: curtain has been undone and we see how deeply in
Speaker 1: pain people are and have been for a very long time,
Speaker 1: we also see that what comes with the pain is
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of rage. And then, you know, the
Speaker 1: establishment then goes, oh, well, your pain is acceptable here,
Speaker 1: but your rage we can't have that, and that becomes
Speaker 1: a second wound because a who the funk are you
Speaker 1: to control or dictate how the process goes? And number two,
Speaker 1: you fail to recognize that processing trauma also includes some
Speaker 1: in savory bits that it's going to unsettle everybody So
Speaker 1: to deny somebody by saying, oh, well, culture won't accept this,
Speaker 1: and we don't accept sable unrest, and we don't accept
Speaker 1: it in spirituality, anger is a big no no. This
Speaker 1: is no way through. You're just creating more limitations around
Speaker 1: the process. So he really needs a safe place to
Speaker 1: be angry, and he needs a safe person to be
Speaker 1: angry with. And if I look at my own story,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of rage to my father who
Speaker 1: pulled strings on me and dictated all the terms. And
Speaker 1: the minute I got angry, what would happen? The anger
Speaker 1: was appropriate, but there was no place for it. Where
Speaker 1: did it go? You think? Probably internal? Internal exactly. So
Speaker 1: I survived years of cutting, you survived years of burning.
Speaker 1: I am still a person who is very prone to depression.
Speaker 1: Uh So that's the legacy of anger that has no channel,
Speaker 1: no appropriate channel. So it's not enough for this guy
Speaker 1: to see and to have it head up. This is
Speaker 1: one of the great innovations of trauma therapy. The revolution
Speaker 1: of trauma therapy with polyvagel theory, Dan Siegel's into personal neurobiology.
Speaker 1: Schwartz's parts were God or mate. I mean, we have transitioned.
Speaker 1: Reese Lee in therapy into a rubric of very subtle
Speaker 1: understanding about the origins and the appropriate measures for processing
Speaker 1: trauma and ambassad under. Quolt was a pioneer saying neck
Speaker 1: up therapies not will not do it, will not do.
Speaker 1: He exposed the limitations and the lie of a conversation.
Speaker 1: He survived almost a nearer career ending backlash, but he
Speaker 1: was right. He was right. The idea that you're going
Speaker 1: to just see Pope behind the veil and see the
Speaker 1: mythology is insufficient. What's also going to happen is that
Speaker 1: there has to be a safe place to really connect
Speaker 1: with all that grief, shane, rage, abandonment, fear, aloneness. I
Speaker 1: call them ice cubes. They have been frozen in time
Speaker 1: and put into deep freeze and the shelf has been closed.
Speaker 1: And they may be feelings that you had when you
Speaker 1: were six. They may be feelings that you had when
Speaker 1: you were eight. They may be feelings that you had
Speaker 1: before you were pre lingual. In those cases, they're called
Speaker 1: in plicit memory the first three years of your life,
Speaker 1: like in my case, I was born premature, I almost died,
Speaker 1: I was put into an incubator for the first three
Speaker 1: months of my life. I lived in a bubble now
Speaker 1: because I have no cognitive recall, do you think that
Speaker 1: had no impact on me? The original three months of
Speaker 1: my brain development in this world were in a test
Speaker 1: tube environment in which I was not touched and not
Speaker 1: received by the world, And I still deal with the
Speaker 1: legacy of that. I still deal with which is like,
Speaker 1: even if my wife brushes my shoulder, I will flinch,
Speaker 1: And even though I crave love, my neurobiology has said
Speaker 1: it's homeostasis to being alone, and so knowing that is
Speaker 1: a huge, remarkable illumination, but feeling it is an entirely
Speaker 1: different thing. Going into the deep freeze, pulling out the
Speaker 1: shelf of ife cubes and letting them thaw out on
Speaker 1: the kitchen table means that I will have a tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of fear and loneliness and sadness and grief to
Speaker 1: process in order for me to finally make sense and
Speaker 1: free up some of that energy so that I can
Speaker 1: capitalize on that energy exchange and mobilize it towards my
Speaker 1: altruistic where my original conscious motivation. So that's one vector,
Speaker 1: which is conceptual insight isn't enough of conceptual understanding, is
Speaker 1: not enough emotions need to be included. A long time ago,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, God has been twenty years twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. Amazingly. I did a bunch of sort of
Speaker 1: inner child work, John Bradshaw type work. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with him, and a big focus of
Speaker 1: it was on going back and experiencing the emotion and
Speaker 1: these men's groups where we raged and we cried and
Speaker 1: we did all of that stuff. Is that a through
Speaker 1: line to the sort of trauma therapy we're seeing now?
