Speaker 1: Be where you are and be satisfied with the achievements
Speaker 1: that you have that are appropriate to where you are.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true, and yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, and welcome to part two of
Speaker 1: our interview with Chuladasa, a meditation master with over four
Speaker 1: decades of experience in the Tibetan and Theravad and Buddhist traditions.
Speaker 1: He taught psychology and neuroscience at the Universities of Calgary
Speaker 1: and British Columbia. Chiladasa lives in Arizona's wilderness and leads
Speaker 1: the Dharma Treasure Buddhist songa. And here's part two of
Speaker 1: our interview with Chiladasa. Okay, we are back with Chuladosa
Speaker 1: for part two of our two part interview, and what
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on in this section is a
Speaker 1: little bit more around meditation. One of the things about
Speaker 1: the book The Mind Illuminated that I found so interesting
Speaker 1: was the level of depth of instruction and meditation. And
Speaker 1: I want to start with the idea of intention, because
Speaker 1: you talk about this a lot, and and you say
Speaker 1: that one of the things that will happen to somebody
Speaker 1: when they start meditating, and I can vouch for this
Speaker 1: being true not only when I start, but often if
Speaker 1: I'm not watching myself, is that we sit down and
Speaker 1: we notice that we can't really control our thoughts. We
Speaker 1: still try and wrestle them to the ground, right, and
Speaker 1: this leads to a great deal of frustration. And what
Speaker 1: you talk about is that we can't really do that,
Speaker 1: and if we pay attention long enough, we realize that.
Speaker 1: And so you talk about intention, about the power of
Speaker 1: setting intention, and how this is how we actually change
Speaker 1: what the mind is doing. Can you share more about
Speaker 1: that idea. It's the really fundamental and important thing to understand.
Speaker 1: You know, we did talk last time a bit about
Speaker 1: illusoriness of the eye who uh seems to be in charge?
Speaker 1: And we'd also talked about intention, that losery I is
Speaker 1: really made up of the activities of many unconscious subminds,
Speaker 1: and that each of those unconscious subminds has an intention. Now,
Speaker 1: maybe we can just look at intention it's by itself
Speaker 1: for a moment and then and then come back. So
Speaker 1: think about the actions that you perform in the world
Speaker 1: and what the sense of you or I really does.
Speaker 1: Something as simple as my reaching over to pick up
Speaker 1: my cup of tea and take a drink. Now, I
Speaker 1: would tell the story that I reached over and picked
Speaker 1: up my cup of tea, But what did I really do?
Speaker 1: And anybody can experience this, is that I formulated the
Speaker 1: intention and then something else took over and it that happened,
Speaker 1: Except that sometimes it doesn't make that happen. Sometimes those
Speaker 1: mechanisms don't work right, and instead of picking up the
Speaker 1: cup of tea, I strike the cup in the wrong
Speaker 1: way and it spills all over the table. Or perhaps
Speaker 1: I've been sitting in such a way that part of
Speaker 1: my arm has fallen asleep and and my arm just
Speaker 1: doesn't do what it's supposed to do. You start to
Speaker 1: if you start to examine motor activity, you start to
Speaker 1: realize that what the mind does is create an intention
Speaker 1: which it broadcasts, and then the motor systems of the
Speaker 1: brain and the body they take over and they fulfill that. Now,
Speaker 1: something similar happens, you know when when you're meditating. So
Speaker 1: I sit down, and there are enough of those unconscious
Speaker 1: subminds that like the eye dea meditation and the promises
Speaker 1: of meditation and my past experiences of meditation, that they
Speaker 1: all share. The intention that we experience is that I'm
Speaker 1: going to sit down and meditate. The real story is more, um,
Speaker 1: we are going to meditate. Now, what actually happens in
Speaker 1: the mind is you have that intention, which is dominant
Speaker 1: because it's supported by quite a few different sublines, But
Speaker 1: you have other parts of the mind with different intentions,
Speaker 1: and you subjectively experience them competing with each other. So
Speaker 1: if you get into the place of a war of intentions, um,
Speaker 1: then all you do is you add more confusion to
Speaker 1: the mix that you already had. And now instead of
Speaker 1: just you know I'm intending to meditate, but these stray
Speaker 1: thoughts of other concerns keep coming in. Well. Now, added
Speaker 1: to that, you've got to sense of frustration, uh, disappointed expectations,
Speaker 1: and on and on. Right, So what you want to
Speaker 1: do if you understand how this works, If you're working
Speaker 1: with a group of people and you wanted them to
Speaker 1: all cooperate around the same intention, you'd want to give
Speaker 1: them some kind of motivation. You'd want to make them
Speaker 1: feel good about it. Right, we'll do the same thing
Speaker 1: with your mind. Creating a war in your mind, uh,
Speaker 1: complete with feelings of frustration and failure, etcetera, etcetera, certainly
Speaker 1: isn't going to help relaxing, looking for the joy, looking
Speaker 1: for the pleasure, accepting that there are different parts of
Speaker 1: your mind that have different agendas. What this does is
Speaker 1: it really brings different parts of your mind online to
Speaker 1: the group that SHA has the shared intention to meditate.
