Jack Kornfield: Finding Inner Calm

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/4258aa3727fafec1

You're invited to quiet your mind.
And to set your own best intention.
If you were to set an intention.
of what really matters to you most.
It becomes a touchstone for you.
I mean it can be as simple as I vow to be kind.
Or I vow to live.
with more wakefulness and attentiveness to myself and others, or with more respect. Can be that simple.
And then when you get to place of struggle
You take a pause here, you say
What's my best intention?
And it shines a light and it gives you a new direction.
Welcome to the Knowledge Project podcast. I'm your host, Shane Parish.
The goal of this show is to master the best of what other people have already figured out.
To do that, I sit down with people at the top of their game to uncover the useful lessons that you can learn and apply in life and business.
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Check out the show notes for a link.
Today I'm speaking with Jack Cornfield.
Jack trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand and
India and Burma. He's taught meditation since the 70s and is recognized as one of the best in the world.
I've wanted to talk to Jack because of the inner voice that's always in my head.
Perhaps you have this inner voice too, the one that's constantly judging you and seemingly at war with yourself, the one that's worried about what other people think.
The one that feeds your emotions, your destructive patterns, and gets you caught up in the problems of others and the world.
This conversation is about finding inner calm. So many of our problems, even our physical ones, come from our inner state.
When we're calm on the inside, we don't pick fights, we're not passive aggressive, we're not creating or getting caught up in drama, and we're healthier.
Calm in this sense isn't the absence of conflict or stress, but rather the ability
To deal with it in healthy ways rather than destructive patterns.
It's time.
To listen.
and learn.
Let's jump right in. You trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, Burma.
What was the experience like and what memories stand out?
As transformational when you look back.
I went there right after
University. I'd graduated from Dartmouth College.
And it was during the Vietnam War.
And I didn't want it.
Go in the military was still the draft.
I didn't either want to kill people or get killed, so I asked to go
In the Peace Corps.
to a Buddhist country'cause I've been studying all of that.
They sent me to Thailand. I learned to speak Thai and Lao.
And I found this great teacher.
And I said
Can I come and be
learn from you and he said, Sure, you want to come as a monk? And I said, All right.
It was a wild forest on the border of
Thailand and Laos.
Pretty far out in the middle of
What was still then quite
Unmodernized.
World.
And I've been there a few times as a lay person and got some teachings. And he said, Okay, now you're coming as a monk.
Um I hope you're not afraid to suffer.
And I thought that's a pretty weird greeting.
And he just laughed.
No he said there's two kinds of suffering.
The kind you run away from that follows you everywhere.
And the kind that you face, and that's the gateway to freedom.
If you're interested, come in.
It was an ascetic forest monastery. We lived at quite
scheduled in a certain way and very rigorous training of the kind you might read about as and on a steer as well.
the bell in the forest would ring at three or three thirty AM and we'd walk
These narrow paths.
In one of the forest monasteries we would use these little sticks to tap the paths.
So this the cobras and snakes would hear you coming and move off the
Trail.
Then we'd sit in meditation.
For a time
Um and then get prepared before just before dawn to go out with our
Arms balls.
And walk.
five or ten miles barefoot back and forth to one of the villages nearby and the villagers would wait.
And put food in
in the bowls and we'd come back and
Mm.
that and clean up and then
do a day of meditation or of
community work with sewing robes or things like that.
Um so it was quite disciplined.
And then
At least once a week we'd sit up all night in meditation.
So the experience
was
Very different than anything I'd ever had.
before
When I'd learn
in an Ivy League education.
was half of what I needed in my education. I learned philosophy and
Just
history I done did some
mathematics and I was doing pre med for a while, so science things.
I said, but nobody taught me w what to do with my
anger and rage at my violent father.
Um it was all stored inside. Nobody taught me how to have a
kind relationship or to listen with some compassion
No one taught me what to do.
With uh
the kind of fears and anxieties
Yeah.
come up for all of us as human beings or
Even how to be with myself in a deep way in my own
Body and heart and mind. I said so it's as if
I had half of the curriculum of a
Wise education.
And I needed the second half.
There's so much I want to dive into there.
Uh I think let's start with
I mean, were there moments you wanted to quit? We all have moments when we want to quit where it seems like it's just impossible to keep going, and I'm sure you had many of those moments. How did you keep going?
Oh oh I did. Um I remember I got malaria, which was reasonably common in those forests.
And I was lying on the floor of my hut.
Which is you know, it was about
Six feet by six
Seven feet or something, tiny little hut in the forest with a tin roof and
quite wretched and one of the monks nearby had gone to tell the
The teacher.
And he came to visit me and he
He he he spoke in mostly in the Lao language, which is very kind of
laconic and straightforward and he looked at me and he said, Um, Kai ball?
Which means you're sick.
I said yes, he said
Two bot.
Is it hard? Are you suffering? I said yes.
And he smiled and he said, Yeah.
He said uh this is suffering all right. Um
We've all had it. It looks like it's probably malaria.
I said yeah.
Then he looked at me and said.
Makes you want to go home and see your mother, doesn't it?
I said yes.