Speaker 1: We're something different going on? Then. I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: curious how different or more modern, you know, last ten
Speaker 1: year method would be from what was sort of going on,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years ago. I'm not specifically familiar with
Speaker 1: that technique. But let's do it together what I would say, intuitively,
Speaker 1: and then I'll let you come back. I really like
Speaker 1: Dan Siegel. I think his work is really about integration, okay,
Speaker 1: And I think back to maybe the sixties where they
Speaker 1: had this sort of primal screen, go into the basement,
Speaker 1: grab a pillow, pretended somebody who you want to suffocate
Speaker 1: or beat up and app react and get all your
Speaker 1: energy out. And I think that very quickly we learned
Speaker 1: that didn't work. It's not simply just a matter of
Speaker 1: releasing energy in the nervous system. There needs to be
Speaker 1: a right left hemisphere brain hemisphere integration, which is that
Speaker 1: the left is responsible for the mythology or the narration
Speaker 1: the story, and the critical thinking and the conversation, which
Speaker 1: conversation is really useful in co creating and analyzing the
Speaker 1: bladed spot so that you can get down to the
Speaker 1: mythology level, but then also on the back end and
Speaker 1: the reintegration of recreating a mythology. That's really nice to
Speaker 1: do that in tandem. But the right brain is responsible
Speaker 1: for the shadow material. That's where you access these frozen states,
Speaker 1: and that's where you can really engage in letting yourself
Speaker 1: process some of them. And they have to happen together.
Speaker 1: They have to, I mean, you have to create a
Speaker 1: structural process in which the left brain leads into the
Speaker 1: right brain and allows it to circulate back and reintegrate
Speaker 1: with the left brain. And if you go too deep,
Speaker 1: which is one of the things that I think is
Speaker 1: happening with the psychedelic renaissance and one of the dangers
Speaker 1: that I find when people come I'm sure they may
Speaker 1: come to you too. They've just come back from Peru
Speaker 1: and they've had a massive ayahuasca experience, and yet they're
Speaker 1: having their link with reintegration. Well, they have been thrown
Speaker 1: into the depths of their right brain, into the depths
Speaker 1: of their psyche, and they've seen something very profound. But
Speaker 1: the infrastructure on the beginning end and the tail end
Speaker 1: isn't there for that whole process to come full circle.
Speaker 1: So what you see there is like, here's something really beneficial,
Speaker 1: but it's not held within a bigger, more complex and
Speaker 1: here's the word complex again. If it was just simple
Speaker 1: and binary, why doesn't it work. Well that the problem
Speaker 1: is is that it's not complicated, and the human mind
Speaker 1: must be one of the most complicated things on the planet.
Speaker 1: So all the theories that people put forward, it's not
Speaker 1: until you get people like Dan Siegel and Porges for example,
Speaker 1: these are very complicated theories. These are very multidimensional, multi
Speaker 1: cross cultural, interdisciplinary theories. That is the movement towards success
Speaker 1: because it really understands that a human being has complicated
Speaker 1: aspects that need quite a very sophisticated infrastructure and to
Speaker 1: really bring about change. So I don't know where that
Speaker 1: lands for you in terms of the primal screening work
Speaker 1: or the inner child work that you may have done, Um,
Speaker 1: didn't have these other components. You know, was it truly
Speaker 1: was it truly integrated? It did? And what was it
Speaker 1: successful for you? I think so? You know, it certainly
Speaker 1: was successful to the extent that I was a couple
Speaker 1: of years removed from a heroin addiction and I stayed sober,
Speaker 1: my relationships improved. Was it successful as in like, have
Speaker 1: I been happy, joyous and free every minute since? Of
Speaker 1: course not, so, you know, I I always find that
Speaker 1: an interesting question because you know, over the course of
Speaker 1: twenty five years, I've done a lot of different therapy work.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of meditation work, a lot of
Speaker 1: different things, and people will say, well, did that work?
