Today we’re diving into a concept that is simultaneously one of the oldest contemplative cliches and one of the most profound head scratchers — oneness. Can *you* be one with everything if *you* don’t really exist? And, even if we manage to grok this idea, what are the practical ramifications? Actually, this is just one of the many riddles and paradoxes we’ll be exploring today.
My guest is Roshi Norma Wong. She was recommended to us by frequent guest and friend of TPH, The Reverend angel Kyodo Williams. Roshi Norma is a Zen Master, a life-long resident of Hawaii, a former State legislator, and abbot of a Zen temple called Anko-in. In this conversation, we talk about:
• Understanding -- and experiencing -- oneness
• Removing the binary between relaxation and focus
• Why she thinks we need to cultivate pride and humility simultaneously
• Why she thinks that before we try to solve the world’s problems, we need to become better people
• And why our current moment of compounding global catastrophes presents us with an unprecedented opportunity
Speaking of transformation in the face of crisis, we’ve always done our best to use this podcast as a place to figure out how to navigate our ever-shifting world. Over the last year, for example, we’ve spoken with experts about how to cope with the coronavirus, from dealing with anxiety and grief to parenting in a pandemic to worries about money.
The practice of meditation undergirds all of the practical takeaways you hear us discuss on this podcast–and many of our podcast guests have contributed to our companion meditation app. Our app helps you understand both how to practice meditation and how meditation can help you navigate our ever-changing world.
We hope that you'll subscribe to our app to learn how to care for yourself and others during crises (which are, after all, inevitable).
To make it easier, we're offering 40% off the price of an annual subscription for our podcast listeners. We don’t do discounts of this size all the time, and of course nothing is permanent—so get this deal before it ends on April 1st by going to www.tenpercent.com/march, for 40% off your subscription.
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/roshi-norma-wong-331
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
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and from a this, is the ten percent
beer podcast
Dan Harris hello-
so today we're gonna dive into a concept that is simultaneously one
oldest contemplative, cliches and one of the most profound head, scratches oneness
what does that even mean what is being one with the universe actually mean and care
you ll, be one with everything. If you, according to the buddhists, dont, really exist, and even if we manage to grab this
idea. What are the practical everyday ramifications? Actually, this is just one of many riddles and paradoxes and imponderables
that we will be exploring today with my guest room
she normal long, she was recommended to us by frequent guest and friend of th the reverend angel key
william shut out the angel, like
Joe rushing arma is aids and master she's, also
a lifelong resident of hawaii, a former state legislator and abbot of and temple called on, co in. In this conversation, we talk about both understanding and experience.
oneness, removing the binary between relaxation and focus why she thinks we need to cultivate pride and humility simultaneously. Why she thinks that before we try to solve the world's problems, we need
better people first, and why our current moment of compare
in global catastrophes actually presents us with an unprecedented opportunity. Speaking of transformation in the face of crisis- and I say this before we dive into the episode here- we at ten percent happier have always
our best to use this podcast as a place to figure out how to navigate our ever shifting world over the last year, for example, we spoken with experts about how to cope with the corona.
iris from dealing with anxiety and grief to parenting,
a pandemic to financial concerns, the practice of meditation, of course, under birds. All of the practical take ways you hear us discuss on the show and many of our podcast guess
have contributed to our companion meditation up our app helps, you understand both how to pay,
meditation and how meditation can help you navigate a world that is constantly in flux. We really
that you will consider subscribing to the apt to learn how to take care of yourself and others during all of the crises.
We should say are inevitable and a part of life to make sense
Being easier, we are right now offering forty percent off the price of an annual subscription for our podcast listeners. We dont do discounts of this size all the time and, of course nothing is permanent. So go get this deal before it ends on April first, by going to ten percent dot com slack
march, that is ten percent. One word all spelled out dot, slash march for forty percent off your subscription.
right. Having said all, that was diving now with Roshi Norma.