And then he looked at me, he said, You know
You know how to do this. We all have gone through this.
I'll send the medicine monk.
But this is part of your training.
And you can do it.
And he smiled and I just felt this transmission of somebody who'd lived in the
Jungle for years with
Mill malaria and tigers and things like that saying, Hey
Go for it.
I wanna dive into some of the emotions that you you were talking about earlier in terms of anger and rage that you felt.
Uh with your father. I mean we all
We all have a lot of very strong emotions and
What help what skills sort of help us deal with our emotions?
Um my father was
was a somewhat brilliant scientist. He was uh
biophysicists who
help design some of the first artificial hearts and lungs.
He taught medical school for a bit, and he worked on space medicine.
But he was also uh paranoid
And periodically rageful and violent.
very abusive to my mother. He would you know throw her down the stairs
She hid bottles behind curtains so that
When he came at her she could reach for a bottle to defend herself.
Yeah.
Four boys.
We didn't know when he week he came home which father we would get.
The terrifying one or the
Kind of norm sort of normal one.
My strategy, each of us brothers had our s survival strategy.
Mine was to be the peacemaker in the family.
Try and
calm things down. Um
I still do that for a living. That's a whole other story.
And so when I got to the monastery I considered myself a
Very peaceful person.
And there I was sitting in meditation for
Quite a few hours a day in this
remote place and
being in a community
And I started to get irritated.
By folks around and then I started to get
Angry
And it was an anger out of proportion to what was happening.
And I started to get quite angry.
And I realized, Wait, I thought I was a peaceful person.
So I went to the teacher and I said to Ajan Cha my teacher I said
you know, I'm starting to feel really angry at stuff that's happening around
What should I do?
And he smiled, he said, Good.
What do you feel?
You said, Listen, go back to your hut. It was a hot season.
He said close the door and the two windows.
Wrap yourself in in your all your robes.
And if you're gonna be angry, do it right.
And just sit there until you know anger.
Until you can hear the story it tells, the many stories until you can feel the
Energy of it.
you know, pulsing through your body.
Um until you can find a way to actually be with it.
And not run away from it.
So that was the beginning of the training of dealing
In this case with that with with that particular motion.
To answer more generally,'cause that was your question.
What helps?
Is to begin to trust our capacity.
To be present for the emotions that we have. Because a lot of us grew up
Either suppressing them or being afraid of them, that's on one extreme.
or getting volatile'cause they sweep in and take us over.
And one of the great gifts of
mindful awareness or even mindful loving awareness'cause it's got kindness in it.
Is that as you train and set
And it doesn't take a lot in meditation for your emotions to show themselves.
You learn to the neuroscientist called you learn to expand the window of tolerance.
So the first step
is to recognize what emotion is there.
And we were actually taught to begin to name them.
Anger, rage, fear, longing, love, delight, joy.
Tenderness, uh
Anxiety, amusement.
I mean, I've got a list of five hundred emotions.
To begin to recognize him to feel as I did in that hot
Where you f where I feel them in my body.
What stories they tell
To make space for them.
So that they become like visitors rather than
Catching us up.
And this takes a bit of training.
Like anything, if you want to learn to play guitar or code computer.
And it really changes your relationship inside so that sadness comes.
And first you can recognize it, oh here's sadness.
You name it Sad, Sad, you give it space.
You see its story, it tells it'll always be this way and
You know, why this happened and so forth.
And you become
The
Mindful witness of it.
The kind witness that says oh
This is sadness and then something really
Wonderful also begins to happen.
You don't take it so personally.
At first it's all about you.
And who did you wrong or right or who left you or
You know, what loss there is, which is genuine. We have our grief.
But then
As you learn
With mindfulness to be present.
For emotions.
you realize that they're not just yours, they're ours.
that this is part of the grief of the world or the joy of the world.
Or the
uh longing of the world.
And that you share in that.
with humanity.
And it gives a kind of spacious perspective.
Um
And a greater ease or even graciousness with emotion.
I is the moment when you sort of witness them is is that almost like perspective taking?
Where where you're sort of like stepping outside of yourself and you can see it through a different frame.
Well put. Yes it is.
The only thing I would add is
Sometimes perspective taking
is more mental. You sort of tell yourself a story, okay, this is you know
Loss or grief.
Lots of people have it.
Um
But the
perspective taking can also include
This is what the body
Feels like
When grief sweeps over.
You know, this is what the heart feels like so that it's it.
It's embodied.
uh attention as well as the
um mental perspective.
That's fascinating because
I I I have a
theory that the way that we talk to ourselves matters, right? That inner voice we all have. And I know it's just trying to protect us.
But that narrative
that you know, it often goes into the drama triangle or these these patterns that are not helping us.
How do you think about that? It's true and deep what you say, how we talk to ourselves.
Because most of us have a whole running commentary.
Golden one.
Um
And one of the beautiful things
is that in
Learning
Mindfulness.
You start to actually
become conscious of that rather than just repeating the patterns of it.
And as you become conscious
Then another interesting possibility opens.
Which is you can see which of these thoughts
are healthy and helpful.
And which of them are unhealthy or destructive?
And you get a chance to then
with that spaciousness you go oh
There's that pattern. I've since a teenager I've felt.
'Cause I didn't think I
that my hair wasn't thick enough. I'm looking at you on the screen and we're we're both
Guys without much hair on our head, you know, and you have that whole story.
And then you hear I hear that story to go, Oh yeah.
I know that story. Isn't that a hell helpful story?
Um, that there's something wrong with me, you know, is it is it even is it even true?
Um and I see it, I say
Okay, thank you.
Uh for the story.
I'm not gonna go there.
Um not exactly like that.
You said something also really important in your comment.
Because
Our thoughts.
Try to keep us safe.
in all kinds of ways try to keep us safe from pain and from
you know, difficulty from humiliation from loss and so forth.
And try to help us get everything around us.
that will keep protect us and keep us safe, whether it's money or place or something.
So even when
I see
Or especially maybe
When I see
what seemed to be
Unhealthy thoughts.
Instead of adding judgment on top of it.
I can say
Thank you for trying to protect me, or thank you for trying to keep me safe.
I'm okay.
You can relax.
And then I go about
you know, planting better seeds than that in my heart and mind.
I is there a way to go about planting those seeds where w we can acknowledge or recognize our story, we we can sort of see the impact it's having on us, we can even witness it, but then how do we go about substituting one story for another?
Maybe a destructive story for a a more productive story.
So the first step of course is just to recognize them.
And then
To tune in a little bit.
to the fear or the pain that's behind them. So you drop from the story
Down into the emotion.
That keeps it going.
And to acknowledge that, oh
There's worry or fear or grasping or
Confusion or those kind of states.
And you bring a kind attention to that. And you say, Okay
Almost as if
to
Pay respects, thank you for trying to take care of me.
I'm okay for now.
Um you can relax.
Then the next step
Um
Is uh so that's sort of a mindfulness.
Response.
where you step out of it or you become bigger than that. You become a field of o awareness, of loving awareness.
Then the next step comes from a complimentary practice.
Which is loving compassion.
And that's a training in which you practice regularly
Envisioning one at a time.
Starting wherever it's the easiest people that you care about.
And wishing them well.
And you picture, you know, when your children or your
Partner or
Wherever it's not so conflicted to start with, where where the love is natural.
And there's a series of
kind of training phrases one would get in the monastery of may you be safe and well, may you be
healthy and healed may you be
Uh
happy and peaceful at ease, may you be held in love.
And you do that for a while for one person, you pick another, another.
And as you practice it, it becomes
A kind of response that you can draw on.
So there you see the
Unhealthy thoughts, you recognize him, you say thank you.
And then
You can do that toward yourself. There's a whole training in mindful self compassion.
Which you realise that
Um
You share a common humanity of struggle with everybody. We all have it.
You know, we all get frightened, we all get
Caught up in things.
So first you say
Let me hold this with compassion, feel the
Suffering of it.
And then wish yourself well.
And this well wishing, it's not at first it feels mechanical.
Which is totally fine when you practice piano.
It feels mechanical for a while or
You know.
But after a while it becomes easier.
And you
Have it as a
As a not just as a resource.
But almost as uh
Default as a place that you can
Um
Call on
And
And and rest in.
Zenmaster Tik Not Han, who is this great Vietnamese that
Died recently.
talked about it this way, he said, in the heart and mind
There are all kinds of seeds.
There's seeds of
joy and love of connection, of creativity.
Peace or well being.
Of caring, of strength.
But there's
Also a whole set of seeds of
fear and anxiety
Of anger or rage.
greed or grasping and so forth.
He said
How you live depends on which seeds you water.
If you water and tan those
Healthy seeds.
Those are what will grow in you.
And those
Become who you are.
in your response to the world.
So it's not by accident.
If you will.
As much as'cause we have we all have our history and our sufferings.
And our
You know, struggles in our good parts.
But now
Who will you be?
It seems like it's a lot easier to feed those negative seeds than to feed the positive ones. And and I was as you were talking, one of the things that I was thinking about is
Often I and maybe it's just me and other people don't feel this way, but sometimes I feel
Undeserving.
Of positive emotions for some reason.
Undeserving is one
Is

You know, you're saying it's your perspective on it.
But actually it sort of snuck up behind.
And tells you, yeah, this is really the truth.
When in fact it's one of those
Um unhealthy thoughts.
Is actually all that it is. I'm I'm I'm unworthy.
And I remember being in a teacher meeting
that we help to organize with the Dalai Lama.
decades ago, there's a group of us who were
Western meditation teachers.
And at one point we said so
What do you suggest we do about all the self hatred that comes up for
Many students. So this is taking your question.
you know, even one step further.
And he got
Confused, she said, Self hatred?
And he went.
Back and forth with his
Translator, he said.
How many of you have experienced this in
Almost every hand in the room went up.
And then he said, You know
We don't even have a word for that in Tibetan.

We don't we don't get taught that.
Taught that.
So we had this whole conversation.
about compassion and self compassion.
He said people might think self compassion is a weakness.
He said, But in fact, when you hold your humanity
with a tender heart, with genuine compassion.
Um then you can also hold others that way and you become
a force for what's beneficial in the world, but you need to be able to do it in yourself as well.
Is self compassion acceptance?
Self compassion has several
Parts to it. It is acceptance.
And there's beautiful trainings uh
Chris Gerber at Harvard and Kristen Neff have a
Oh
Whole beautiful training you can find online on Mindful Self.
Yeah.
Um
And it has steps, first of all.
To really listen to those voices that you talked about that play so often.
And notice how often and how many your
What stories they tell that are judgmental.
And then of course you could say
Stop that, I hate all that judgment. Go away, how do I get rid of it?
But what's that?
It's more judgment, right?
So instead
You turn.
Almost as if to acknowledge it and say, All right.
I see you.
Um
And I see the fear or the
Struggle or the pain.
behind it.
And already
That acknowledgement and the kindness starts to
Allow it to change.
Then there's a reflection.
on common humanity.
That you realize not only
All our
You
And I the only
Guys.
Who are bald.
And it's not something you did wrong. It's just part of this is the human species. We have fur in some places not in others, and that's how it works.
And you start to see, Oh, this isn't about me.
This is just about the fact that we all go through stuff.
And it becomes way less personal.
And then you bring in the cultivation of compassion.
For everybody who's
Lost in self judgment.
Um
And in this process
It starts to shift the interior
It starts to shift the way you hold yourself.
Um
A kind of confidence grows.
That's different than sort of
brash confidence I mean, I have a lot of confidence. I'm I
That was one of the
Things I inherited from my father.
That was good. I don't want to paint him as all bad because
Nobody's all bad in that way.
But you get a growing confidence that's not so much about
Look how great I am.
There's a kind of dignity again, that nobility from the
From that Buddhist phrase or text that says
Yeah.
I am who I am.
And and you feel a certain kind of
Respect, self respect or worthiness in it.
And it's a beautiful thing to shift from
Self judgment.
to a sense of
Self presence or love.
I wanna come back to something you said earlier, which was emotion.
uh keeps your story going.
Does the strength of our emotions reveal anything about what we're feeling?
So like sometimes you can feel
uh slighted and it doesn't affect you, but sometimes you'll feel slighted in a particular way and it almost like hits a
a part of your identity or a part of how you see yourself.
And then you have a stronger reaction to it.
Yeah, and that has to do with the
reconditioning from your past.
Somebody might say hey
You know, and say something that's a bit of a slight
And you know it's not even true and it ju just rolls through you.
And someone else.