Speaker 1: And I'll be like, well, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: answer that question, because to your point, it's also complex.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to say like, oh, well, this did this,
Speaker 1: and then this did this, and then you know, it's
Speaker 1: like they all integrate over time, ideally in a overall
Speaker 1: upward spiral, but but one that certainly has a lot
Speaker 1: of variability if you zoom into it very closely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really begs the question like what's our explicit or state?
Speaker 1: And as a as a coach, you know how important
Speaker 1: it is. You probably spend several sessions determining what the goals,
Speaker 1: the explicit goals are and that and the reason that
Speaker 1: you do that is so that you need a very
Speaker 1: specific target to work towards, you know, and like health,
Speaker 1: wellness or enlightenment is to amorphous, you know, to work
Speaker 1: towards you need milestones along the way, and they need
Speaker 1: to be clear and tangible. And you know, for example,
Speaker 1: you know your recovery was essential to you, without which
Speaker 1: none of the other therapies would have worked. So did
Speaker 1: did twelve step work? Yes, you wanted recovery and you've
Speaker 1: got it, you maintained it, But was it sufficient of
Speaker 1: itself to bring you towards the next stage of your life? Well,
Speaker 1: that also begs the question that human beings are less
Speaker 1: linear and more cyclical. I mean, there's always work that
Speaker 1: you can do, and maybe you mature and you gravitate
Speaker 1: towards different disciplines. You dust offer or expose different parts
Speaker 1: of your psyche that remained unaccessible during different parts of
Speaker 1: work or prior work, or different techniques. So this is
Speaker 1: truly the paradigm that we're living in that is much
Speaker 1: more complex, much more integrative, but I hope much more humble,
Speaker 1: like what are we really asking for and how do
Speaker 1: we really get there? And seeing that that health really,
Speaker 1: you know, real wellness, true wellness. It may be lifelong commitment,
Speaker 1: it may not be something that you do intense sessions. Right,
Speaker 1: But this is some of the backlash that I'm having
Speaker 1: towards our culture and what I see on Instagram, which
Speaker 1: is like these big cells marketing pushes for the three
Speaker 1: step program that are going to deliver some sensational outcome.
Speaker 1: I find these so obnoxious and so predatorial, because I
Speaker 1: think people are hurting, people want genuine wellness. We now
Speaker 1: live in a culture where we're bombarded by memes and
Speaker 1: technologies that are extremely powerful in the algorithm, extremely powerful
Speaker 1: and very cunning use of technology to co opt are
Speaker 1: brainstem and our magdala and get us very lustful and
Speaker 1: very desirous and very afraid. And there's a sort of
Speaker 1: predatorial element to what I see in the wellness space,
Speaker 1: where there's the lures and the temptations and the marketing
Speaker 1: ploys that are that are used to get people to
Speaker 1: buy programs and start things. I think it's disturbing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is really disturbing. And I think what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about a human being is so complex.
Speaker 1: It's not pretty, it's not sensational. It requires a long commitment,
Speaker 1: and for some reason that just doesn't sell. And that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's why my book Gradual Awakening, it's not
Speaker 1: who wants to take their time? Who wants who wants
Speaker 1: to take their time to do anything anymore? You know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Absolutely, I mean, and even that, I
Speaker 1: think that's a really interesting transition into that book, because
Speaker 1: the book is called Gradual Awakening, the Tibetan Buddhist path
Speaker 1: of becoming fully human. And you know, you're talking about
Speaker 1: awakening or enlightenment, and you say early on enlightenment is
Speaker 1: possible for everyone. And then you describe Eckart Tole's experience, Right,
Speaker 1: Eckart Totle sitting on a park bench. Apparently Boom wakes
Speaker 1: up once and for all, right, which may or may
Speaker 1: not be true. None of us are in his head.