Russian normal long face very much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you
we're having me. Thank you for coming. All the way to this valley is calculated valley on the island of lawful, and it's about maybe fifteen minutes away from the
center, but it is semi, rural and so unit during this time of color
vision with you dad you know there will be roosters
background, it isn't true that they only crawl at dawn slight. If, if that's the case, that means it's only
Mr, but otherwise they are a sociable creatures. They are meant to be in conversation with each other
I hear them now. Actually, yes, you will hear them frequently, but you know, let me go back. I didn't see a proper hello dan
aloha, a local authority.
You ll, have to all of us. Anyone who may be listening. Thank you so very much for this conversation, the low. How do you
and really appreciate you coming an answer and the roosters when my colleague dj, whose there is producing this episode, he reached out to you too, to chad about what you thought you and I could chat about on episode. You said oneness, why did you say that? Well, I said one s because the world isn't at the moment
and it doesn't appear to want to be one, even though it longs to be it. So we are seeking a whole ness and our division,
Rather than in our oneness- and there is a fierceness
that's associated with that? So it's a turbulent paradox that
requires our meditation. I like what you said,
were seeking wholeness in are. I think it was something like we're sitting
wholeness in our separation? Yes, so I might have a sense of wholeness
fullness of my identity, a pair of purpose of meaning of belonging, because I I don't know shit
whole foods and read the new york times or because I voted for
trump and am part of the n IRA or whatever identity I'm building for myself. I get a wholeness from that, but part of the problem as I understand
and I'm kind of inferring here in your pick up and tell me whether I m correctly, is that,
these identities were building are built in opposition to other actual human beings. It is as much an opposition as it is as in exclusion, which I think is a much more complicated way of being. Then, if it was in opposition, is if it was an opposition we would
he's be able to articulate what it is that we are not for? But when you say it's an exclusion at this whole thing:
about we are arising to the fullness only and what it is
that we see in our own world, and we somehow think that the world can operate in that way, and this, of course,
has been happening for probably a couple thousand years, but what I would say is that we ve centrally got into the end of that particular experiment.
In terms of that experiment being able to work out for us, did it ever work.
What would have been the optimal function of
in wholeness out of separation, it would be about creating these neat containers where people could
be an transactional relationship with each other.
as people s
Trees as gender says,
generations, whatever it is, that you are, and everyone gets to be, who it is that
They need to be, and then you have like ie transactional relationship.
which ass, either politically manifested or market, manifested
an you stay in your lanes at interested, but not particularly fluent in sir, the broad sweep of human history, but I would imagine after
switched from being nomadic to having
agrarian and then urban centres. We needed these identity,
as a way to impose some sort of order on the society.
And so in that sense it might have worked quorum quote for a while, but if I hear you correctly were now cut of
reaching the end of the utility of this experiment. I believe so there are essentially competing theories,
way backward and I'm talking about away way back when
and I am not an expert in this- but I am immensely specially curious about it and so
in my wanderings, my historic
wanderings? I came across just a little bit of a story of these people called the pythagoreans guardians
and so it's like before the onslaught of what
we consider be like the higher cool way of thinking and western thought. Western people went through a time period in which
There was like non binary thinking, but it didn't prevail. I didn't prevail and in some ways you could say it couldn't
prevail. If what you are doing is you work
continuing to amass
So if you are just gonna, keep goin and continue to amass
A mass land amassed fortune, and things of that sort said that particular thing
We were just stay any conclave of some kind which helps to explain if you look at indigenous people throughout the world, wherever it is at them.
be it? You know it took a very, very long time for indigenous peoples to even meet each other right, so it's a sip yawns for that took her by definition. And yet, if you look at indigenous people almost
everywhere in the world. We would have fairy very similar values, very similar ways of being very rich spiritual lives that were not secretary
between the holy and lay people every person within an indigenous community with
the digital society. Indigenous town would have a particular special tee with and that which was wholly and which you will pass on an apprenticeship basis. So how did that
about that. It would happen almost everywhere in the world and
What happened in a way that those
Thought were unique and yet
You could find the markers of that everywhere, and so there is also something natural
it's like it's a natural human kind.
of exploration.