Speaker 1: So what I encourage meditators to do is to drop
Speaker 1: the idea that I am trying to do this but
Speaker 1: I can or I want my mind to do this,
Speaker 1: but my mind is not cooperating, and instead just drop
Speaker 1: into this place. Okay, my intentiontion is to meditate. Meditation
Speaker 1: involves a few simple tasks, So I'll just do those tasks,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to do them from a place of
Speaker 1: just accepting whatever comes up, finding the joy, finding the pleasure.
Speaker 1: It's comfortable sitting this way. Yes, Okay, my knee might
Speaker 1: ache a little bit, but other parts of my body
Speaker 1: feel really good. There's a certain pleasantness to being able
Speaker 1: to take the time away from the world and all
Speaker 1: of my other concerns and just have some time for
Speaker 1: myself to relax and enjoy it. There's a sense of
Speaker 1: satisfaction when I succeed in following the breath or performing
Speaker 1: whatever meditation you're performing. When you succeed in doing that,
Speaker 1: there's a sense of pleasure and satisfaction that arises. Put
Speaker 1: the focus of your activities on the positive aspects, let
Speaker 1: the negative aspects be there. I use the analogy if
Speaker 1: you're trying to persuade a group of people to share
Speaker 1: the same intention so that they produce a good result. Well,
Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're letting the ones to disagree
Speaker 1: be there. You're showing them what how this can be
Speaker 1: a positive experience, And you know, we can sort of
Speaker 1: anthropomorphosize these seven minds as saying, well, actually, that doesn't
Speaker 1: look so bad. Maybe I'll join in too. Yep, that's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I got from the book
Speaker 1: so much more than I had gotten previously. And now
Speaker 1: that of course I've gotten it, I noticed that. It's that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's been in other things I've read, but
Speaker 1: nobody's ever pulled it out for me in the same
Speaker 1: way that that importance of trying to enjoy your meditation
Speaker 1: being such a big driver of progress. And then the
Speaker 1: alternative of that, the scolding of your mind. You know,
Speaker 1: when your mind wanders off and you catch that it's
Speaker 1: wandered off. For a lot of us, there's a scolding
Speaker 1: that happens like, oh there I go again. I did
Speaker 1: it again, right, And what you say is it's so
Speaker 1: important to treat that moment almost as a celebration in
Speaker 1: that you caught your mind wandering off. And the reason
Speaker 1: that's so important is because that's training the subminds to
Speaker 1: do that. It starts to say, that's what we're looking for,
Speaker 1: versus if it's a scolding, you know, it's it's the
Speaker 1: same thing if I get scolded every time I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do something, I'm gonna be loathed to do it right.
Speaker 1: You know, I had heard do it non judgmentally. When
Speaker 1: your mind wanders off, non judgmentally come back, which is great,
Speaker 1: But you're even a step, you know, sort of beyond that,
Speaker 1: which is really more of a make that a good moment. Oh,
Speaker 1: I caught myself. That's good, that's good, and that that
Speaker 1: is what's training ourselves to come back, versus it's sort
Speaker 1: of like training a puppy, right. You can you can
Speaker 1: slap it with the newspaper, or you can use treats,
Speaker 1: and the treats are is usually a more effective and
Speaker 1: more humane way to do it. Yes, exactly. It's what
Speaker 1: you focus on in the moment. Do you focus on
Speaker 1: the fact that something happened that I didn't want to happen,
Speaker 1: or do you focus on but then it was followed
Speaker 1: by something that I did want to happen, And not
Speaker 1: only that that when that thing happened, I find myself
Speaker 1: in a state of mind that is actually quite delightful.