Speaker 1: We don't know, right, So I'm gonna suspend any judgment
Speaker 1: on that, But that you say that, I won't suspend
Speaker 1: any judgment on it, all right, but what's more likely
Speaker 1: is gradual awakening. You know, it's interesting, I'm in Zen.
Speaker 1: Even within Zen, we have two schools we have, you know,
Speaker 1: Sodo and rinse I. One was the sudden awakening and
Speaker 1: the other is the gradual awakening. And I think that's
Speaker 1: what's made the modern non dual movement take off so much,
Speaker 1: is that it basically says to people, Hey, it's really easy.
Speaker 1: I can just give you the direct path to wakening up.
Speaker 1: I'll just point at it, you'll see it. And you
Speaker 1: describe this in your book, and I really loved how
Speaker 1: you talked about this, that you can have some of
Speaker 1: those experiences relatively early on the direct path, can point
Speaker 1: at some experiences that for some people are profound awakenings.
Speaker 1: I've had a couple of them. They were deeply life changing,
Speaker 1: lee profound, and I absolutely have spent years trying to
Speaker 1: then bring the insight and I would use the word
Speaker 1: in this case insight in the way you mean it,
Speaker 1: in true, true insight. How to integrate that insight back
Speaker 1: into all the moments of my life. That is I
Speaker 1: think an absolutely gradual path. Regardless. Yeah, I agree, and
Speaker 1: I think that this set up again. Here the buyer,
Speaker 1: here's the benier. Either it's a southern path or it's
Speaker 1: a gradual path. Again, there it is. Again, there's the
Speaker 1: same Motif you've got two choices, which one do you want?
Speaker 1: You know, most people in our culture, the way that
Speaker 1: we have been indoctrinated institutionalized to have no patience anymore
Speaker 1: and want the quick fix, whether it's come in the
Speaker 1: pill form or the ayahuasca form, or the the quick
Speaker 1: enlightenment form or the twelve day course or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: they will be there are primed and I again say
Speaker 1: by marketing and capitalistic endeavors. I think there's a secret
Speaker 1: hand behind the screen that is pulling the strings here.
Speaker 1: They're primed for that choice and just an observer of tradition,
Speaker 1: and those two choices have always been possible since the
Speaker 1: beginning of Buddhism. There has always been those two routes,
Speaker 1: the direct path and the gradual path, as I was
Speaker 1: mentioning in the book and gradual waking for Tibet. In
Speaker 1: the early inception of the Transmission of Dharma, they did
Speaker 1: many debates between these two schools, and the gradual one
Speaker 1: was seen as probably more appropriate to the masses. You
Speaker 1: do have the one off, exceptional case of someone who
Speaker 1: has come in according to their cosmology, that soul has
Speaker 1: come in with a predilection or there's been a prior
Speaker 1: development of consciousness that would facilitate or make possible a
Speaker 1: very deep and profound seeing into the nature of reality
Speaker 1: and create the conditions for a sudden breakthrough. But then
Speaker 1: to your point, even once that sudden breakthrough has occurred,
Speaker 1: you still need to return and re shift the matrix,
Speaker 1: the organizing principles of the psyche, so that that wisdom
Speaker 1: can then imbue the rest of your associative processes. And
Speaker 1: I think they're in lies. One of the greatest metaphors
Speaker 1: found throughout mythology is this idea that you leave the garden,
Speaker 1: you separate, you die, and you go into a very
Speaker 1: liminal space, the unknown, the shadow. You disintegrate. In order
Speaker 1: to get there, you have to disintegrate, the ego has
Speaker 1: to disintegrate. You have to lose your security blanket, you
Speaker 1: have to leave home, you have to leave the familiar,
Speaker 1: because that's the very structure, though it's comfortable, that's the
Speaker 1: very structure that keeps you in a very rigid and
Speaker 1: confined band it of reality. You pass the threshold and
Speaker 1: you go into the unconscious, or you go into the amorphous,
Speaker 1: or you go into the liminal space. It is dark
Speaker 1: in there. This is a dark cavern metaphor of Joseph Campbell.