And it's something that reminds you
Even unconsciously.
Oh the
pain you experienced before, or years before, something like that, and
You know.
You react.
So it's a it's a signal.
That that
Pattern is there.
in you that trauma or the
The past. Um
And and the strength of the reaction.
As just as you point out.
kind of shows that. It doesn't mean it's bad or good.
Just says okay.
That's something that's there.
And if you're not conscious about it.
Um then you realize it continues to play out.
There's part of us
that already is witnessing our life.
From uh you call the perspective of her mindful place.
That says, Oh yeah, I've really caught in that this one again or die.
you know, whether it's around foo, whether it's around addiction, or whether it's around fear, or whether it's around
You know, certain kinds of patterns or needs or things.
Um
But there's another part of us.
That can see it.
And gradually as we as we learn
Can even be
a little bit be mused like oh yeah caught in that one again or there we are.
Um
And what
The invitation of inner training.
Yeah.
is to shift our identity. You talked about it.
from being the one who's always just reactive by habit.
And able to step back.
And see, oh yeah.
There's that habit. And
That's not who I really am.
And we we already know this in
Some
Deep way.
Um but it gets it's beautiful.
Um
that we can train the heart and mind
We can practice this.
So that it's
It begins to liberate us in ways, and less frequently d do we get caught in the
Patterns that are
That are unhealthy.
It it's interesting, as you said that I was thinking
Um
Often our days spiral because of one of these events, right? Somebody slides us in a meeting or somebody cuts us off driving to work and
uh you know, that inner sort of road rage comes on. And then what happens is
Um
The rest of the day we don't react the way that we want to. We're not present in the way that we want to.
And so it seems like almost all of our problems come from our inner state. And if we get out of balance.
Putting that back in balance really quickly is is key because if our inner state is calm and fulfilled
We don't sort of pick fights or create drama or keep score.
So in a practical way
For a few decades I also
Worked as a therapist.
And one of the things that I
Did you think?
was have people sit quietly with me for five minutes before we
Launched into our
Therapeutic conversation.
Mm and it wasn't like okay, I'll be the meditation teacher now and you close your eyes and you have this state or something.
I just wanted her to get quiet.
Because if they came in and somebody had cut them off and they were filled with the road rage.
Um
They could hardly listen at that point to themselves or to me. They were just caught up in it.
And it didn't mean we couldn't deal with the road rage or how it reminded them.
Them of
Whatever their father I might say, since I have that.
Um
But it allowed them to quiet down a little bit.
Whatever wherever they came from, usually it was just a busy day or getting the kids off to or or or
Meeting with the boss or the employees.
It allowed them to quiet down a little bit.
And we could have a conversation that was much deeper.
That would not start with just the superficial what happened.
You know.
Um this morning.
Yeah.
There's a great gift in this.
For those who are listening.
The language we use is a mindful pause.
It's just what you describe.
That when you
Find yourself being
reactive or set off or trigger different kinds of languages.
You can learn
to take a pause.
to step back or even step away, excuse me, just a moment, I've got it, you know.
Gotta do something, go to the bathroom, whatever, or just take a few breaths.
And we know this capacity.
And as you point out, it serves us really well'cause
Without it, unprocessed in some way.
It'll flavor our whole morning and we'll snap at people or we'll judge ourselves or things will look more dire than they need to.
Because
That's coloring our experience.
And the the the great thing is that
It doesn't take very long.
A mindful pause.
Can be a
You know, a few breaths or a few minutes.
Um
But it
It transforms us in a way.
Uh one thing that came to mind when you said that is often what gets us in trouble is we react without reasoning.
Right. We are animals. We are instinctive. We have these biological tendencies and impulses.
And
learning to pause creates a space for reason to come in.
And it also puts things in the proper perspective, or it seems to put things in the pr you know, it's not the end of the world.
uh that I got a parking ticket or
Um, but we carry these things with us if we don't consciously
do that pause. Is is in your experience are there ways
That we can
create the habit of that reflective pause so that we don't bring the weight of whatever
What
we've experienced during the day with us forward.
You know, I'll amplify the question just a tiny bit.
What if it's an unjust parking ticket? Hey. Those are the worst.
Exactly. It's not fair, but then you don't want to go to court'cause it takes like three days out of your life and you might not but ever.
Anyway.
So there you are, and it's this is not a huge deal.
Yes, there are. And in a way, again
You're pointing back to
the capacity to train the heart and mind.
I was invited to the first White House Buddhist leadership gathering.
Um
Toward the end of the year.
um Barack Obama's presidency.
There was about a hundred of us and

You know, talking about serving community, so
any of these teachers and communities.
We're working with the homeless or
you know, feeding people or
working with kids who didn't have the support they needed or doing all kinds of beautiful stuff.
But they were also teaching meditation.
In most cases.
And I was
invited to
be one of the last speakers to kind of
Sum up what had happened.
And I talked about
The wisdom.
what in Buddhist traditions call a wise society.
goes back, you know, thousands of years a why society
People treat one another respectfully and they listen to each other with respect.
Um, they care for the vulnerable, they take care of the environment. These are things that are part of this ancient text.
I said, but it's not just Buddhists. You can find it from Lao Tzu and the Confucians, or you can find it from the Iroquois nation and the
indigenous people, the elders of Africa or Latin America.
I said but
Here's what I would like to say.
the the specialty
the of the Buddhist
Teachings or
I call it Buddhist psychology.
Is that there are ways to develop this. This is a this is this is what we want. It's
It's a vision of of what a
Wiser beautiful society.
Might be
And then your question is, all right, how do we do it?
And it has to start in our cell.
It's also collective. There are a lot of things we need to do collectively.
But uh anybody
Who looks can see.
that no amount of computers and artificial intelligence and space technology and nanotechnology and biotechnology and all that
Is gonna stop continuing warfare.
Stop racism.
Stop.
Climate destruction.
um, you know, or economic injustice.
Because those are born in the human heart.
And so if we want to change the world for the better, which we can, I believe
struggle that we do that
That
Many, many of us want to
Um
It starts with these air capacities that you're talking about.
You know, that that we as human beings also have to change our
Change our relationship.
to our emotions and our fears.
Um
And to shift.
From living a life of
Of

And more living a life of connection and compassion.
And that inner and
And the outer then.
As you work to change the world.
It comes from a really different place.
Um and it's and and it's that
Um
that changes
You know
The movement toward war or the
Uh.
The incredible suffering of racism or things like that.
So then your question is well how do you do it?'Cause you've been asking that all
And I've sort of been talking about it, all right.
You take time to quiet, you have a mindful pause.
You practice loving kindness or compassion meditation.
Until it becomes a little
More
easy it then it becomes very easy. And I notice when I
go out to the market or I'm driving or something.
And somebody whether they cut me off or
They slow me down'cause I'm a little bit of a speed freak, even though I'm supposed to be Mr. Mindfulness, but
I I actually move pretty quickly, you know, and then when somebody gets in my way
There's that little moment like hey
You know, I'm trying to get somewhere, whatever.
Um, it's just my temperament.
And I noticed it

