It’s hard to be a human. No matter how good things are for you, being alive is still hard. Whatever your life circumstances are, we’re all subject to impermanence and entropy.
This episode dives into a five-part Buddhist list for being stronger in the face of whatever life throws at you.
Sister Dang Nghiem, who goes by Sister D, is a nun in the Plum Village tradition and a disciple of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She was born in Vietnam during the war, and is the daughter of a Vietnamese mother and an American soldier. Sister D experienced an unfathomable amount of loss before relocating to the US, where she became a doctor and later, after experiencing more loss, became a nun. She’s written several books and her most recent is Flowers in the Dark.
In this conversation, Sister D shares her story, and then walks us through The Five Strengths of Applied Zen Buddhism which include trust, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and insight.
Content Warning: This episode covers difficult topics including death, mental illness, and sexual abuse.
Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/sister-dang-nghiem-403-rerun
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
The ten percent happier podcast dan harris, the hello, my fellow suffering beings,
I know not breaking any news here, but it is often very hard to be a human, no matter how
good things are for you and for many of us, myself included, things are pretty good still. We are all subject to impermanence and enter
no matter what your life circumstances are being alive can be pretty hard today we're to dive into a five part buddhists list for being stronger in the face of whatever
life hurled at you and the person who can be walking us through this list has an enormous.
I of standing to talk about resilience. Her story is extraordinary. In fact, one of our producers, the amazing dj cashmere. Yes, that's it
full names and amazing lamp dj was on the line listening in during this conversation- and he said,
was the first time that he is openly wept while listening to an interview, my guest is sister dang jim, although she go
simply by sister DE she's, a nun in the plum village, tradition and disciple of their master. Tick, not harm. She was born in vienna
during the war, the daughter of a visa,
my mother and an american soldier. I don't want to tell you too much of risk
because I want you to hear from her, but suffice it to say she experienced and unfair,
mobile amount of loss, and then she ended up
here in the: u s where she became a doctor,
who, later after experiencing even more loss, became a buddhist nun, she's written several books. Her most recent is called flowers in the dark in this conversation, you're going to hear her, tell her story and then walk us through a list. You know the buddhists like to come up with lists. This one is called the five strengths of applied zen buddhism, which include trust, diligence, mindfulness concentration and insight.
A heads up, as you might have inferred, we do touch on some heavy stuff in this interview: war, death, mental illness and sexual abuse. Also, a quick note: this is an episode that we have pulled out of the archives. We first posted it in two thousand and twenty one and it became one of our top fifty most popular, so we're playing it again.
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oh you became a buddhist. None can you share that ended
am stitching there, sir teaching, on into being. This is because that is since I was eight years old, my grandmother,
Call me when you grow up, please make sure to take good care of you
brother, raise him and also
get a higher education and then,
come on none. I thought they were sesar, strange advise, especially the third one,
the first one understood, because my parents pass away since I was a child. So I had
They can my brothers at a very early age and I loved him so take
catch him. Raising him was something that was familiar to me.
getting a higher education. I also had that aspiration, so I did I
came to the. U s I finished high school. I go scholarships to go to college. I got scholarships to go to matter.
school but to become a nun, was something that seemed to me and he said,
When I came to the: u s and
We have everybody seems to have the ambition to succeed too
if the american dream saw, I didn't really
I would become a nun, but while I was in medical school and I had a partner, he was very spiritual, very kind to loving. He was my soul.
Indeed, I suddenly in an accident they went swim
at half moon bay in San francisco, and he died, and I just woke up to this.
Reality that somebody who is there today
before the next day- he wasn't there anymore and I just touched very deep suffering and me because he was somebody very spiritual- have been
he's all and when he died. To be honest, I didn't regretted for him, but nowhere
It was for me. Will I be able to say I have lived my life. If I want to die,
in the midst of today.
I be able to say I had peace
in my life, and the answer was unfortunate.