Speaker 1: And there you find the demon, and the demon is
Speaker 1: the shadow, and the demon is also all the other
Speaker 1: elements of your psyche that have been kept at bay
Speaker 1: by society, the unwanted bits, and you have to reclaim
Speaker 1: them as part of you. Or one of the other metaphors,
Speaker 1: like in Pudma's Ababa who didn't just kill the demons
Speaker 1: of Tibet, He recruited them, which is an alchemical metaphor
Speaker 1: of using anger wisely in order. In other words, meet
Speaker 1: the demon and recruit the demon, make the demon your ally,
Speaker 1: and then you can come out of the cave as
Speaker 1: a new person. This is the rebirth process. Now, so
Speaker 1: that rebirth process requires a new infrastructure, you know, and
Speaker 1: that new infrastructure takes time. And I'm now just as
Speaker 1: I'm talking with you, recalling one of my favorite quotes
Speaker 1: by Young and I'm going to paraphrase it because I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly the citation, but he said, be wary
Speaker 1: of wisdom unearned, be wary of wisdom unearned. And wow,
Speaker 1: what a powerful message to people right now amidst the
Speaker 1: psychedelic renaissance, because I think the psychedelic revolution is going
Speaker 1: to create very powerful inroads for people to shed egoic structures,
Speaker 1: rigid egoic structures, comfort their shire will be shattered so
Speaker 1: that they will contact very deep recesses in their mind.
Speaker 1: But if the infrastructure isn't there, then the re emergence
Speaker 1: or the return the reintegration process is going to be
Speaker 1: very very bumpy, and whatever insider wisdom they have called
Speaker 1: won't land, it won't graft. It's almost like you will
Speaker 1: have a seed that doesn't have a pot to be
Speaker 1: planted for firm rooting in. So this is one of
Speaker 1: my big concerns for people, because I don't know about
Speaker 1: you and your coaching practice, and I get more and
Speaker 1: more people coming after very deep psychedelic work that are
Speaker 1: having trouble with the integration. I say this in response
Speaker 1: to your your question about the sudden versus gradual path
Speaker 1: because I think it's the same thing. Very deep breakthroughs,
Speaker 1: even if they're authentic moments of insight, like you see
Speaker 1: no self for the first time it's not conceptual in
Speaker 1: a book. When you're sitting there and your sensory experience
Speaker 1: has no fundamental ground to orient yourself, you finally see
Speaker 1: that this arbitrary thing that you've been holding onto for
Speaker 1: dear life is just a construct. And you don't just
Speaker 1: know that conceptually, you actually viscerally feel that. You viscerally
Speaker 1: feel that. And that's a very powerful meditative experience that
Speaker 1: a lot of people have in attend Dave Vipassana course
Speaker 1: or after years of meditating. And now what they're gonna
Speaker 1: do is they're going to have that in three days
Speaker 1: in a ceremony in Peru. And I'm just concerned that
Speaker 1: that kind of thing doesn't have the preliminary because the preliminaries,
Speaker 1: at least in Tibetan Buddhism, before you take a tentric practice,
Speaker 1: which replicates the whole process of the shadow work, dismantling
Speaker 1: of the ego, the entering into the shadow, the recruiting
Speaker 1: of the alchemical energy, and the reconstitution for it for rebirth.
Speaker 1: That whole fabric of that architecture and that psychodrama is
Speaker 1: enacted in a Tibetan sodenna is also at play in
Speaker 1: a psychedelic experience. But for the Tibetans, they spend years
Speaker 1: and years and years in preparation, and they have all
Speaker 1: the container in place, the mentor and the virtues and
Speaker 1: the practices and the preliminaries in order to contain so
Speaker 1: that someone's breakthrough moment can really graft and be integrated
Speaker 1: into the very fabric of their being. The psychedelic renaissance
Speaker 1: is a topic that we've had some people on who
Speaker 1: have mentioned it in passing, but it's not been a
Speaker 1: focus of what we do, partially for the reasons that
Speaker 1: you're stating, I don't know that I'm ready to start
Speaker 1: devoting lots of our air time to what is being
Speaker 1: promoted by a lot of people as a fast path.