And instantly
I wish them well.
Not because I'm like some great noble
Safety button.
Mm-hmm.
But because I've practiced it.
And it feels great.
You know, or there's that person shuffling along and I might
I might feel a little pity for them or I might, you know
Think about the society that doesn't feed homeless people'cause I mean
But instead just
Because I've been practicing a lot.
I look in the compassion just comes up. Oh.
They they've really got a tough life, haven't they? And I feel that.
And it's a moment that somehow
Softens.
My heart and my life.
And it comes relatively often.
So this is the fruit of practicing.
The other practice or training
Which we're talking about.
Is the
Kind attention, mindful awareness.
And there are all kinds of wonderful
programs to learn it.
And it's not that hard.
where we started when I said, Well, you know, I got an IV Lee education.
But nobody taught me all this.
Nobody taught me about how to practice forgiveness.
And how it could free me from the past.
Nobody taught me how to deal with my anger and not just
believe it and get completely caught up in it.
Seems like we're constantly
uh maybe this is the wrong metaphor, but constantly at war with ourselves, right? You're walking down the sidewalk, somebody's walking slower.
You instinctively, without consciously, have this thought about like move out of my way.
And maybe that's just cause both and uh both you and I are like honorary New Yorkers and we just want people to move out of our way and but we have this thought or we have this emotion, right? Or we have these triggers or we have these
feelings and our job is to
Sort of
recognize those feelings, pause and and sort of give them the space they need so that they don't grow, but we don't want to suppress them.
Because if we suppress them, they're gonna come out in a different way. And if we overly feel them, then they're gonna come out too extreme. And so we have this constant tension.
How do we get out of this tension?
I I I'll use an image from my
friend Ram Das who I've learned a lot from over the years.
He he learned to view his personality like his pet.
Right.
You don't want to be beat the puppy. The puppy doesn't like it and you don't feel that good about it either.
So
You know, we have temperament speedy or slow or introverted or extroverted or whatever.
And you see it. And you get a body
that it for this human incarnation and you're born with a certain kind of personality
And then it gets shaped further.
So you see it and there's a certain bemusement, like oh yeah.
Here's here's Jack speeding along.
good New Yorker style and you know, maybe judging people who get in his way.
And so it's not suppressing it.
It's also not getting lost in it. It's a sense of
Oh yeah.
Uh kind amusement. Um
There's the pet, and it's fine.
And
This is really still in that.
In some way in that same terrain.
Um
Mindful self compassion.
'Cause otherwise you either try to get rid of it as you said, or run away from it or suppress it, or
Or something like that.
And we can treat ourselves more graciously in the same way we treat others.
And forgiveness is another
part of this. There's a whole training.
That is so uh
Healthy and helpful.
For us as human beings.
To to learn the art of forgiveness. And there's some
Critical things about it.
First of all, forgiveness doesn't mean
Forgive and forget and it doesn't condone what happened.
You really need to see what happened. Clearly feel the
Suffering of it.
This happened to you or somebody else.
And then
Brazal.
To do whatever you can.
to stop that suffering.
You know, that you will
stand up or you will
Do
Whatever it takes so that the
So that the suffering doesn't continue.
So it's not like rolling over in any way.
But then
Forgiveness is about what you
Carry
In yourself.
And without it we're lost.
Without it you have the Hutus in the Tuts or the
Bosnians and the Serbs or the Northern Irish Catholics.
Protestant saying.
Your people march through our neighborhood.
You know.
eighty nine or two hundred years ago and
We're not gonna let this stop and we'll do that.
And you just keep the cycle going.
And some point it has to stop with someone.
Someone has to say it stops here.
I remember a woman
Who I was working with who was in the middle of a
Terrible.
Divorce.
Um
And the
the guy that she'd married was a uh successful
Uh type A lawyer.
And
He was trying to keep all the money.
And also
Get custody of the children.
And spinning stories about her as a bad mother and
When it was actually
he who had had the series of affairs.
At some point she came in to me, she said, You know
My ex is doing these things
Telling chip m our children these stories and trying to
Turn them against me, he's been doing that.
And she said I
I've I've been sitting with this. She was had learned to meditate some
And she said I I come to a revelation.
I will not bequeath a legacy of bitterness.
To my children.
About their father.
I will not say a bad word about him, no matter what he does.
And when she said that
Uh uh.
I was so moved.
Not because she wouldn't protect her children and get a good lawyer or do what she could.
But she was saying
I'm not gonna play this game.
It stops with me.
I will be big enough.
If you will.
To say that
The long term.
benefit for us as humanity.
is not to carry the suffering from the past.
How do you want to live as a human being? Do you want to
carry that suffering and the bitterness.
Or can you
Forgive yourself.
'Cause we also have a lot to forgive in our own lives.
Or others.
Even though it wasn't right.
And even though it wasn't fair.
It's simply to not carry the
The hatred.
in your heart.
to see clearly and realize that who I am is bigger than that.
We're all prisoners in our own mind in some way or another. When when you're telling me that story about
the the woman and the divorce
Th there's one aspect of that that was
uh stopping saying it.
to your kids. That doesn't mean she's stopping thinking it.
But I'm wondering if that is the first step.
to forgiving those thoughts and acknowledging them is like, okay, I'm not gonna pass this on to my kids. That doesn't change that I'm thinking it.
But by not passing it on, I'm not feeding it.
As much.
Yes, very well put.
Exactly. And
They kind of
Work together hand in hand the thoughts and then the actions.
The actions can reinforce the thoughts.
You know, if you talk about it.
Fuel it.
And the thoughts can fuel the action, or you can dial it.
down or you can step out of it and say, Yeah, I see this
And this will cause
A a legacy of pain. Which which again goes to a perspective thing, right? So it it's you're taking your s uh
I find this fascinating and maybe I I'm off on a wild gooch chase here, but
You you sort of take yourself out of this moment and what you have in this moment is all I can see.
And what you're doing is you're shifting the perspective to a broader
perspective. And now you're seeing, well, this moment in the context of that perspective doesn't matter. And I'm thinking about this in the context of, you know, a lot of bad behavior gets eliminated if you assume that you're going to be in a relationship with this person for the next
Thirty years.
You're gonna handle this moment a lot differently than if you don't assume that. But that's just a framing thing. It's a perspective thing.
That's beautiful and it's one of the ways that work.
to have that perspective'cause as you talked about, you're kind of shifting then
From the
more primitive parts of the brain, if you will.
That are just our reactive parts.
Um
to
Yeah.
A part that
Can
hold and see over space and time and have a whole different
you know, philosophical or
perspective view.
Sometimes it also works not so much with that perspective, but just simply
How do I want to live right now in this moment?
With my heart closed or open.
With m feeling
You know
In the grip of
Bitterness or
Do I want to soften and hold this moment and everything I have with
Compassion or respect for it.
Um but not feed it.
So all of those
All of those can help.
And here's another thing, I guess just to tell a different kind of story.
I work for a number of years.
with some colleagues, uh Michael Mead, who is one of the great
mythologists of the world in the tradition of Joseph Campbell.
And Luis Rodriguez, uh
Uh
Latino a great Latino poet and activist. He was the poet laureate of Los Angeles a couple of years ago.
And Maladoma Some, a West African shaman and medicine man who had a couple of PhDs from the Sorbonne and
Michigan or something like that. But anyway.
And we had we did a series of retreats for
Kids coming out of street gangs in Los Angeles and Oakland and Chicago.
And I remember one particular class or
Group that we had and
Here we are in this room and there's
You know
Forty, fifty.
Young men there.
We also work with young women some but this is mostly young men here.
Um, and we're there.
And were sort of set up to work with them. They were brought by mentors or something.
And they're sitting there with their hood up and their hats, you know, on backward and kinda like
You know, what you got. You're gonna read us some damn poems.
You know, you got some
Stupid meditation. I mean
We're out on the street with nine millimeters, people are shooting at us. You gotta give us something better than that.
We can't even start to have
to talk about what what what we came here for.