And a way of being too
indigenous. It's not as if what happened is you know, someone from planet neptune inserted
that particular way of being in everybody involved. It's a human evolution
Then there's also human evolution that occurred. That became more higher costs,
more contain arise.
Our transactional,
or binary more.
Separate at between classes, more separated between that which is wholly in that witches.
profane that which is secular,
and so these things went forward and it's easy for us to look at the
more binary system as being the one that essentially one
can I get one w o and yes, not o m a yes, not one. I ain't gay and yet that kind of hole has a hole in it. There's ica emptiness in it's center that people keep trying to seek, and ye see that I understand that more people are listening to your podcast, enhance.
It just means that in tumultuous times, people are
king, the part of,
Themselves that they know is the better part. They know it's better part and that reflection can only occur if there is something there to begin with. That has not been completely exe
we needed. What is that thing? It, sir? Your original being ass, you were born perfect. Have you heard of this? There is this renegade teacher cobb,
okay, a b and katy. I
in this is in the zen tradition, is in the sand. Tradition sell his years this man, a gay that and
He was famous in his time for talking about the unborn mind, so the big mind in the one with the big em.
Who are you know if you are
in the star wars, notions
essentially there for
and so you say that that forests, that you are that energy for us, that you are
Wasn't born when you were born you're, just the physical,
if his station of that it always existed, and if it always existed at the moment that you pass that you return to the universe from which your energy came and if it was unborn to begin with, and it cannot
be extinguished, then you as a person,
still have that in you always is just a matter of it.
Covered over or hidden in order
denied or
there then practice.
talk a lot about the habits that you have, and so we have just the sick,
humiliation of habits from the time that we were born. The cover us over and the interruption of that habits
Wings, you back to your original self and you're rich
self cannot be separated from other beings
it just cannot. It cannot be whole if it is separated its nature. I want to see if I can try to repeat some of their back to.
See if I've even got up to hold an understanding it by dint of being sentient of having consciousness.
There's something on born in
and undying in us, this sort of the knowing
capacity of mine. The light is on again the conscious,
is there and we
cover over this. I think he used the phrase
regional being this
our habits, withers means from the culture
the conditioning from our life, etc, etc. But if you
grape, all that away there something
are there and because it is part of nature, it is.
universal to all sentient beings, and therefore there,
isn't at the ultimate level, no separation between me and you or me, and you and roosters, because we ve all got this.
I think if you want to get into the more religious lingo, this sort of divine spark or if you want to just be more scientific about it just this consciousness. The light is on inside in some
essential way anyway. My I'm rambling now, but in my close to what you are trying to say yes, and so he is,
how difficult it is right for the mind, basically to
It makes sense, because that way, I my motto
everybody livery mine in
christian that I'm an
in a we discourage people from reading.
As a way of figuring it out
As I say it, you know that your thoughts who take you farther and farther farther away
from the experience of being ness and experience of oneness and unless all of your senses are open
to who it is that you are an you experience it little
wait with your body with the sharpness of what it is it
you can take that.
You know it s when even a slight breeze.
its past you and from what direction it has come and when it changes direction to be present, is to be present in your senses, not to be present
in the coach and thought of your mind. So we say that the body is a much more accessible
portal to the reconnection of who you are in. So we trust that
more than
You know whether or not someone will be able to give you an answer. So is it possible that, by talking about this too much were in some way doing the listener is a disservice. If you can talk about, it
as experience, rather than as an analysis. Then the communication you have with someone else will be through and experience
rather than through the tangled aspects of an analytical mine. So how can we experience oneness because it's the ultimate
spiritual cliche, you know, make me one with everything, etc: cetera,
how for those of us who take
training our own mind seriously and for those of us who understand that sort of being
and isolated ego. Peering fretfully out at the world is to suffer. How can we experience oneness and cultivate the capacity to continue to experience it while that, unfortunately, and fortunately takes discipline, so there's nothing magic about it, but there will be magical moments
magical moments in which the entirety of what is it, you are feel so connected and we can most easily
well that, when we're in nature
Does it matter whether that nature is pretty
seen or not! So you don't we.