They are resounding lead know, and I just had to face
The decision, whether to continue with medicine or two whole, pursue us
we are at live where I may be able to call to make peace.
or even I face the question. Should I even live anymore and fortunately three,
with me for John died. I had met our teacher, then master. Did you can end the familiar community at the retreat and in particular I met the mindfulness practice and I felt the move from this practice was something very concrete, very scientific, not superstitious or devotional, and I found some peace while I was at the rear.
and so I had this hope that if I were to pursue a spiritual life, I would be able to call to way that peace so that I could be able to live with.
So for the rest of my life, and that brought me to the decision
leaving medicine and going to friends where our
Joe was at the moment and then I
came in aspirants three months after John
ass away, and I ordained about eight months after he died
and this man twenty one use now that I've been a nun
so you never ended up working as a doctor. I grasped
he did for medical school. I was in residency, so, yes, I started working as a doctor in hospital, but you left all that training behind and decided that the better use for your time.
on the planet would be training in mindfulness as a non. Yes,
because at that moment, when John passed away, it was as if everything crumbled for me
Ah, the suffering in my life ordered trauma. They are flooded back in ages,
well all my life. I try so hard. I thought if I want to have a successful career,
If I want to have a loving partner than ever.
thing would be made up for the success in my life would compensate the losses in my life, but I found out that here I was
a doktor. Here I had a very loving partner.
I had my youth, I had everything, and yet I was to suffering for my past
is anyone what john was alive there were times when I was depressed and he came to comfort me, then I pushed him away
I didn't want him to be around. I would rather coral
what my own suffering sadness and depression than allowing him to comfort me and to be there for me
or when he died. I just walk up to that reality is that it doesnt matter the success that I have. If I didn't take care of myself,
frank than they would haunts me for the rest of my life and I'll never be really happy
and I also learned that you know as I was adopted
in care patience and they kept coming back time after time with the same complaint, the same problems- and I got so far
raided thinking you know, I'm wasting my life and energy to take care of them and then not even taking care of themselves right.
like a young man came in with a severe abscess because he injected drugs into his arm. I handed him for two one.
And then three months later, he came back with another access on his abdomen. An eye reproached him
then I also understood that I myself, as educated ass.
financially stable ass. I was, I didn't know how to take care of my own sadness and suffering here.
Young men here, maybe homeless, or he may be in all sorts of emotional
collage traumas. How can I expect him to take better care of himself
if you say so, then I also saw that hopelessness, not only in myself myself in my patience and I couldn't blame them, so our spiritual life give me that light. That hope that I won't be able to take care of myself and from that I may be able to take care of others, and that has been the case for me as I embrace this practice over the last twenty four years. I find that I can help so many people because of my life experience because of the concrete practices that I have applied in order to transform and he'll my all suffering in order to have peace and happiness in myself in my life there
today? It has been pointed out to me before that. It's not a coincidence that the word meditation in the word medicine have the same route. So in many ways you are still a physician,
and a healer before we get into these practices that have done so much for you and are doing so much for your students.
If you're, ok, that I'd like to talk a little bit about you ve made a few references to your past the past they had produced so much suffering and sadness and depression for you. Would you be comforted?
telling that story. I was born during the vietnam war in nineteen. Sixty eight now was at the height of the
war that then a fence in the communists almost had a chance winding, and so I was,
During that time the country was in great turmoil and
My mother left the countryside as eighteen
at the age of fifteen. She went to saying on to find work to help her family.
Why she was there. She walked for
american g eyes.
young women who were uneducated cook, came from the poor countryside wendy and
inside. They ended up working for the american gi eyes.
They have done if box to children like
and my brother
admiration, half vietnamese and half american.
I never knew my father. My mother didn't talk about him, so I grew up with our father. My mother continue to work in a cigar
to help her family in the countryside. My grandma, I know a siblings, so actually
and mother raised me in the countryside, and then, when I was six, my mother decided to bring me to save on
live with her and also with my younger brother, and we lived at that time. She had not officially a husband
but he was very kind to our family, and so he brought my mom
and my brother and me to his house and we live there and during that time,
I uncle also came to live in our house and that's when I suffer from sexual abuse. I was nine years old and my uncle was in his
Mid twenties- and I never told my mother as a child
I didn't know what it was. I just knew it was wrong
I was very frightened, but I couldn't escape because he lived in our home.