Speaker 1: And again, I think that this reminds me a lot
Speaker 1: of your conversations around a phrase that you quoted called
Speaker 1: mick mindfulness, and what your your basic critique was that
Speaker 1: we have pulled one part, the mindfulness, the mindfulness meditation part,
Speaker 1: out of the rest of its container, and we have
Speaker 1: just given it to people and it's being used in
Speaker 1: all sorts of ways. We can talk about it being corporatized,
Speaker 1: we can talk about it being used for capitalist purpose.
Speaker 1: But your point is that this was one tool in
Speaker 1: a whole cadre of other tools, and that if you
Speaker 1: pull the one tool out, it's not necessarily real effective.
Speaker 1: And I think with the psychedelic piece, I think a
Speaker 1: similar thing is sort of occurring. And I think what
Speaker 1: we're saying is we're taking a tool, but we don't
Speaker 1: have the container around it. This is exactly what you're
Speaker 1: saying that supports it. I think, though, that the difference
Speaker 1: is if you just go spend fifteen minutes a day
Speaker 1: watching your mind. That we hear stories of people who
Speaker 1: have problems with meditation, but by and large relatively safe.
Speaker 1: Psychedelics are a different animal, very very powerful, but their
Speaker 1: power comes with danger, you know. I mean I used
Speaker 1: to take psychedelics back in my addiction days. I didn't
Speaker 1: use them addictively, and even just taking them recreationally, I
Speaker 1: realized just how holy mackerel are these getting in deep here?
Speaker 1: And so I share your feeling that I think they're
Speaker 1: really powerful tools, and I think they are going to
Speaker 1: be a revolution in mental health. But I'm worried that
Speaker 1: the very nature of our culture, of our medical system,
Speaker 1: of everything are going to strip them down to the
Speaker 1: you know, like the most basic thing, like you get
Speaker 1: your trip and you get one hour of psychedelic integration afterwards,
Speaker 1: that's all you got. I share your concerns about that
Speaker 1: either a not being enough to evince lasting change or
Speaker 1: actually being harmful. So well put, Thank you, Eric, and
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we share that concern and we're not
Speaker 1: falling into the binaries of for psychedelics or against psychedelics,
Speaker 1: or we're just raising and having an intellectual conversation with
Speaker 1: some rigor and some sophistication and not falling on any
Speaker 1: clear answer, but pointing out some of the disturbing features
Speaker 1: in our culture. There have been many waves in history,
Speaker 1: including yoga, where yoga was abstracted from its basic substrate
Speaker 1: and commercialized and commodified. And it's not that I argue
Speaker 1: that there's no benefit of all. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: if you do calisthetics and you call it yoga, but
Speaker 1: you're and you get more flexible, and you decrease your
Speaker 1: blood pressure and you're you know, you reduce cholesterol, great,
Speaker 1: but it's not enlightenment, and you have to be careful
Speaker 1: that you don't cheapen these things. Then the came came
Speaker 1: the mindfulness movement, And of course I don't mind stress reduction.
Speaker 1: Every a lot of people need Streuss reduction. But let's
Speaker 1: also not put ourselves in a position where we overlook
Speaker 1: the fact that the Buddha's entire matrix and his his
Speaker 1: assertion was that a human being could be liberated from
Speaker 1: the vast cycles of endless some sara. I guess where
Speaker 1: this leads us is towards coming full circle to where
Speaker 1: we started with, which is what is missing if you
Speaker 1: abstract these things is the mythology that they come out of.
Speaker 1: And to me, the mythology is as important as the technology,
Speaker 1: the technology of yoga as a physical practice, the technology
Speaker 1: of mindfulness as a meditative training, the technology of plants.
Speaker 1: Even though they're organic, there's still a technology, there's still
Speaker 1: a tool. They can all be abstracted and they can
Speaker 1: all have some relative benefit. I think we were willing
Speaker 1: to agree on that. Where I think the pushback comes
Speaker 1: from is if you abstract them from their mythology, what
Speaker 1: you do is that you leave the current mythology alive.
Speaker 1: The very bedrock that people are doing mindfulness in, the
Speaker 1: very bedrock that people are doing yoga within and the
Speaker 1: very bedrock that people are dosing in, micro dosing or
Speaker 1: doing psychedelics in remains untacked, and that mythology is part
Speaker 1: of the sickness. That's what I argue in Gradual Awakening,
Speaker 1: that the very paradigm that we are trying to have
Speaker 1: a wellness movement within, if left unchallenged, will keep people sick.