Speaker 1: And wouldn't it be nice if my mind could be
Speaker 1: in this state all of the time. I've awoken to
Speaker 1: the present moment, I've awoken to what it was I
Speaker 1: intended to be doing and the fact that that intention
Speaker 1: wasn't being fulfilled. So there's there is that wonderful feeling,
Speaker 1: and you're right, the tendency is to focus on the
Speaker 1: wrong thing and ignore the wonderful thing that's just happened.
Speaker 1: So that's been a real learning for me. Another thing
Speaker 1: about the book that I will say I think has
Speaker 1: been both wonderful and at the same time challenging for
Speaker 1: me is you lay out sort of a road map
Speaker 1: of what happens as you meditate over time. You know
Speaker 1: there's these different stages you go through, and I found
Speaker 1: it to be really useful in laying it out that
Speaker 1: being sort of like to know what to look for,
Speaker 1: how to how to be very specific about what to
Speaker 1: do depending on what stage you're And I found all
Speaker 1: that to be incredibly helpful. And then I found the
Speaker 1: challenge of the fact that there's more stages to get
Speaker 1: to means I want to get to those stages and
Speaker 1: becoming frustrated when I'm not. And and so I think
Speaker 1: it's the classic trying not to try right. But I'd
Speaker 1: just be interested in in your thoughts, because you certainly
Speaker 1: indicate in the book like watch out for that. But
Speaker 1: it just seems to be endemic to having a path,
Speaker 1: and so I just wonder if you could talk about
Speaker 1: that for a minute. There's always that inherent danger when
Speaker 1: you point out the system magic and developmental nature of anything,
Speaker 1: is that there's a part of our mind that is
Speaker 1: the lack of a better word, ambitious. The ego seeks
Speaker 1: ratification through progress and success, and in meditation, these these
Speaker 1: are just obstacles. What you need to do is, first
Speaker 1: of all, you need a certain amount of trust in
Speaker 1: the process. You need to believe. That's why it's really
Speaker 1: good to have contact with people who already followed this
Speaker 1: path and been successful at it, because it helps to
Speaker 1: build that confidence that well, if I just deal with
Speaker 1: what's happening right now in the moment and accept it,
Speaker 1: then eventually I'll get there. It requires the understanding that
Speaker 1: there are things that I have to do first before
Speaker 1: I can be there. If you were learning to play
Speaker 1: the piano, and when you're just at the stage is
Speaker 1: learning to play scales successfully become upset because you couldn't
Speaker 1: play a piece by Mozart. I didn't know what A
Speaker 1: lot of people do. I think that's why we quit
Speaker 1: a lot of things honestly, right exactly, those are the
Speaker 1: people who give up trying to learn the piano. It's
Speaker 1: the ones that understand that, well, you know, I have
Speaker 1: to be happy. I have to be really satisfied now
Speaker 1: that I can play these scales and it's getting easier
Speaker 1: and it's sounding better and it's smoother and things like that.
Speaker 1: I have to do these exercises first. Then I have
Speaker 1: to learn to play a simpler piece of music and
Speaker 1: experience the satisfaction that comes with each of those. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. To just be where you are and be
Speaker 1: satisfied with the achievements that you have that are appropriate
Speaker 1: to where you are. What you're encouraging is to enjoy
Speaker 1: each step of it, to try and find the enjoyment.
Speaker 1: And it's the same way with learning to play an instrument.
Speaker 1: Right at the beginning stages are you know, frustrating, right,
Speaker 1: but there's also there are moments in there where it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, this is really great. And I think the
Speaker 1: reason I learned to play guitar. It doesn't come to
Speaker 1: me easily like a lot of people, or you know,
Speaker 1: comes easier to certain people than me. It was it
Speaker 1: was a bitter struggle, but but it was made possible
Speaker 1: because I had friends at the time who were good musicians,
Speaker 1: who would we you know, want of them to get
Speaker 1: on the drums, want of them get them on bass.