Too many
people in this room
Who haven't been honored.
Who've gone through so much.
Well
We took a candle, put it in the
Center of a table, just a simple table in front, lit it.
And said would you go out in the parking lot?
And pick up the stone for every young person that you know.
Who's been killed.
And
Place it by the candle and say their name out loud, so we know what we're dealing with.
And some of these kids came back with their hands full of stones.
Shane, and n no young person should know that many dead people.
And they say this is for
R J and this is for Tito and this is for home girl.
You know, and this is for Devin and
All of a sudden there's this pile of stones there.
And the hats come off and the hood come off and it's like okay.
We can get real here.
And I remember going into um
Google to work with the top
You know
vice presidents of who help run the company.
And there we're in this white I mean in this glass cubicle'cause it's
sort of open floor plan, but you can
Kind of.
Sit and close some doors so it's not
Not as he
And we sit down and um
I pull out a candle and put it in the middle of the table and lit it, and I said
We have things to talk about.
But let me light this candle. I didn't say what it was for, and let's just be quiet sit quietly for a minute or two.
And then we can talk about what's happening, what you're struggling with as a company, with one another, with and so forth.
And these were just very simple j ritual gestures. Ritual is this ancient language.
of you know
Lighting a candle or
pouring water of earth or water or
Things like that are
Handshake or bow.
But it's a it's an ex human expression, a language to say
Let's meet in a different way.
Or let's hold what works.
dealing with in a different way.
And in
A couple of minutes things can change.
You used the word ritual there, which I think is incredibly important.
I'm wondering if that's a conscious choice of wording on your part.
And what that means in terms of counterbalancing
acting as a force of nature almost to counterbalance these things that we're naturally experiencing our own mind.
Ritual is probably our oldest human language.
You know, some ritual of meeting another being
And signalling in some ritual way.
that you're not gonna harm them.
Or maybe that you are gonna harm them and they bet you know, they better take note of that.
or signaling in some way our connection to one another.
And the rituals are elemental, so I used it.
the image of a candle which is fire.
Right.
And just lighting a candle and all of a sudden it changes.
the the environment and how we're relating.
Um
Air
is really language in words I can
invoke I can say a poem.
Or I can make a
Three sentence prayer.
You know, may we come together
For the benefit
Of those that we s you know, that we serve even though we're in conflict or something.
And that
That prayer. I make a prayer now we all
Who hold us with
Goodness.
help us to come together in a better way.
And those three lines of a prayer.
Change everything.
Again that ritual I described with the kids.
was using a stone.
Go find a stone.
And place it there to represent.
Something that you care about.
Or that.
The element from the earth.
Um
You know, fire
water or whatever it happens to be.
Water you can
Say let's raise a toast even before we start.
Um
Pick up your glass and
You know, let's toast the fact that
We succeeded at this, or this person was whatever.
has led us in a good way even before we start.
I'm inviting
This sense of ritual.
First of all, to m again to make it conscious
But also
So that those who are listening.
Can hear
Just as we can make a mindful pause or shift to compassion in a moment.
We can shift our collective energy.
By taking a pause.
With the smallest gestures.
If the inner intention is also there with it.
It's a powerful way to get out of what's happened. Like if you can insert a ritual to pause before responding, to take a breath before responding, you often respond differently.
And if you watch elite athletes
They have the same ritual. Lewis Hamilton gets in the same side of the car.
Roger Federer bounces the ball the same number of times before he serves it.
uh NBA players bounce the ball the same number of times. They take the same shot. LeBron James before a game puts the
the um the powder on his hands and throws it in the air as a
And um.
honored a Michael Jordan, I think. And and so we all have these rituals that help us
leave something behind, whether it's being slighted or the last play, whether it was positive or negative, it's not always
Uh I
a negative play, you you might have just had the best play in your life.
But you need to focus now on the present moment. And so rituals bring us into that moment.
And I have a colleague and good friend named George Mumford.
The mindful athlete, you may know him.
Um, because he was the
mindfulness coach for the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers when they won all their championships. So he w he work he's work with all these guys
And this is part of what he was also teaching them.
So you're you're exactly you're exactly on point. So interest okay, let's we've switch gears to intentions. Talk to me about intentions.
Intention
Is
Incredibly powerful for us.
And it's sad in the
Buddhist teachings that intention
Is also
The basis of
Karma.
Or cause and effect.
That
Um the state behind your action
Matters.
As well as the action itself.
So I'll give an example.
Suppose you pull out of your driveway
And you drive through the fence of the
House next door crashed through it and
you know, into their living room.
Now suppose it happened that
That was the neighbor who cut down all the trees you loved on the property line.
You know, and shot at your dog and did a whole bunch of
horrible things and you just were so enraged that
one morning you they did one more thing and you couldn't take it and you just
Crashed your car through
That will make a certain karma and
The blue lights will come and you'll have to deal with all of the
consequences of what you did.
Suppose instead your accelerator pedal stuck.
So the exact same thing happens. You get in your car and you pull out and then it crashes through the fence and outs.
So the outside no one could see anything different, right?
But your intention was entirely different.
It was an accident.
You know, and the person comes out furious, he needs to say my colorator.
pedal stuck and they might still be furious and you have to deal with insurance and things.
But there will be entirely different consequences.
Because the intention was different.
So it becomes really
Powerful.
To start to pay attention.
to our intentions and saying our intentions deliberately.
And also of course it's important then to notice the
the impact or the consequences.'Cause you could have good intentions and
still out of them.
There could be
A bad impact.
So you need to notice that.
But one of the beautiful things that mindfulness
Training.
Invites.
Is the setting of deliberate intention. And it can be inwardly.
Or it can be outwardly.
Whether it's before an athletic game as you were talking about, or whether it's a business meeting or it's
You know, in education or whatever happens to be.
What's our intention?
And setting intention starts to steer everything.
There's something in
that's quite traditional in the kind of training that I did.
Uh in which you set
These long term vows sometimes they're called bodhisattva vows, a bodhisattva is
Simply somebody who's committed to the well being of everyone.
The Dalai Lama wakes up in the morning and
Says this.
Prayer.
May I be uh
Food for the hungry and medicine for the sick.
May I be a resting place for the weary and a lamp.
Uh for those in darkness may I be a boat.
bridge a raft for those to cross the flood, and may I do so.
To benefit all beings.
For as long as time and space exists. I'm
Some little pesky little intention like that, right?
Actually kind of magnificent.
You're invited to quiet your mind.
and to set your own best intention.
If you were it's like setting the compass of the heart.
If you were to set it in tension.
of what really matters to you most.
This is called long term intention.
Almost like a vow.
This is what matters and this is how I want to live.
It becomes a touchstone for you.
I mean it can be as simple as I vow to be kind.
Or I vow to live
with more wakefulness and attentiveness to myself and others, or with more respect. Can be that simple.
And then when you get to place of struggle
Things are confusing.
You take a pause here, you say
What's my best intention?
What was that?
And it shines a light and it gives you a new direction.
Or if you're in conflict in a conversation.
There you are.
Talking with your spouse, I'm here with my beloved Trudy.
Who is my
Wife and
partner and um a amazing, wonderful woman, but
It could happen on occasion that we have a little conflict.
And if I take a pause.
A breath like that mindful
Pause.
I can also ask myself what's my
Best intention.
Or my highest intention.
And then consciousness changes.
And instead of proving how right I was, which I certainly enjoy doing in certain moments, you know.
I remember what's my best intention.
Well my intention
Fundamentally isn't tension.
To connect, to be kind.
That we live.
With love.
Respect.
And I feel that.
What's my best intention?
And my whole tone of voice changes.
'Cause I could say what did you mean?
And it you know, it fuels an argument.
Or I could say.
What did you mean?
I want to understand.
In that s that same phrase.
But it shifts from
Blame
To interest and care. Is that what it means to set an intention?
This is what matters and
Uh this is the way that I want to live.
And then how often
Should we consciously
Evok those intentions.
when we're not in a in in a moment. Like should we just wake up and and think these? Should we
How do you think about that?
I I don't wanna make
People even think that there's some kind of
cookie cutter spiritual, okay, you should do your yoga and eat tofu and
Set the tension to good intention every hour and stuff.
It's not like that.
You you point to it quite
Beautiful.
In moments of difficulty or conflict.
Taking a pause and asking what's my best or highest intention.
Shifts your state of consciousness.
Periodically, whether it's the start of the day or a week or some new venture or
Some new adventure.
It can be helpful to reflect on
You know, what's your best intention?
But it's really organic.
In a way, I what I want to say is
What works for you?
We're sort of part of this.
Always on go go go culture.
Uh we're busy.
Uh our minds are busy.
There's always something we're thinking about that is is sort of not the present moment, right? The grocery list, the kids seem to be picked up. There's
A million projects at work. I have to text this person back. I need to email this person.
And we're striving, right? We're striving for
Uh.
Either if we're if we're conscious, we're striving for things that we want to pursue.
And if we're unconscious, I I feel like we're striving for things that other people
want us to pursue.
So we're playing life by somebody else's scorecards.
But this striving
individually might
uh be detrimental to us.
But it also pushes us forward as a society. So I see sort of like pros and cons to it. What ways does this striving sort of help us and in what ways does it hurt us?
So let me ask you
Again, now we're now we're
Back on the basketball court.
You know, where you want to win the game or
Now we're
in the terrain of running a business or
Teaching a class or something like that.
Have you had the experience of being quite engaged in
So that you're devoted to something and putting your
Best energy in it.
Without
The energy of
tension of grasping and striving.
As much as being engaged.
In the present for its own sake.
And if you have, what did that feel like?
I mean it feels great, right? Because it j it feels like this feels like this conversation, right? One of the reasons that we book three hours.
Um
is because then there's no time pressure. There's no you're not thinking about
Oh, I only have an hour, I gotta fit all this in. And so it's just I am here in this moment for this length of time.
And it it all it never goes three hours, or very rarely, but
I find that that frees me to be more focused in the moment, where if it's an hour
It actually is detrimental to me being in that moment and being present.
All right, so here you are in the supermarket. You got your list.
And not only is it your list, but there's other people
that you're close to that put their
Shit on the list.
Yeah. And you if you get the right kind of laundry soap and the right kind of
Ice cream or whatever for the kids or whatever it I don't know w makes your list. But there you are.
You have a time constraint'cause you have to get back.
There's something, you know.
Yeah. How are you gonna do it?
You could do it like
Screening through the eye.
Like good New Yorker grabbing things pretty quickly.
Trying to get through.
You know
And at the same time think about all the other stuff that you have to get done when you get home.
All of that.
That's one one way you could do it.
The other you could actually enjoy I personally like shopping.
So it uh it's a great thing in my marriage'cause my wife does it. So I'm I'm I'm I'm glad to do it.
Grocery shopping or other kind.
Um
But you could do it and have fun.
You could do it and I bet you have at certain points.
And say
You know, I'm now I'm shopping, let me enjoy this.
And it doesn't mean you're gonna be much slower. You're not gonna be the speed freak you c you know.
But uh yeah, let me let me
Few my steps and
Enjoy and be present and
Not try to work everything else out in my life. I'll I'll just
In one there's one Zen saying that says you know, when you
Sit, just sit, and when you eat, just eat.
You know, to just be where you are.
And you can practice this.
And you start to pay attention to what it's like when you do it in a gracious way.
Um and it doesn't mean you can't set a goal.
And it doesn't mean you can't give it your very best and that there are certain moments you need to really throw yourself into something.
But even that you can do it with a good spirit and with fun.
Rather than being
Afraid of how it's gonna turn out.
So this Zen teacher
Sung San Sun Sunny but Korean Roshi that
Or a Zenmaster that I studied with and so he was sitting in his
Zen Center in Providence one morning.
Eating his breakfast and reading the morning paper.
And one of the students as as
As we are up at E students that we get.
Said hey, wait a second.
Didn't you say when you sit just sit and when you eat?
Just eat. What is this thing about
Eating and reading the paper.
And he looked up and he said.
When you eat and read.
Just eat and read.
But the idea of it is
Still an invitation.
To bring this quality of mindful presence
To actually be where you are more fully.
Because
Ninety percent of your thoughts are repeats.
Maybe more than that when you sit in meditation.
And you
kind of notice what's going on in your mind.
Yeah, it's a little bit like
Being stuck in
motel six at night with the shopping channel on or whatever, or some other channel.
It could be, you know, whatever your favorite channel is.
But it's
Yeah.
They're they're not new.
Um and it's it's the brain and the mind.
reciting certain things and you can say, Thank you, I appreciate it. That's what minds do.
And then you can tune into a deeper quality of being present. There you are in the supermarket.
Say all right, let me be here. I'm not gonna try and solve the problems of my life.
right now I'll I'll take my time to do it.
And then of course once in a while as you don't pay attention to your thinking
Some good new intuition comes. I don't want to put it down thought is a
Is a great
servant, it's just not a good master.
You don't want to let it run your life. You want the quality of presence.
And compassion.
to run your life and thoughts to serve that.
Something you said there just struck me as really interesting, which is ninety percent
of our thoughts or repeat thoughts. It's like we have the same playlist going over and over again in our head.
And if if we think about
People say that you're the the sum of the five people that you hang around.
The most.
But
In fact, there's also this unconscious
playlist going on in the back of your mind, these stories, not only the thoughts that we're telling ourselves, but the stories.