Then I really don't know how long it took place. My memory has blocked out
I just remembered this repeated phrase. In my mind. I don't want to go with him, I'm so scared
and during that time I pull my hair. I actually caused a bald spot on my head. I bit my nails until they bled until
I mean every time I wash my hands, because the nails were so stood now that it felt like electric shock on the tipps of my finger. Yet I couldn't tell
anybody and then when I was twelve, my mother disappeared. She went to the market to sell clause ass. She had been doing for a few years,
but she never came back and said,
my grandmother was there, she had been there and she continued
take care of my brother and me too. That's when I was twelve and then my mother had done the paperwork for us to go.
The? U s, because we were amerasian children and there, the united states government were willing to sponsor admiration children, but when the paperwork came through
my mother was in there anymore, and I was only twelve and my brother was only eight, so my grandmother kept us, we didn't go,
And then, when I was fifteen, my grandmother told my hand to do the people were again and that went through, and so when I was almost seventeen, the people,
when, through and my brother and I came to the u s together, we live with foster parents. We ended up going through five different homes
my brother went through five homes. I went through three homes because the phone
First, the home we left, no foster mother was kind, but she was a nose and she, what at night
So in the day time my brother was left home with her son. I was walking at night during the summer to make money to send two.
My grandmother to help my family,
and one morning I came home and I saw
the young boy, the foster mother son. He was sitting on top
my brother, they were of the same age, but here
like one and a half times bigger than my brother and you
beating my brother. You know they were children, but when I saw that I couldn't bear
and I told the agency please take us out this whole
my brother grew up being beaten every day
because he was an admiration. They called him communist they climb. Also,
of evil names and they beat him and he away
came to the: u s and now he's beaten again, while they try to find a replacement, we ended up stay in many different, faster homes. So those are some of the things that I went
through alive now losing Perez about very early age? You are experiencing sexual abuse, go into one
country with no languish would know
family members just living and fast the homes and so
I didn't know how to take care of all that suffering in me, so that what manifest frequently as migraine headaches as bouts of depression, even though I was a very hard working person very studious person, but I would phased that nightmare again and again in my day time as well as my sleep, a certain incredible story as extraordinarily moving,
and it makes me think about two seemingly contradictory things- one just seemingly bottomless capacity for human cruelty. You know you just lived at the cross currents of loss, sexual abuse war
and then the other thing I was thinking about is the seemingly bottomless capacity for some human beings to pee, strong and resilient and
of seemingly whatever is thrown in their path and the fact that you were able to endure all that come to it,
the country learn a new language excel. In your studies to the point where you became a doctor, which requires, as we all know, an enormous amount of intelligence and persistence, yeah, it's just an amazing story, and on top of all that, your willingness to just
describe the narrative so clearly and openly, and frankly I am in also. I appreciate that very much for those who are listening, which is basically all of you. Sister D made prayer hands as thank you.
Having said all that, I do want to move to a question which is, as you describe it,
Are you became a nun and learn how to take care of yourself? I'm curious. What does that mean? How did meditation teach you to take care of you?
self. We learn that meditation is like a bird with two wings, one
of meditation is stopping and
The wing is deep. Looking stopping me
Stop being the mind from running back to the past, getting lost in what's going on or getting lost
in the future, in our imagination, ambition, vision about our future and also the other way, is to practice d,
looking to see the reality ass it is and to-
our life as deeply as possible in the here, and now I suffer
most of my life, surely because of the circumstances that I had to go through
and ass a child. I really had no choice. I had no escape, but, as I came to a spiritual life
I have learned that part of my suffering also raised,
from my mind that was not capable of stopping there was not capable of deep. Looking saw. My mind constantly went back to the past consciously. I was thinking of certain things about the past, and that makes me sad
something that happens in the day. What I see what I saw, what I heard what I felt also triggered several memories. That depressed me,
Punch me into an episode of depression, or at least some
anxiety or sorrow subconsciously. My
I was also doing that because every so often I would have liked mass about being chased being pushed
down about being lost
no way way I was being abandoned and that caused me deep sadness as well. When I woke up, I saw consciously and subconsciously my mind was always at work, the migraines that I experienced
the tiredness, the fatigue of the body, the negative thinking, the negative view towards myself.