Speaker 1: I turn on the electric guitar, turned up loud, and
Speaker 1: my three chords that I could play sounded great, and
Speaker 1: so I was able to appreciate and enjoy whatever level
Speaker 1: of skill I had gotten at that point, which was
Speaker 1: very minor, but I was really able to enjoy it,
Speaker 1: and that gave me the fuel to continue going. And
Speaker 1: I think it's a very similar thing of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here, and it's why you're stressing so much
Speaker 1: looking for the pleasure. You've got a phrase that you
Speaker 1: recommend um that you know people can use, and I
Speaker 1: use it now every time before I meditate, which is
Speaker 1: relax and look for the joy, observe, let it come,
Speaker 1: let it be, let it go, which sounds like long
Speaker 1: to memorize, but it's not. And I find that is
Speaker 1: a great way to try and get myself in the
Speaker 1: right space before I meditate, and that look for the
Speaker 1: joy is so important. And I've been meditating on and
Speaker 1: off for I'm not even gonna say how long. Um
Speaker 1: A long time, you know, decades, let's say that, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think I ever really picked up
Speaker 1: that idea of look for the pleasure that's inherent in it.
Speaker 1: Where it is is, you know, instead of looking at
Speaker 1: the fact like that your mind's wandering and feeling bad,
Speaker 1: look for a little bit that's good. And then there's
Speaker 1: another thing you say that was you know, I did
Speaker 1: get and it was really the key for me of
Speaker 1: unlocking meditation was there's no such thing as a bad meditation.
Speaker 1: If I sat down and tried. As long as I
Speaker 1: do that, I am. I try and be happy and
Speaker 1: content with that, like that's that's the best I've got,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm giving, you know, given that my all.
Speaker 1: And so that's another really important thing I think is
Speaker 1: and that's what I found to be slightly challenging about
Speaker 1: the stages model, is that it's great in that it
Speaker 1: lays things out, and my intrinsic nature is like, but
Speaker 1: I didn't get to stage, you know, I didn't increase
Speaker 1: stage today, you know, So I think it's just it's
Speaker 1: just something I work with. One of the other things
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about meditation wise, is I wondered
Speaker 1: if you could describe the four step process of settling
Speaker 1: in the type of meditation you're teaching in the early
Speaker 1: stages as a following the breath type meditation. But you've
Speaker 1: got four sort of things that you do as you
Speaker 1: head to that instead of just plunking down and you know,
Speaker 1: immediately paying attention to your breath. You've got sort of
Speaker 1: a four steps settling process that I found to be
Speaker 1: a really useful way to start. Yes, it allows you
Speaker 1: to allow things to happen naturally on the way to
Speaker 1: focusing your attention to a meditation object. Uh. It does
Speaker 1: another thing that's very very important is it allows you
Speaker 1: to understand your mind and learn much more clearly that
Speaker 1: distinction between attention and awareness and spontaneous movements of attention
Speaker 1: versus intentional movements of attention. But we have a certain
Speaker 1: mode that our mind is functioning in on our way
Speaker 1: to the cushion sit down. Let's enter into the meditative
Speaker 1: state in a very comfortable and sensible way. Let's start
Speaker 1: out with just letting our attention move between things the
Speaker 1: way it normally does, and let's bring that awareness online.