Would be literally walking just a little muddy path next to
stream-
and here we are alone
Walking along this stream chestnut
town area and the buildings.
the other side and
our mine is.
wandering from
conversations that which has had on the zoom call that took too long
of a sudden, you feel, like the mud,
coming up over your
footwear and onto your feet, and just the sense of that coolness against you and that part where you know that it's
dirty, but somehow you want to feel more of it and then
sudden other things will come into.
You will hear the stream tat you hadn't heard before
and that pungent order that comes from
that is not clean reaches, you
and you wonder how come it is that you had not noticed set before and as all of that enters into an you settle into it, and you get
pass your annoyance and you get past your sense of discussing all of that as you.
Feel that you end up having a guttural connection to what is there? We need to be in a prestige in place
it is useful to feel this sense of
connection through our senses in places that are not pristine, you know. Do we have time for a short story? We have time for a long sort of book tat, so
I am native wine, and I am also a car, which is a nomadic chinese tribe
and so in a sense I could
that I'm actually one hundred percent indigenous from different places of the world and one of the things that we have
for those of us who are having
If our own culture and history,
is that we have a an eagle around it hooker and we're gonna, proud of this thing about being able
to be one with the I now one with the earth on with the lan this, and we have this.
notion that it's our blood right and the first time that that was shattered. For me.
I was walking down one of the canyon.
of new york city. You know one of those places where the buildings block out this.
You just see the light. A bar
and you know that the sky exists, but
all around you. It's like that. There's a cacophony of noises, there's nothing but hardness around you. In the far distance you see
single tree struggling, struggling,
may not even be happy that its there and everyone is now
paying any attention to you it's about as far
way from my natural environment, as I could have ever gotten ends
in that one environment, all of a sudden, I
this strong sense of physical connection, and I was pissed off. I stopped in my tracks because I had that seems,
ants like this coursing through me,
as I do, if I am on the side,
set a beloved mountain,
Sacred to my people
with no end in sight, but the grasses calling to me and the birds
The far horizon coming in
from the ocean and that sense of timeless ness that is at the core of who I am
and here in this canyon- this man me? Can you I'm having that same feeling, and I was peers?
haven, meaning that this is an experience available,
anywhere and to any one, and not just people who came out of the right womb? Well, no! Actually, I was pissed off because now I have to be responsible for this world too.
I thought it had shattered your ego, but it sounds like it just in larger responsibilities all at the same time. It also gave me like that. The first clue
of how much responsibility we all have.
every single one of us, whether
We are dabbling or whether were digging deep into this thing about figuring out
Our origin are source to be more present tat
or mindfulness whatever words are tradition or pathway, it is that you use or app beyond.
feeling better about ourselves
immense immense
responsibility. We have because we actually have
get a critical mass of people there if we are to ease and approach the biggest problems that we have
not only as a country but as a world is only from that place.
Can we tell the story. I knew,
What I know from reading the notes of the aforementioned dj cashmere poos, the bruce her of this episode. I know from reading his notes from his conversation with you that you really see feel very
strong sense of urgency around getting the vast
swath of humanity out of a sense of disconnection and separation
duality and enmity and into one of more connection and oneness. I want to talk about that, but before we go there, I wanted to stay on oneness itself as a concept
As let me go back to your two stories.