Speaker 1: Because the very paradigm of materialism that treats us like
Speaker 1: skin bags with chemistry brains that die at the end
Speaker 1: of this life. And that's it. The lights go out
Speaker 1: and out, she goes. That paradigm is only three to
Speaker 1: four hundred years old, and it is the first time
Speaker 1: in human evolution where we have so reduced ourselves into
Speaker 1: brain jelly and thrown out the soul, and with and
Speaker 1: by throwing out the soul, thrown out our meaning and
Speaker 1: thrown out our greater purpose. And we have and what
Speaker 1: we have done is we have constructed a mythology that
Speaker 1: we are basically useless. We're basically useless brain jelly, and
Speaker 1: that is that's out there, but it's so concealed. And
Speaker 1: my problem is is if that lays intact, Just like
Speaker 1: the patient case that I presented at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the conversation. If the mythology of secular materialism remains intact,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how much you dose, micro dose, do yoga's,
Speaker 1: do push ups, do mindfulness, something very deep in our
Speaker 1: psyche will remain corrosive and lead more than just apathy,
Speaker 1: but dire meaninglessness. That's my contention. Yeah, it makes me
Speaker 1: think of something you wrote in your book, which is
Speaker 1: you say, in my estimation, combining Tibet's deep psychology, meditative techniques,
Speaker 1: and virtuous rituals offers far more transformational potential than merely
Speaker 1: sitting quietly following the breath. And I think what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. There is this thing where we've got the techniques,
Speaker 1: the technology that you were just talking about, but it's
Speaker 1: also framed around deep psychology, which we could simplify. I'll
Speaker 1: simplify for now. You may not agree with this simplification
Speaker 1: to call it view. In Buddhism, view means basically the
Speaker 1: way we see everything, you know, and then also the
Speaker 1: ritual and the last component I would add, and maybe
Speaker 1: ritual assumes that it's baked in is community, right, But
Speaker 1: if we just pull one of those out without all
Speaker 1: those different things, we really miss the power of these
Speaker 1: transformer if techniques. Yeah, and I would just add that
Speaker 1: it's not only we missed the power, but something inside
Speaker 1: of us. And this goes back to the two wolves. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's a great place to end. It's not just that
Speaker 1: we missed the opportunity. We continue the problem. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: the problem isn't that we're stressed out. If it were
Speaker 1: just that we're stressed out, mindfulness will be fine. The
Speaker 1: problem is that we don't see reality clearly. We don't
Speaker 1: see ourselves clearly within that reality. Right. So in order
Speaker 1: to do that, you will need to have a different view.
Speaker 1: And whether you call that view and Buddhism or you
Speaker 1: call it mythology as I do, you will need mythology,
Speaker 1: and you will also need the technology. You also need
Speaker 1: a sophisticated psychology. But you also need virtue and you
Speaker 1: will need community. At the final point here, we're very
Speaker 1: in agreement that you know, one trick ponies will not
Speaker 1: do in the modern world. Yeah, and I love what
Speaker 1: you're saying about taking this one level deeper, which is
Speaker 1: it's not just enough. You know that the modern world
Speaker 1: is robbing us of meaning and purpose. It's that we
Speaker 1: are also effectively destroying ourselves, and we're destroying the planet,
Speaker 1: and all these things are connected, you know. And I'm
Speaker 1: generally a very optimistic person. If I were to look
Speaker 1: towards the future, I tend to feel optimistic. I think,
Speaker 1: is a species, we're getting better, We're improving overall. But boy,
Speaker 1: climate change looks like like we're speeding off the edge
Speaker 1: of a It's like we're getting better as we drive
Speaker 1: off a cliff. And it worries me a lot. When
Speaker 1: I really think about things to be deeply worried about,
Speaker 1: that's the one that rises for me. Yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with you. I mean, I say as much as in
Speaker 1: the book that the troubling things that we see are
Speaker 1: symptoms ecological demise, ecological devastation, economic divide, political unrest. They're
Speaker 1: not discreet problems. They can be traced to a fundamental
Speaker 1: and accurate appraisal or view of reality and ourselves within it.