Speaker 1: And then what we do is we practice maintaining that
Speaker 1: awareness as we gradually and comfortably and uh not stressfully,
Speaker 1: uh narrow the scope of the attention. We do two
Speaker 1: things in the process of this is we observe, and
Speaker 1: we're actually observing with awareness. We observe with our awareness
Speaker 1: how attention moves spontaneously, and then we intentionally move attention
Speaker 1: and observe the difference between those. And at an unconscious
Speaker 1: level you may become conscious of it. You probably will
Speaker 1: after you've done this a while, but even for somebody's
Speaker 1: just learning to meditate, there just at an unconscious level,
Speaker 1: all of these things are registering and A A that's
Speaker 1: going to pay off when you come to the place
Speaker 1: where you're actually trying to keep the focus of your
Speaker 1: attention on the meditation object. It's telling your mind at
Speaker 1: an unconscious level, h, yes, this is how things work,
Speaker 1: and yes you can do this. So you already arrive
Speaker 1: at the meditation process um a little bit less prone
Speaker 1: to that frustration that your mind is doing what it
Speaker 1: does because you you gently introduced yourself to this state
Speaker 1: and you watched your mind do what it does, and
Speaker 1: there were as a part of that process, you also
Speaker 1: allowed your intentions, you intentionally directed attention and sustained it
Speaker 1: on different things. So with no forcing, no pushing, no determination,
Speaker 1: no anything like that, you've arrived at a place where
Speaker 1: you're beginning to do the meditation practice is but you've
Speaker 1: already reduced a lot of that tendency. Now. Of course,
Speaker 1: what we find if you're gonna sit for forty five
Speaker 1: minutes is is that starts to wear off, and then
Speaker 1: you have to work with the frustration that arises, and
Speaker 1: you have to you have to relax and look for
Speaker 1: the joy. But you get better at it with every
Speaker 1: set Yeah. I find it just a nice ritual way
Speaker 1: to sort of settle in and and and the process,
Speaker 1: you know, for listeners, just at a very high level,
Speaker 1: is you you sit down and become aware of your environment,
Speaker 1: what are you hearing, what's going on around you. You
Speaker 1: then move into paying attention to the sensations in your body,
Speaker 1: what's it feel like to sit, etcetera. Then you start
Speaker 1: to pay attention to the breath very generally, and then
Speaker 1: you finally, you know, get to where you pay attention
Speaker 1: to the breath at a specific point, which leads me
Speaker 1: into my next question. So do you recommend paying attention
Speaker 1: to the breath at the nose? That seems to be
Speaker 1: the place that I absolutely feel at the least I
Speaker 1: have tried and continue to try to do that. But
Speaker 1: how important is it that that be the object versus say,
Speaker 1: my abdomen rising or falling? And what are the tradeoffs
Speaker 1: of choosing to use a different point of the breath
Speaker 1: for meditation? Because I got the sense like, you can
Speaker 1: start with your abdomen, but finally you should ultimately get
Speaker 1: to what's going on in your nose. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's where I'm gonna get. I'll just stay there. But
Speaker 1: why why is one more important than the other or
Speaker 1: more useful? Well, first of all, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the first part of your question. There are certain tradeoffs.
Speaker 1: There are certain values that the breath of the nose provides,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to use the breath of the nose.
Speaker 1: There are all kinds of other things that you can
Speaker 1: use the breath of the abdomen, uh mantras, visualizations, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of things that you can use alternative things.
Speaker 1: But there are certain advantages to the breath of the nose,
Speaker 1: and one of them is that it allows you to
Speaker 1: do certain practices uh later on, which are quite powerful
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the breath of the note.
Speaker 1: Now initially it's difficult to find. Might ask yourself why
Speaker 1: that is, Well, it's going on all the time, and
Speaker 1: you've basically spent a lifetime ignoring it as your relevant.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, you have an enormous number of
Speaker 1: sensor receptors in in the skin, in and around the
Speaker 1: opening of the nostrils, and just inside the nose, and
Speaker 1: even in the uh skin just below the nostrils, so
Speaker 1: that if you can overcome that condition tendency of the
Speaker 1: mind to ignore this as an oh yeah, unimportant sensation,
Speaker 1: you actually end up in a place where once the
Speaker 1: breath becomes very shallow and very faint, which it does,
Speaker 1: and that, by the way, is another one of the
Speaker 1: advantages of the breath. But you'll come to the place
Speaker 1: where your breath is so faint and so shallow, Yet
Speaker 1: the sensations are so intense that you might think to yourself,
Speaker 1: if they were any more intense, I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 1: There are other things like the breath is completely spontaneous
Speaker 1: and automatic. Well, that applies to the breath of the
Speaker 1: abdomen as well. The last thing I mentioned about the
Speaker 1: sensitivity of the nostrils doesn't apply to the abdomen because
Speaker 1: there aren't as many sense receptors, and when the breath
Speaker 1: becomes very faint shallow, that's at that point the sensations
Speaker 1: that the abdomen are more difficult than those of than
Speaker 1: those So I'm not saying that a person has to
Speaker 1: learn to meditate using the sensations of the breath of
Speaker 1: the notes. They will have to adapt different meditation object
Speaker 1: uh in order to do some of the later practices
Speaker 1: that the breath of the nose is very conducive to.