Taking a walk one along a dirty stream. The other day
the canyons of new york city,
and I want to put my.
self in their hair. In the minds of some listeners, you might
Saying: ok, we'll get a little bit of meditation and is useful, because I can see that I've got a voice serve
be several voices in my head and and as a consequence,
meditation, I'm a little bit more self aware and I'm not so yanked around by those voices, but I've never felt one nests with anything. That sounds like a much deeper
experience that I have not had while walking down any street
anywhere at any time. So what are you talking about? Actually-
it's just an opening up of the senses, it can feel magical to you, but it is not magic and it comes totally from the discipline of your body practice. So let me describe what that would be, and so in meditation there is. This focus on
breath and in fact I would say that all of that positioning in a whatever withdraw your a whole day nor posture that you have whether its lying down or sitting down or on a chair, whatever it might be,
to get your body into the best condition it can be
to be breathing. While you-
are being still as you can be and you're just giving,
yourself the best shot, you're setting up the condition for the breath to be bold.
the high moral aspect of what it is there
You are giving life too and that's giving life to you and so meditation
even though it has all of this impact on the other parts of your body.
Is really about the practice of breath. Which is why you can practice without meditation. So.
my practice, is primarily being an conscious brass for
third of my waking hours, and what does that mean? It means that the origin of my breath
is low in my body as,
well as I can bring it
Can get it below my belly button in to my gut region that that's the origin of the breath? That's what
breath, comes from and goes down to in terms of the end of the exile by the end of the exile down into that place.
when that's occurring my bodies not collapsing my bodies, actually rising smile
mine, is getting more relaxed, I coming closer into an upright position, and so in that car.
spress and that its slow
What slow means is that my ex heal
slower than my in here, and that the entire sequence of breath, the inhale and the exile
Is under seven or eight times per minute,.
now when I'm in meditation it'll, be under three times per minute, because I've been meditating many years, but I endeavour
to have my breath under eight times per minute.
on a regular basis for any
if my waking hours okay, now when you
brass, is under that pace or in that peace. There are all kinds of things are a happy ending to physically or more accurately, all kinds of things that are not having seen to physically. So, if I'm anxious
My breath is going to be higher in my chest: it's not gonna, be down in my gut area and it'll be much more rapid. Anyone who is anxious. That is absolutely the physical condition that you are now as it turns out. You can actually reverse the mental condition by bringing a breath download
and bringing the pace star it's connected, and you can do that now. What happens if you are doing that?
not only when you're anxious
only when you're in meditation, but you
doing that when you're doing anything when you're in a pot cast
in addition asked
when you're on that ornery zoom meeting, that's taken so long, were you everybody's blah, blah blah blah blah blah taking out the rubbish,
doing ordinary things, just ordinary things, and you bring itself into the discipline of that. Then you actually put yourself at less risk
of falling into a marginal condition. You are building up a reserve in you,
A reserve that will allow you to be more generous because you don't get irritated as quickly.
All of your triggers are not only,
that aside, they become more
and they're, not sharp edges. Anyone- and you know you do this day
and they out and with that brass, a much more sensitive, relax concentration, your breath cultivate
fat in you, where you removing the binary between being relax and having focus
so. Let's say you not only present in a pleasant way, europe
I said in a way in which all of your senses are
sharply aware, but not as
if you are on high alert you just aware
and all of this begins to come in to you,
when you are in the beginning stages of this way of practising, it will indeed feel both magical
and you all have like almost a century overload by the way that stream has always smelled like that. But now you can taste the smell. You
eyes have a slight sting, and you know where it's coming from. You can hear the unnatural nests of what happens
in a stream, is being held back, even if you can't see where that obstruction might be an is just like a century over
doing this like to stay in and day out day in and day out, it will leave the realm of magic and be
Your new existence, much more
conversation with roshi normal long right after this you know I've heard about master class for years, but I never actually checked.