Am I worthy? Am I
good enough of those things were at work constantly and they just impede it. Even if I had gray capacity of those negative things would affect me. But when I came to meditation, I learned, for example,
to come back to the brass, to have mindful breathing to be aware of my in brown and how breast to anchor my mind in my reading.
and you got my mind in my body, so
the mind is not free, like a wild horse that Rome's told a past that gallop stood a future that is so calling around. You see I long to be aware of my mind
bring it back to the present moment by having the mine in the present moment. I also see that
I'm no longer victim, I'm not an
and your child was sexually abused. I'm not a twelve year old child whose mother just disappeared at the blue one day, but
and now a young woman folly agitated folly in control of my life,
and now I am another I can take care of myself. You see that's the book.
To see the reality as it is and not to behave as a victim not to react as a victim anymore. When I learned the word soulmate envy.
and these I've known that word all my life. But when
realized is lit,
well meaning it just shook me to the core de gay other words for soul, mate D, mins, to remember, to know to master the means oneself or so may is. Who remembers? Who knows who takes good care of herself, who masters her his their feelings and thoughts and suffering? So in the spiritual life I have alone. I continue to learn to be my
also night, and I feel that over the years now I can speak about. My past was now reliving the trauma because time
alone does in here asked time
Doesn't he was because I've lived this life now, I'm fifty years old. But when I came to the practice I was already thirty one,
I was more traumatized than when I was nine years old because over the years ivory host the suffering I re, lived it and it became stronger
in may. It became my personality. It may came my destiny because I didn't know how to care for my suffering, but during the past twenty years as a nun, I have learned to undo many of those neural pathways. Many of those habits
so that I don't have to call myself suffering. I don't pull my hair, I dont by my nose. I dont speak negatively towards myself.
I hardly ever have nightmares anymore and when I
have nightmares which are very infrequent, but even in my dream, I see the situation, one of the first dreams that was saw groundbreaking. For me, a man was chasing me in this and closed space, and I was running up the stairs that was twisting, like the seashell shell going in
hit, the top and the glass door was shut, and he was right behind me and I turned around and I just grand pass him and when I got to the very last them there was a little door. Now. What
and in my mind I thought I can run through it, but you know what I stood right, why the door- and I faced him and ass soon ass. He got to the last them
I was running to last time. He saw me and he was startled and he stopped, and then he slowly walked out through that door and I closed that door ever sought slowly and gently, and I walk upright in that moment and I thought to myself my whole life. I ran away in my day life and also in my sleep I would always run away when I see something horrifying when somebody is chasing me. This was the very first
I'm in my life I start running, and it was so empowering for me and that's what we do in our daily life as a practitioner with learn to stop running, stop running in our mind, stop running in our speech. Stop running in our body lay actions we learned to browse. They believe with clarity in the present moment, and we respond to the situation as it is now, and we don't worry act through the lens of the past as a victim. Thank you, then, that you also something else. I think I heard in the story of the dream.
Is your describing dwelling stably in the present moment, as things are no matter how they are so you're turning toward the source of your suffering and ever
lucia narrowly evolved. Coping mechanism is to fight it run from it or pretend it's not their self medicate with shopping or gambling or boo
and what you are saying is that we can be awake right now and whatever demon is run,
down the stairs at us. We can stare at it and there's something about the way the mind works that tends to disarm the demon. Yes, I just want to thank you for being very sensitive, compassionate with your questions and also with you.