I'm thinking that they they impact
Our habits are
behaviors are
Um
Actions.
Very much so.
Just what you say.
And they impact us much more
When they're not conscious.
when we don't really recognize them.
So one of the first things that happens
When you sit in meditation the idea isn't that you stop your mind.
thinking. There are ways to do that for periods of time, but it's not really the goal at all and it doesn't last that long.
But to step outside of it or to make space and then you begin to recognize, all right, what's the playlist?
You know what what's happening.
What are these stories?
Um and you start to see the repeats.
Of them.
And you can see again, okay.
These ones all right.
These are healthy. I wanna water these ones.
These ones I just let them pass, let them go.
You're quite right, more than the five people.
It's
The five patterns. One of the
meditation techniques or tricks that I teach people.
is to actually number the top ten tunes.
If they come on a meditation or retreat and they're gonna sit for a week or ten days.
And they'll start to watch Here's the Top Ten Dudes, or I had a friend who was at
who is a disc jockey.
And he had literally had the playlist. He said, I didn't ask it and then you know all the
All the tunes would start playing. But anyway.
So you number them, the top
Number one is, you know, what's happening with my daughter, or number two is uh
What's happening with my stock portfolio or number three, you know?
Often their worries.
Number three is I've got this whole creative project. How can I figure it out and make this film or theater or
Build this thing and so forth.
And then you're sitting there and they come on and you say, Oh, number three, uh, thank you.
Thank you for
you know, coming along, I'm okay.
Um
And it it just
helps you step out of them a little bit and recognize, oh, that's just what the mind does.
And then there's a space around it.
Where you can
Walk out the door and see
The pine trees
you know, or smell the air in a way that you wouldn't'cause you're
Or you know, or see the people walking by.
In ways that
you we would have totally missed'cause you were just lost in thought.
Why does nature seem to have such a profound effect?
On our thoughts.
I generally speaking don't know how to answer why questions very well.
'Cause everything is so multi determined.
But
You're acknowledged for many, many people.
that walking into the forest or going
by the
Seashore up in the mountains and so forth.
It changes us. It steps us out of that.
modern constant thinking moving.
to a different dimension of our being.
And it can change us even more deeply.
There's a reality
that we know but that we forget, like that poem from Juan Ramon Jimenez.
Um
Who you are is not your body.
You rent it from Hertz or something. You get it for a certain number of years and you have to give it up.
And I've had the
remarkable experiences many of us have.
Of sitting with people as they're dying.
And there's that moment, especially if it's a kind of conscious where the person is
more or less conscious as they die.
When they're there.
And then they are not.
And it's silent.
Like a falling star.
This amazing moment.
Where spirit leaves the body.
But in that moment
The body just becomes
Meat, basically.
The corpse.
Because it's not who you are.
you consciousness uses this body.
You're also not your emotions.
If you were, you'd be really in trouble.
Th they come.
But if that's who you are, then each one would throw you around into a different universe for that.
emotional time. And it can if you're not subconscious, but that's not who you are.
And Lord knows you're not your thoughts.
You know, if we could put a little
Speaker on the heads of
Everyone sitting in a room together.
Um at a meeting, not to speak of a quiet meditation.
You know, there would be a dent.

So then who are you is the question.
And I don't mean it philosophically to think about it.
Um
But when you get quiet
You can realize that
Even now as you're listening.
But there are these words.
Change words by words and so forth.
And there's an awareness of them.
They're two different things.
You are that awareness.
That is consciousness itself.
And that awareness
Is timeless.
It wasn't
It's not limited by your body.
It was born into your body.
And we know this this goes back to your question about time and nature. I'm gonna circle back.
Because
Walking in the high mountains.
Or making love.
Or
Going to an amazing cathedral or hearing extraordinary piece of music.
You know, or taking some kind of sacred medicine.
Um
Or being there at the birth of a child.
Or the mysterious moment of death.
Hm.
The gates between the worlds open in some way.
And who we remember all.
this mystery what I am actually
is part of the I'm consciousness experiencing this mystery of life.
That's
Part of what nature
can do for us.
is it opens that gateway again.
I like
that I I I think I mentioned nature'cause you mentioned pine trees instinctively as the first thing.
When you you were talking.
And then I was like, Oh, there's something soothing about nature I know, like when I pull into nature, go for a walk in nature.
I instantly feel
Like a weight off my shoulders.
I'm listening to you and we haven't
Ever talk before and I didn't
really know you
My experience in talking to you
is that you have
A lovely
measured and
Gracious way of talking?
A great deal of space in your listening, you're not saying so much. You could I mean I'm on to blab, so I guess that's my job for today plus
As a teacher that just happens, sorry to say.
I find your presence to carry some of this, said
And maybe you know it, I hope so.
That is
Got
Gracious and graciousness and spaciousness both
And it kind of worked in it.
Th there's a sweetness to it.
And it a a sweetness and um
At the same time.
A real
interest or clarity. The sweetness doesn't take away your
Your ability to listen and
And discover.
Um
So how how does that land for you? Thank you. That's incredibly kind and generous of you. Um
A little bit nervous, actually. I I'm not very good at sort of um
Taking compliments or or acknowledging them. I always want to deflect. Yeah, that that's true for a lot of us. It's for me, it's been a practice I've had to learn to do it, especially in
Teacher.
Kind of you know.
I'm in the role with all the
llamas and mamas and swamis and gurus and things and so people throw a lot of that and
And I tried to deflect it a long time.
And then I realized no
It's fine.
It's okay to let it come in and wash through and go way's
It's
You know.
So even now as you say that
I I appreciate
That you were honest in saying it and also that
You can bring it kind of
humor to it and say yeah.
You know?
For us, it's hard to take it in.
Um, and so you can just acknowledge that too. Yeah, thank you. And then you become mindful with a with kindness to it. Yeah, sure.
It's it's also um
I definitely think that it's when somebody gives me a gift, I would always rather be
the person giving a gift to somebody else than receiving
'Cause then I become self conscious in that moment about
What am I supposed to say? What's the right thing to say? How do I and it's not even about the gift, it's just all me in my own mind.