out, which is now making me feel a little bit stupid. The good news is the folks over at master class
are now sponsoring this show and they gave me a subscription and as I look at this as I realise that this is a great place to feel a lot less stupid. The lineup on this is incredible. The people there
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we've listened to the show Noam chomsky on independent thinking, steph curry, on basketball. I could go on. I can't believe I've been sleeping on this app and, as I look at many of these videos, they're show well produced so informative and really really tight, so that you're not wait
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Ok, so minute gently keep pressing on this issue because I suspect for many of us we may not be able to at least quickly get ourselves to this kind of off,
cushion breath awareness for a third of our waking hours,
and many of the people listened to the show meditate with a couple of times a week, and they consider that to be great, and I consider it to be great. So how? From that standpoint,
Can we touch into this
action or oneness that you're describing that may still to some people sound, like top of the mountain inaccessible peak experience. So what I would say is is actually
more accessible to people who have never meditated. Ok, because if you meditate, you ve learned a particular
warm and some forms are very accessible. You know so it's like you could put on an app
and thereby the sound of nature on it and someone could guide you through it
but even that is a form which means that you will become actually quite addicted to that up
it's ok, I need to meditate. I gotta turn on that up or
long time, then practitioners, I cite the moment
at their knees, do not allow them to sit on the cushion they stop meditating fouquet, as if it is as if the posture were the point, that's right, the form were also
the ball to that. But if you ve never learned any of that and just say we ll just take a breath down.
Does he not feel wearing your body? The press is coming from what party body
going up and down for most people suggests area, and instead of that, just relax. That place
just relax it and allow the breath to come down Lauren
body and for most people, that's more easily accessible if they lie down,
If they lie down and they feel like where that is occurring and they allow their body to relax and they just bring the the breath lore in the body and the justice priests lore
ray floor exhale longer start with exhale,
longer than the in here, and even if you just do that for like twenty brats, you will actually feel different. Just twenty breaths
so the mechanics of it are really simple and we actually do at a disservice if we essentially compartmentalized into calling meditation
I totally agree with that, and I'm still
and maybe maybe I'm not getting there because it's impossible to get there, but I'm still trying to get a sense
For what
exactly you're referring to win your talking about these experiences of oneness or connection, is it possible to describe
in a way that people who don't have it
of meditation nor retreat experience can grasp sure so.
go anywhere any place it. You want.
And you want your with them too
slower than whatever rhythm is going on in whatever that place may be so in the case of new york right walking down the cap
this place the moment. I realise it is because I happen to stop at that moment. I was caught up in it and that's how they experience entered me. All of us do that.
as visitors, for example, if you travel anywhere on the things that people like about travelling is that they end up going and seeing things that they haven't seen before eating
food that they haven't eaten before hearing people. Talk to
lay and all of that. But there are ways in which you can enjoy that more
what we would call enjoin at more is that you actually have paid attention to that
You ve seen experience tat. You stopped to savour it. I can guarantee that whenever that was occurring, you weren't breathing as fast. So if you don t breathe as fast
just that one thing you'll end up actually having a different experience of your surroundings. We have a tendency to do that in place.
is that are not ordinary, because we are sort of forests to come
of our reverie and look around would you go to the pyramids and not take a look right and so is like
it's easier to come by on in
call, a natural basis, if
doing it in a place that you are not accustomed to. But what makes said
more powerful is, if you do it
in the ordinary course of ordinary life
and actually making my newt seemingly inconsequential.
Shifts in your decision making that will mean you know
actually did not need as much sugar in my morning coffee, but because I can tasted that was habitual. I can taste it and I can now too
Is that it's not more sugar. I actually need to buy a different browser coffee, but those seemingly
inconsequential small things, add up
add up and the add up, and they add up in a useful way. The outer, because
You are using more of your senses for you to say,
hence, rather than just a track of your thoughts.
There's so much in there that I absolutely agree with then, and I,
Here you about.
The value of intent,
slowing down your breath or intentional just slowing down full stop or putting yourself in
israel circumstances as a way to see the world differently, but I wanna still see it
We'll get you to home in on not the mechanism, but the goal of the experience of oneness itself.