Speaker 1: So they might have to adapt, and there'll be certain
Speaker 1: practices that they might not be able to do, but
Speaker 1: that's not important. They can still succeed that. So I'm
Speaker 1: by no means saying, you know, everybody's got to use
Speaker 1: the breath of the nose, But I do recommend, for
Speaker 1: the sake of later utility that you learn to use
Speaker 1: the breath of the nose at some point, even if
Speaker 1: you start with something else. But even there, I say,
Speaker 1: that's just a recommendation. You don't have to. When you
Speaker 1: were just talking, you reminded me of maybe the most
Speaker 1: valuable thing I got out of the book, which I
Speaker 1: completely forgot up until you just said something which was
Speaker 1: that breath is completely spontaneous, and so we're told when
Speaker 1: you're meditating, don't control your breath, right, But I found
Speaker 1: and still find to some degree that the minute I
Speaker 1: observe it, there's some sense of like that I that
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about controlling it, right, And you said, as
Speaker 1: long as you're not deliberately trying to, you know, breathe
Speaker 1: a certain way, there may be some you know, slightly
Speaker 1: unconscious or you know, very low level adaption where you
Speaker 1: are sort of noticing there's a little bit or the
Speaker 1: tendency to control. And for me, breath meditation uptil then
Speaker 1: had been so difficult because I would get in that
Speaker 1: moment where I'd go, I feel like I'm controlling it now.
Speaker 1: I wasn't really in any conscious way, but I was
Speaker 1: conscious of like, is this the way I normally breathe?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I breathe this way. And that
Speaker 1: teaching of yours, like, don't worry about that was incredibly
Speaker 1: helpful because I suddenly just dropped all that and didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about it, and that for me was
Speaker 1: one of the big changers that allowed me to meditate
Speaker 1: on the breath much much better. And I just think
Speaker 1: it's a subtle teaching, but boy, it was critical for me.
Speaker 1: It's also a very deep teaching. It's not an obvious one,
Speaker 1: but think about what's happening. So you have the intention
Speaker 1: to observe the breath, and some unconscious process alters the
Speaker 1: breath to make it easier to observe. Then selfing takes place.
Speaker 1: You notice that and you take credit for it. You say,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, well, it's not sense. There's no eye
Speaker 1: that was doing this right, you know, that's selfing. So
Speaker 1: so it's subtle, it's also very deep because it applies.
Speaker 1: It ultimately applies to almost everything. Yeah, you're right, and
Speaker 1: it is probably a indicator of mental state to some degree,
Speaker 1: you know. But it just was one of those things
Speaker 1: that I just felt like I couldn't I don't know
Speaker 1: how to describe it. It It wasn't like I was intentionally
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna breathe deep or anything. It's just
Speaker 1: that I noticed something about I felt like I was
Speaker 1: altering it in some way even though I wasn't trying to.
Speaker 1: And so again that was just so helpful to me.
Speaker 1: And then I think, you know, we're near the end
Speaker 1: of our time here. So I think the last thing
Speaker 1: that I thought maybe we would talk about. There's so
Speaker 1: much great meditation instruction in the book, and i'd encourage
Speaker 1: people to get it, but I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: something buried near the very end of the book. And
Speaker 1: it's a process called mindful review. And it's a process
Speaker 1: really of taking some of the skills that we're learning
Speaker 1: in meditation and then taking them into our lives and
Speaker 1: really being able to do that in life. And I
Speaker 1: just thought it was a very concrete teaching about what
Speaker 1: to do when you're not just sitting there meditating, although
Speaker 1: you encourage people to do it if they can, you
Speaker 1: can do it while you are meditating. But it's a
Speaker 1: process of thinking through things that I thought was really helpful.