Well it it's also because
That
in that position you're more vulnerable.
Quite honestly.
Again going back to my
Your friend Ram Doss.
As it
As a teacher he also started something called Save a Foundation.
Which still is doing um
Surgeries to restore sight for blind people.
uh around the world.
Um and you got a whole group of really great people to do it his
You know, musician friends like the Grateful Dead to sub
Give them tons of money and
Various other people.
And so far then they've now restored sight to
Five and a half million blind people.
And he did all these other really beautiful things.
And then he had a major stroke in which he lost his
Ability to move.
almost half his body and he couldn't speak well, he had aphasia and
He has to mostly

And he said, you know.
Um
Going around the world as a teacher and going around with these projects, trying to do conscious business and trying to
Cure blindness or help with polio or all these other things that I've devoted myself to, he said.
That was
nowhere near as hard as being in a wheelchair.
And having
People have to
Pick me up and wipe my butt.
You said that's a way harder than
You know, trying to cure blindness in some country.
Um because we get vulnerable.
And yeah.
I think part of what makes your work
Trustworthy to people.
I mean there's all kinds of ways.
It is
that I actually feel that you are present.
And that you're that you're willing to
The
Vulnerable somewhat, including talk about
How hard it is to receive things.
It's hard for all of us. You make it really easy to feel safe to and and sort of
reveal things'cause I I don't feel um like there'll be any judgment.
Uh, which is super powerful. Like we're always judging. We're judging ourselves, we're judging other people.
Well, there's two words for it.
One is judgment.
And the other's discernment.
And the judgment has a kind of negativity. You shouldn't think that and you shouldn't have said that and that's bad and this is good and so forth.
And we all learn those kind of things growing up as kids in the society.
Reinforces it.
It's spades.
Um
Instead of the judgment which has that negative veil on it.
If we
Use the
beautiful quality of discernment to see.
This is valuable, this is not, this wants more inquiry, that doesn't.
Um
This doesn't look like it serves.
It allows that same capacity.
That we have to see clearly.
To be marshalled in this
service of
Real connection.
to others or even to ourselves rather than
judging them or rather than judging ourselves.'Cause a lot of us are so
Judgmental.
When you really sit in meditation, see how many judgments there are.
They wouldn't hire you on the bench in a civilized country.
Yeah.
Before we come to consciousness, there there's
Wh which is um super recent for me. I I wanna
When I struggle
And I I assume other people are like this too. I have a tendency
Not to ask people for help.
And I think it's because I don't want to inconvenience them and the results.
is that I tend to isolate myself or withdraw
withdraw is is
Struggling.
something we should do alone or with others.
And of course the
Answer to these kind of koans is always yes.
Yeah.
You know, I think it's a
Part of it is an inner job.
That you have to do.
Right.
But it's not healthy to do all that in yourself.
And that's why we have one another to talk to and learn.
And in every spiritual tradition.
You know, there's the
Sanger
The community, the Sotsong, the Jewish minion that
In Christianity whenever two or more are gathered in his name, there's
There's an understanding.
Um
That we help each other.
To be
More f
Fully.
The best we can were human.
I mean we could also
misguide each other and that happens and
all kinds of war and political and so forth.
But for the work that we're talking about.

A manch.
A gracious wise
You know.
human being.
We need each other.
And we learn from one another. It is so interesting to hear you say that, and I and I agree with that. I feel like we're also missing that.
Today.
Our channels are very thin.
And we don't have the kind of communion that
You know, Covid made it way, way worse, but we don't have that kind of communion.
It's one of the things that makes something like A so powerful.
Because when you're there people
Get real with one another.
Get honest and you feel like oh okay.
I'm not alone in this in my struggle.
And that's a huge healing part of it.
I w I wanna read a story and it you know, it'll take a minute or two.
Um
And I just because I'm a storyteller.
And I'm just gonna throw it into the conversation and see
where it takes you and us.
During my first year of teaching a girl named Shay was assigned
to a seventh grade.
My seventh grade class.
She was a desperately unhappy child and rebelled against the most basic rules such as stay in your seat.
Raise your hand to speak.
Shay and I battled for control of the classroom.
I tried every technique I knew.
Behavior contract.
Praise.
Reprimands.
None of them worked.
I tried calling Shay's home.
Every week.
But almost
Always no one answered.
She lived with an older sister and I just don't know what had happened to her and her family.
I went to the school counselor who said I'd done my duty and offered to transfer Shay to another classroom.
I declined.
She was my student.
And I wasn't gonna pass her on to someone else.
In the faculty lounge the older teachers patted me on the back, thankful they didn't have Shay in their classroom.
June finally came.
On the last day of school, Shay was quick to head out the door.
As I sat contemplating my failure with her,
She walked back in.
Oh great, I thought. One last act of terrorism.
In Shay's hand.
Was a small bowl.
The kind that students made in ceramics class.
She thrust it into my
Grass.
Here she said.
It's the only thing.
I could think of to give you.
I turned the ball over.
And saw Shay's initials etched on the bottom.
Thanks to like me, she said.
And before I could speak.
She turned.
And left.
After several more years of teaching I went on to become a school principal.
And now I'm the district superintendent.
Chase ball.
has never left my desk.
Hey.
It's a powerful story.
And there's a lot of things interwoven there, right? There's stubbornness.
Um
And the persistence.
Of the the teacher.
There's the um my initial
Uh I have a grade seven.
And my initial sort of thinking is like what's going on in that person's lives for them to act like that. Yes, which I'm sure the teacher also thought about. Exactly.
What kind of suffering at home?
Did she have to armor herself that way? Yeah.
And then also what was interesting about the story in
Just a story, obviously, but like
Um
when she came in the last day of school, it was w and her thinking
Even at that point was one last act of terrorism. Yes.
Right. So we we become predisposed to see the narrative that we've formed in our head about other people. And once we've seen it, it's almost impossible to change it.
And and what was really powerful about that story for me is that the narrative changed in that moment, even though she had seen this.
the story one way for a whole school year, so September through June.
In that one moment.
Um she was able to see
that whole story and that person in a different way.
Yeah, thank you for that. That's that's a beautiful
perspective on it.
You know, in India
people who go to see these famous gurus and so forth.
Sometimes special happens, sometimes nothing special happens, but or something you know, whatever, but
There's something
That's interesting that's described
Called the glance of mercy.
And what it describes is
Once in a while.
You can go see somebody
Who looks at you
And really gets you, sees who you are deeply.
And we know there are people
Who can really see into someone.
Somehow or other. And I don't yeah, sometimes it might seem mystical.
Some of it's just intuitive, but you know those kind of folks.
And in this case somebody who can see you so deeply
And look at you.
With the eyes of love.
Says I see you. I see all of you.
And I love you.
I accept you and you're worthy of love.
And it said that
that kind of glance of mercy
Can change a person's life.
Because all the things that they
We're ashamed of or
struggle with or didn't all the things that were part of their humanity.
that they didn't accept. And then all of a sudden that shock of
Turning everything around like you described so well.
at the end of the story.
Can change everything.
Yeah, and it probably ch I mean, changed how it probably made that narrative a lot slower to form with other kids in the future as well, right? So it had a profound effect.
Yeah, and it it and it and it redoubled.
that teacher's commitment to
actually be there for kids now, you know, for obviously many years later.
With the bowl still
Sitting on her
You know, her desk.
But that's also important, right? W the visual
Um I don't
There's a word for it. I just don't remember what it is, but the token, the sort of like visual reminder of something that you want to keep
uh coming back to is super powerful as well.
It just
Centers you and unconsciously it centers you because you've associated that with a certain thing. And so it doesn't even have to be a conscious thing. It's like the presence of it alone is speaking to your unconscious. That is the ultimate question, right? How do we live a meaningful life and how do we
Live consciously.
Is there a different or what is the difference, I guess, between compassion
And empathy.
Beautiful question.
And I just wanna say one thing.
Going back to what you were saying.
At the end of life there aren't that many questions.
If you
Have lived even a bit.
Conscious life.
Did I love Well?
Did I bring my gifts to the world?
Um Maladoma said that in the his
the Dagor people in West Africa.
Where there are all these rivers that have always had, you know, boats.
whether they were dugout boats or simple boats or more so.
He said we believe that every child who comes into the world
Um
has gifts to deliver.
And that their task is to deliver their cargo.
So did I love well? Did I
Use my gifts did I offer them to the world.
And then of course.
In the end.
Did I learn to let go?
'Cause otherwise you could a crash course.
You know.
But anyway, so then you you
switch the theme, repeat the question again.
W what is the difference between compassion?
and empathy.
Yeah, so he let me give an image.
Suppose you're
On that.
Edge of a schoolyard.
And there's a kid
Who's being bullied.
Um
By
a bully and some other kids around him being taunted or, you know
Yeah, whatever it is.
Empathy arises
When you feel for that kid.
And maybe maybe even when you feel for whatever the other kids, the bully had to go through to become that bully.
Mm.
So there's this kind of recognition.
Um and you get it in yourself.
Uh
It's like
You know, neuroscientists talk all about mirror neurons.
And if you