Wanna I'll described you a time where
feel like I may have tasted it a little bit in my hand
surest way, and
You can tell me whether that maps onto your experience or what you're trying to describe here, I won
was on a meditation retreat, and I just just a little moment. I don't remember where exactly what
The day was, but I was standing outside the insight, meditation society and maybe
doing walking meditation, but I had stopped and my eyes were closed. This is a great example of how the the
process of meditation or of training. The mind is not magic or magical, and yet
There can be magical moments and even in their magic, often for me at least there quite ordinary. I just
was standing there outside at a nice fall day and realise that massive, the food aid.
Goes right through me. Ideas and thoughts and emotions come up and just past
and I can't go get em again or maybe I can, but third thought really the same thing yeah that there's not much here to grasp
to claim as mine, if anything, the logic closing, naturally from that to a sense of connection, obviously there's a porous nest.
between what I'm calling me and the world.
Is that anywhere near the experience that you're trying to point us toward its a bit of it? It's a bit of it. So I can almost guarantee you that at that moment that there was some kind of a
the call manifestation that was going on before the thought arose,
There is something in you. In other words, he thought you were a sieve, but before that you felt years of gas. Is that true? Yes, oh, the the thoughts are just serve week. Facts.
please, sir attempts to put some name on actual experience. Ok, so from asean perspective, we would say
Stay as long as you can in the experience, without trying to actually analyze what that experience means
one of the problems of being a writer is that so
cause. I have an experience immediately, trying to like come modify it so that I can put it down on paper and you know, put it in a pool of cards and.
If you think of that, as the sharing of a story of your experience
rather than analysis of what that experience meant, then
Among other things, there will be more books
for my literary agent- will be happy. A cup is not useful as a cup unless it's empty cup that is, for you can only partake of what is in it, but as an empty cup, many things can fill it. Some people would experience being a sieve with some power.
and others would experience at as being a new found freedom. We had here more, do the freedom side of things, and
from there may arise all kinds of different.
fears about what use should then do right, whether you accumulate things are not, for example, but having strict edicts around that and not as useful as having the experience of being a safe and then
being comfortable with that and feeling powerful in that and then in whatever circumstanced may arise. You knows that if that feeling isn't with you
you're. Moving to the dark side.
If I want to do
positive in the world in whatever way I define positive, but do you know where help other people fighting justice.
How can I do that? If I'm feeling
connected to the people who are perpetrating the injustice. Well, that person might be you, so you better get acquainted with that
mean me. I might be perpetrating the injustice, I'm sure I am, but I'm not sure exactly how you
Do actually, in order for us to create the story of a new experience
The end we have to be able to take all under Heaven intact
to use a phrase that you will find and since souza art of war, nelson sue was a dollar strategist and the importance of that is as a war time strategist. He came from the philosophy, the dollar's philosophy in which the entire,
the universe is interconnected, and if you are in harmony with the universe, you will always go towards the balance of that universe. An estate of conflict is an imbalance of the universe.
that still meant that he was in conflict. He was
our time strategies these leaders
find him in the mountain somewhere and begged him to help put the strategies together for these in a momentous battles in which, obviously, there are
The people who whose lives it is that you are attempting to save and people who are trying to take that life, and so all of that exists.
but the ways in which you move forward under those circumstances to find that justice,
if whatever the times might be, cannot be about
Ro annihilation, unless you are gonna, be able to carry them out, or are you doing
is you're in a back and forth between competing world views and in the case of what's happening in this country, that time
it, goes back and forth between the two is getting shorter and shorter and shorter until
literally, it goes back and forth within the course
of a single president's term and in which nothing is occurring. It's just a battle that words no traction of world views this happening, because both
I believe that what the other side is doing is an annihilation of the other, there's no end game and that,
and this notion of that. Somehow, if you want to do
right by the world that you are. The righteous is a recipe for us
just being and the binary between the righteous chosen
once who are not hoop, also believed that they are righteous. So we all want to do
good and positive things in the world. We all want to make it more just
but before we other eyes people,
and say well, they are the problem.