Speaker 1: And I trace that to the fact that the pendulum
Speaker 1: of our PARADIGMU swung too far to materialism. I end
Speaker 1: that point in gradual weakening, but I re begin it
Speaker 1: in the new book that I'm writing right now, because
Speaker 1: I think this is where I really want to reintroduce
Speaker 1: some of the more mystical traditions. Definitely, mythology and astrology
Speaker 1: have something to tell us about the current situation where
Speaker 1: we find ourselves. Like the pandemic is not an anomaly.
Speaker 1: The pandemic was predicted. People knew years in advance. And
Speaker 1: I'm not talking conspiracy theorism, talking about the astrologers knew
Speaker 1: it was coming to a t. But because most of
Speaker 1: the modern people, they don't look up at the stars anymore.
Speaker 1: They're just looking at their iPhone and they're looking at
Speaker 1: how cute their waistline is and how many fans they
Speaker 1: are building. Uh, this is symptomatic. We My waistline is
Speaker 1: just wonderful. H Yeah. So we're you know, we're particularly
Speaker 1: disturbed and sick, and we will, you know, and and
Speaker 1: we have every right to be anxious and afraid, because
Speaker 1: you know, history shows if we're good students of history,
Speaker 1: we are capable of going into very dark and prolonged
Speaker 1: periods of darkness culturally. And we call them dark gauges.
Speaker 1: So we could tip ourselves into one easily, and we
Speaker 1: should be very afraid, but we should get paralyzed about it.
Speaker 1: I guess the point in all your conversations and all
Speaker 1: the good work that you do, Eric is to bring
Speaker 1: voices and channels and messages to help people align themselves
Speaker 1: towards a greater good. And based on today's conversation, part
Speaker 1: of that also includes bringing into the fold or bringing
Speaker 1: into the fray, the less desirable wolf that's filled with fear,
Speaker 1: and that's filled with rage, and that's filled with uncertainty
Speaker 1: because he or she or it has a role to
Speaker 1: play in the overall schema. So let's not banish them
Speaker 1: to the nether world's. Let's bring them closer to our consciousness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had somebody say the other day to me, you
Speaker 1: should listen to the bad wolf, but just don't feed him.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I was like, Okay, that kind of
Speaker 1: makes sense. Like I'm gonna listen, I'm gonna give it attention.
Speaker 1: But that so you're talking to those Tibetans. They have
Speaker 1: the practice called feeding the demons, you know, so like
Speaker 1: they you know, I was at a very big gathering
Speaker 1: with his Holiness, the dal Lama, and he did something
Speaker 1: very historic because he's the fourteenth in a long legacy
Speaker 1: so many centuries. Right, So we're talking about opening ritual
Speaker 1: of Tibetan Buddhism for the bodhisoft A vow into a
Speaker 1: tantric initiation of yelmant took of the death destroyer, the
Speaker 1: foe destroyer, tantric initiation that is preceded by a number
Speaker 1: of different rituals, and for the first time in history,
Speaker 1: one of the rituals is to banish the demons, you know,
Speaker 1: one of them is like to cast them out, get
Speaker 1: out of here. And we're doing something wholly here on
Speaker 1: this big space. The Tree of Enlightenment is just a
Speaker 1: few hundred yards away, and there I don't know, fifty
Speaker 1: thou people are thirty thousand people ready to take the
Speaker 1: bodhisoft A vow under the body tree there and His
Speaker 1: Holiness does is something very powerful for the first time
Speaker 1: in his legacy of fourteen generations, which is to say,
Speaker 1: it no longer makes sense to me that we speak
Speaker 1: of compassion but banish the evil spirits. So I welcomed
Speaker 1: them here too. Maybe they could enjoy a little dorma.
Speaker 1: So I'll lend my podcast with speedy the beasts in us,
Speaker 1: but I'll be doing it with compassion and cognizance and
Speaker 1: care and love. Yeah, thank you. So much, Eric, It
Speaker 1: was a real fun ride to be with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really was. Thanks Miles. If what you just heard
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