Comments. It is true to me in that dream. When I turned around and look at that demon, I didn't see him as a demon. I didn't see him as something threatening ashes stood and looked at him.
and that's what I have learned to do in my life when we
labour, something s frightening
threatening, demonic. Evil is something outside of us,
and is something grander than us that we cannot take care of and so were fearful. But I have learned to see that the victim and perpetrator are in each other. This, let me
chill of inter being you're in me and I am and you I am because you are and you are not because I'm not have also become a pauper trader over the years. I live my life in such a way that I perpetuated
that suffering you'll get myself negatively? I ran away from relationships. I brought some
until the relationship just like I told you, I would rather core of what my suffering instead of allowing John to be there for me to comfort me so in that way, offers have suffered to some extent
and we usually run away from it. But if we look at the one that we have, somebody who has Hansen
disease leprosy? You may remember, leprosy is a bacterial infection, but it damages the sensory knows as well as the more
who knows starting with the hands and feet and somebody doesn't have paying you know the person cages
an injury because it doesn't have paid, the person will apply and the injury gets infected and eventually it may get amputated the fingers, the toes even the arm because of the severe infraction, if we'd all take care of it. Now we need to bring that wisdom to ourselves if we have a difficulty-
conflict. If we have a trauma, a deep suffering, if we kept running away from it, pretending that is not there is like you, we let the wound fester by itself. It will not go away, it will continue to fester, but if we tend to wool tenderly lovingly, this is my womb and I'll take care of it. Then it has a chance to be cleaned to be dressed and to heal appropriately
each one of us has a great capacity to heal. The question is that do we allow ourselves to tend to dress our way through here
or do we allow it to fester further with our unmindful consumption, when we run away
that way ever you home there, you are wherever we go there, we are, we end up free hosting it all over again the situation and some manifesting itself in our life again and again, and the warm worsens it doesn't hear myself saw. The spiritual life enables us congress practices like mine for breathing,
for walking daily sitting meditation daily awareness of our thoughts and feelings so that we can listen to them to be our also me.
Remembering Norway and taking care of our body of our thoughts and fear
and by doing that, we he'll moment to moment day by day and saw time, and the practice will help here. Anyone that we have as individuals and ass a society coming up sister detox about the five strengths of applied buddhism. How mindfulness helps us
cultivate trust and the importance of being diligent in how we invest our time and energy.
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hundred five hundred to try audible, free for thirty days, audible, dot, com, slash ten percent, you used the term concrete practices and I
I think it makes sense to dive into that in your new book. There are a lot of concrete practices, but I thought in this conversation we would do well if you're, ok with you,
on the five strengths of applied, then buddhism, that your term that makes sense to dive into those five strengths use media
so, let's go through them one by one. The first of these strengths is trust. What does that mean
Yes, I addressed trust because that is
an issue of those who have gone through difficult
relationships and trauma. We lost trust children. We learn to develop trust,
without parents without caregiver, and those who expect
yes, abandonment, physical, emotional, sexual abuse lose that trust.
and not only we lose trust in our hands out caregivers. We also lost trust in
it was later on when we grow up in those that we make commitment to one coins ought to love or to marry. It becomes a pattern of mistrust of distrust and most nervous dating Lee. I've discovered in my
Well then, as victims, we learn to distrust ourselves. First and foremost, we perpetuate the,
karma by abandoning ourselves, some of us
and and ourselves for work.
korea for money
for sex for relationships. We distract ourselves from ourselves, so we don't trust that we are able to take care,
our selves of our suffering. So we run away from our selves in that way and saw that mistrust towards ourselves is to me most devastating in a spiritual life we learn to combat.
moment to moment to our breathing breathing in am aware that this is an incorrect breathing out. I'm aware that this is an outbreak in brass opera is sound, so simple
I guarantee. Most of us cannot do that, because the mine is like a wild horse is like a monkey that jumps that runs all the time is not able to come back to the body
to the brass so moment to moment. As we trained to come back to the breath, we caught waiting trust that, yes, I am able to come back to
myself to my breath to my body tonight?
oh mind am able to be here for myself,
for what's going on right now they are made-
pain in my back there may
the pain in my chest. There may be sadness in me, I'm here, breathing with that, tending that addressing it and this incredible when you are able to do that, little and little your game, that trust that you can care for yourself. But you can love yourself that you are your own soul, mate. It is so empowering that trust must be cultivated day by day.