We might want to look at whether that capacity we all have to do just that. Dad may be the problem
we have to actually do a lot of self repair
In the hawaiian language, we have these two principles: one has ha hail and that means pride and it's like immense pride and we have ha ha, which is immense, humility and the sweet spot is having both.
the same time, if you take where it is, we may end up in a better place the story of.
As also is the your story. Is your story so you're being able to do that?
it helps to show that it can be done on a larger basis. But then we need to take it out of the container
that container of it just being something that is about
self improvement, so in my teacher used to talk about the danger of becoming stone buddhas
Perfect farm really good meditation, very diligent and cecile, but if you are unable to take that into everyday life,
and in a medicine by a stone buddha. Does that's what you ve become to be able to create and then to implement and then to lead and solutions to these really big problems in the world that requires.
Internal work, that would allow you to be a better human being
better human beings can come up with better solutions. I know you have this strong sense that there needs to be a pretty fundamental
shift in the way we are given the gravity of the problems that humanity is facing right now from plagues to rising temperatures, to war, to polarization to prejudice, however,
is to argue that this shift is truly in the offing. Oh well, we're in the sweet spot.
I'm not sure whether I would term that as optimism about the outcome, but I would say we are in the sweet spot of it actually being possible
because you cannot make really big leaps unless you have come to the taller realisation that everything that you have done so far, if you just do more of it is not going to do it.
If you think that all you have to do is to do more of what you're doing now and you're gonna be able to
find your way or
you will be able to survive and who cares whether anybody else does.
If that's where you lands, then there's nothing to be done, but if you
see what's happening around you. If you,
this realization of worse
conditions and, at the same time, you still feel you feel hurt if you're paying. You feel like the things that are called empathy
empathy is almost too small a word for what it is and if that is what's occurring, then you'd say: ok, you
I'm too that sweet spot. That would allow you to do
down and do something about it.
Your numbers went up in terms of people,
who download at podcast when the pandemic care, so the pandemic
for you. What no advertising could, because it set up a condition or by people, actually could not get the answers.
or didn't even know they needed answers, and it said of the condition for
To actually then do something about that to go and read something go and listen to something go in
sit on a cushion once a week, rather than never whatever. That might be. As you say, the world is actually put us into this condition. That is the sweet spot for our enquiry. Now it's now up to us whether or not we lean into that. We take advantage of that and
we listened to that possibility and this without even knowing what might happen on the other side
but what I know is that these conditions have been occurring for very long time, but not in such a way
that would allow such a large amount of the population to this.
turn around and look.
An awareness is like the first opening.
Whether or not something is gonna be able to be done about it,
heard, a term recently created.
of desperation
You know you have your own famous personal
yes about how you came to meditation but it'll without being in that state of trouble.
Why would you get everything was going great before that? So I probably wouldn't have global panic attack unpleasant, but potentially useful, unpleasant, very unpleasant at potentially useful is considerable.
you're to talk? You is there something I am I should have asked, but I fail to I
Here you are the better answer
that are the new,
beginners, mind is not as an expression.
people want to learn more about you access anything you ve written nor recorded. How can they find you
after many years of refusing to do so. I too have a website. Ok, so if you go to,
cavallo coup, dot com and that's K a w p l
Ok, you dot com, it's a resource site
So you from there, you can listen to things that I've talked about and see some images and on that
There is a way to send me a message if you wish I'd like
and that you the message of thank you and the roosters for your time. While thank you. Thank you very much
Thank you for allowing me into a bit of this.
asked way in which people are making the inquiry.
Thanks again to russian norma really appreciate her come
on show they show by the way is made by samuel Johns DJ. Cashmere Maria were tell, and jan point too. I recently learned goes by the name of point boy showed up to ploy.
With audio engineering by ultraviolet audio and as always, a hearty salute to my age,
news, comrades, ryan, kessler and judge co him we'll see
on friday, for a bonus
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Transcript generated on 2023-09-11.