And then take another violin in your hand and
Bow it strongly.
The strings on the violin and the table will resonate.
with the strings of the violin in your hand and
That's how we're tuned to one another. So that part is empathy.
Compassion.
Is a verb.
When you empathize
Then and you feel compassion.
It also moves you.
to either walk over if that's the right thing, or go talk to the teacher or the principal.
Or something and say, Hey.
You know
There's the suffering.
Let's
Let's do something to make this better.
And so compassion is
Combines empathy with the heart's response.
to alleviate suffering.
So compassion, is it fair to say that compassion leads to action?
Yes.
Whereas empathy is more understanding.
And being
Uh non judgmental understanding. Yes.
Yeah. Being w being with. Being with in some deep way. Yeah.
I wanna come back to consciousness and how it leaves the body.
Uh
Tell it in the form of a story.
Um parcial story.
I was
sitting with my father
And the
hospital University of Pennsylvania Medical School.
as he was dying. He was seventy five and
It was congestive heart failure.
Um
And he was terrified of dying.
Um
And I'd made my peace with him.
In some way has
You know, over the years.
So
You know, I sat with him
Any
just kept being so frightened that I said, So what do you think happens when you die?
And he said nothing, dirt.
No, I'm a
I'm a scientist, d you know, the body dies and you
Hmm, you turn to dirt.
And I said, Well, if you're a scientist you wanna be open minded and
Take it as an experiment, right?
You th I guess so.
I said, All right, let me tell you my experience.
In meditation.
I've had these out of body experiences where
I was sitting there
I was completely shocked.
Um
Because I could feel myself where I was sleeping.
Lying down and all of a sudden
I felt myself get up.
and walk over and look out the window and saw things happening.
And then I turned back around and and looked at oh
You were lying down meditating and then you left your body and you
Have this out of body experience.
And then
I walk back over to my body that was lying there.
Um
And
Kind of fell into it.
That was this was the first time it happened.
Um
And I got up and I walked over to the window.
And yes, the very things I'd seen that I couldn't possibly see lying down there were still happening.
And so I started to have a series of out of the body experiences.
Then I also had memories it was sort of strange of being

in monasteries in China, you know, working in the kitchen or something, no nothing particularly noble or great.
Um and I learned to do past life regressions with people and
People believe it or they don't, but they have these
wild experiences in doing it. Not everyone.
But it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. I've done it in different countries. So
I was telling my father about this and then I said and I sit with people
As they die.
And sometimes
They almost die the near death experience.
And then they come back.
And I say, How are you? So they said, Oh, I floated out of my body
There was this incredible light.
Um, I just felt myself drawn to the light, or I was surrounded by light.
Um
Sometimes they'll say
It's as if there are other beings there that were waiting for me, but then
I felt myself drawn back into my body, so I
I see I haven't died yet.
And I've had that experience sitting with people or
Felt it with them.
So I told all this to my father.
And I said you know
You're a scientist.
Why don't you wait and see what happens?
Um because likely as you die
In fact,
You will float out of your body.
And there might be a bit of a review like looking back and saying, Wow, that was an amazing life, an amazing incarnation.
What what you live through.
And no
There'll be light and
And you know, a whole other thing will happen.
To your consciousnesses, not your body.
Um so you wait and see if this happens.
And if it does remember
I told you so.
Got my last little lick in there.
Anyway, so
I kinda wanted to tell this as a story.
Partly'cause it's true.
Um
All the parts of it, I think.
But also.
It g it starts to illustrate
Something that we know about the mystery.
And the mystery is that who we are
Is this consciousness itself?
And that some part of us knows that.
You're involved in a lot of things. I'm wondering if there's any you think people might be interested in. I I am and I'm happily involved. I
Taught for
Probably forty, forty five years, all kinds of classes and retreats and
Especially with Covid I've done now gone
Most of my teaching is online.
Um
Um
You know, people can find what I'm doing at Jackhornfield dot com.
Uh I've been
teaching online for Spirit Rock, one of the meditation centers I've started.
But also you and I were talking about
Um the importance of being

And how helpful it is to have other people to talk to.
About what you're learning.
And so we've started a company called Cloud Sangha.
S A N G H A Cloud Sangha.
In the cloud.
community in the cloud.
And there you can sign up for
a few months or a year to be part of a weekly group, a small group, like six or eight people.
with a really experienced meditation teacher
and have support and talk about what's going on in your life, what's going on in your meditation.
All the kinds of things that we talked about about how do you approach
These things in your life.
From a mindful or compassionate perspective.

doing it, love it. So it's a it's kind of an exciting and beautiful thing to see.
And then another way I'm getting myself in

Isn't part of a
New uh
Venture Capital Fund, which is sort of weird for a meditation teacher and former monk.
Um called Wisdom Ventures.
And
Wisdom Venture is a
With a group of
very experienced meditators and several very experienced venture capitalists and I thought, Well
Why would I want to do that?
But our intention turned out
Turns out to be

Companies.
that are building compassion, empathy
And mindfulness in the world.
And we've started to find a whole series of
startup companies that are
Doing things like spreading
Um
really good mental health and
Therapy in Asia.
by changing the whole name of it and how it's seen so that where it's just stigmatized a lot in certain societies.
It's now seen as something positive as a kind of inner coaching and development that people love or
Working with it.
Um
Really great company.
That's getting jobs for people coming out of prisons and changing their life around.
Using some of these principles of mindfulness and compassion and so forth.
So wisdom ventures is another great thing.
Um that I
Learning from
Uh it it and it's um
again sort of shows that
These
Practices and principles can be used in
all kinds of areas, whether it's in education or business or
uh building community or in your own life.


All of these are places.
That are
Um
Amenable to that are
That are benefited.
by your own inner training of mindfulness and compassion.
And that there are ways that turn them around to be
Um
Yeah.
Do
Really successful.
And
A kind of delicious way to live.
Quite honestly.
So I hope that what we've talked about
Um
Something in here will touch
Those of you who are listening.
And give you an inspiration.
It doesn't matter that you m certainly not that you become a Buddhist, spare your friends and family that.
Um you want to become a Buddha.
You wanna become that noble being or that
Gracious human being.
That you were born to be.
And that there are beautiful ways to learn to do this.
And then you can bring it into every kind of venture.
You know, and I work a lot with CEOs and some of'em very publicly the CEOs of
Ford or Nike who talk about it in Wall Street Journal and I
Work with people doing
Stuff in prisons and all kinds of things.
And in either the east
Each of these places
The trainings and principles
of empathy and compassion and self compassion.
of mindfulness and perspective.
they bring a tremendous benefit and value.
So I hope something in this podcast has
Brought.
Some seeds of that for you who listened as well.
And I really want to thank you, Shane. It's been a pleasure.
Uh
You've said in the past.
Uh
The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it.
I wanna thank you so much today for teaching us about the heart.
And mutual thanks, Shane.
Take care, bye.
Thanks for listening and learning with us.
For a complete list of episodes.
Show notes.
Transcripts, and more.
Go to fs dot blog slash podcast.
Or just Google the Knowledge Project.
Until next time.