Speaker 1: So I was wondering, in conclusion, if you could just
Speaker 1: walk us through what that process is. Yes, I call
Speaker 1: it the mindful review because the easiest way to develop
Speaker 1: this high degree of mindfulness in your daily life, UH
Speaker 1: is to begin doing it reflectively. Otherwise, somebody gets up
Speaker 1: in the morning and they say, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be mindful today, and then the next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it's four thirt in the afternoon, and I haven't been
Speaker 1: mindful at all. So let's start where it's easy. Let's
Speaker 1: review the day's activity, and let's think of those major
Speaker 1: events when we quite clearly were not mindful, and let's
Speaker 1: think about how they would have been different had we
Speaker 1: been mindful, and what would it have meant to be mindful.
Speaker 1: We could just sort of rehearse how it could have
Speaker 1: been in our minds, how it might have been different
Speaker 1: had I truly been mindful when that took place. Well,
Speaker 1: the effect that that's going to happen is the next
Speaker 1: time the same or even a similar situation arises, there's
Speaker 1: more likelihood that that mindfulness is going to arise. And
Speaker 1: you do the mindful review again, and now you're recognizing, uh,
Speaker 1: not only that you weren't as fully mindful as you
Speaker 1: could have been, but that you actually were mindful to
Speaker 1: a certain degree. That's once again a positive reinforcement. So
Speaker 1: now now you're even more likely to be mindful and
Speaker 1: similar situations in the future. So it's a way of
Speaker 1: training your mind to bring this much higher level of consciousness. Uh.
Speaker 1: On the cushion, you've developed this awareness that's allowed you
Speaker 1: to notice encroaching distractions and encroaching dullness and and to
Speaker 1: be able to see things much more clearly and vividly.
Speaker 1: Now you're learning to bring that into your into your
Speaker 1: life situations and what your goal in is with this.
Speaker 1: And this is something that when I describe it, a
Speaker 1: lot of people are going to say, I can't imagine
Speaker 1: that being possible, But try to imagine it. Try to
Speaker 1: imagine that as you go through your life, you are aware,
Speaker 1: not focusing attention, but you are aware of the thoughts
Speaker 1: and emotions that arise and pass away. You're aware of
Speaker 1: what you're saying, You're aware of your actions. But not
Speaker 1: only are you aware of them, you're aware of the
Speaker 1: motivations behind them. What is driving those thoughts and emotions
Speaker 1: and that speech and that action. Not only that, but
Speaker 1: there's a part of your mind that looks at those
Speaker 1: thoughts and that speech and those actions and says, is
Speaker 1: this conducive to me being the kind of person that
Speaker 1: I want to be? Is this even conducive to producing
Speaker 1: the result that I want in this particular interaction or situation.
Speaker 1: So imagine yourself as someone who has that degree of
Speaker 1: mindfulness all of the time. Wouldn't that be wonderful? It
Speaker 1: surely would. And it's a great practice and one of
Speaker 1: the things I like about it is inherent in it
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite questions to ask people when
Speaker 1: I'm working with them, and to ask myself also is
Speaker 1: in a very nice way, what could I have done differently?
Speaker 1: You know, because it's one thing to go I don't
Speaker 1: like the way I acted there, or I don't like
Speaker 1: what I did. But unless we take the time to
Speaker 1: think through what could I have done as an alternative,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to know. You know. It's just you
Speaker 1: just repeat the same thing because you you haven't given
Speaker 1: yourself the education. It's that's the learning piece to me
Speaker 1: of of that type of review. Now again, you got
Speaker 1: to do it judgmentally, but it's that or non judgmentally.
Speaker 1: But you know, what could I have done? And that's
Speaker 1: built right into the heart of the practice you just described.
Speaker 1: And I had to pull it out because I wanted
Speaker 1: you to know. I read the whole book. I'm kidding,
Speaker 1: I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It is it is in the
Speaker 1: very back, but that's a joke. I loved it. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, be with us, for for two full episodes.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the listeners will appreciate it, and I greatly
Speaker 1: appreciate it. There will be links to your website, your book,
Speaker 1: all that stuff in our show notes. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much, thank you, and it was a real pleasure.
Speaker 1: I've really enjoyed our conversation. You're a great interviewer. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. Thank you though, okay ye, if what you
Speaker 1: just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a
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