Saw erikson's stages of trust, forces, mistrust and development. It doesnt just take place when you are a child, it takes place,
Al your life and mindfulness practices help us to cultivate that trust. Are there specific practices within mindfulness training? You know beyond the basic, and this is in no way to diminish the power of basic mindfulness meditation, where you feel the breath coming in feel the breath going out. Every time you get distracted, you start again. Are there
other practices that you think listeners could do. That would help them train up. This trust that you're describing well, we have the former practice of sitting, maybe
asian every morning we sit at five. Forty five
every evening wasted at four thirty and we sit for forty. Five
minutes in the morning and thirty minutes in the evening. During that time,
close your eyes so you're, not distracted by sites outside you,
sitting quietly you're, not listening to music. Our conversation, you
eating and ass smelling, whatever that is out there,
your body is in a stable pasture. So are you have really
it's your mind to come back to your body and the thoughts and feelings, and that has trained to me to be
do and to be what myself literally I cannot talk. I cannot tell
on a music cannot go to the internet. I said with the community
and learn to be. My own soulmate scan
my breathing scan through my body quiet now everything and just listen to the thoughts that arise in may and brief with them not being swept
way by them, not running away from them, but to just listen to them. Just like a third person listening to two people talking and most of us are not able to listen.
we ourselves so as to be able to be there for the in no child the wounded child in us, the person that is suffering inside and to breathe and say I'm here, it's ok. I would like to listen to you. I would like to get to know your pain,
tell me that is very empowering, so we do that every day, but the marvelous practice is wonderful to me, because its carried outside of the formal sitting met imitation sessions. Many people in our society now a days think. Where do I find that luxury of time to sit for thirty minutes and forty five minutes? I randomly? We can spend five hours, eight hours in front of us green right for work for entered team for social connection etc, but thirty minutes afforded
five minutes. We cannot afford it for ourselves, so marvellous practices can be carried throughout the day when you are driving, you can come back and breeze while you're driving and in that way, you're mine is not carried away because you can drive automatically. You can be on automatic pilot as you are driving as your cookies. As you are working, then your mind
and is free to muse to rehearse thoughts that are unpleasant that are negative. The mind is free to roam back to the path we're on for the future. Get lost in all sorts of things
and suddenly you find yourself getting angry or reactive, and you wonder why is because the mind has been unchecked, you see so when we have the mindfulness of the breath of the body of the steps throughout the day. The mind is in the present moment and whatever that arises, you know, and you can correct yourself if you have a negative thought towards somebody or somebody appears and you audie immediately because of that person's appearance, the color, the height, the you know, the the facial features. You hear yourself thinking that person is dangerous. I don't like that person.
If you are there to recognize that, though, you can breathe and smile and relax your body so that you are not automatically in self defense is a. But you know all that. Just somebody who trick goes my memory of somebody else who had many unpleasant in the past. Then you are fair towards that person and not reactive to
posted. You say, awareness in our daily life helps us to respond to people and situations appropriately instead of reacting through the lens of the past, which can cause a lot of damage in the region.
Action should can cause a lot of discrimination and mistreatment of others and our selves. Let's talk about the next strength, diligence. What do you mean by diligence? Diligence, what we invest, our selves, what we invest in our daily life, many of us Ben
a ten hours in front of a screen we spend a lot of time interacting with
people are doing work, etc so evil.
Those who watch movies throughout the day. That's due diligence as this was the outcome of that. What if we invest as the input, what comes out of it as the output, so do lizards here, we're talking about right, deletions, we invest our time and energy in something that will bring understanding that will bring empathy that woman
healing and transformation. That's right, diligence! So when we learn to come back to them,
hardy, inquired the mine. Why? Why why
far from car instead of texting of surfing the internet, seeing was knew the two different choice
system, we have one- is too busy to my other time and to say that we
no time for ourselves
every moment we get wishes close our eyes or just sit quietly and just check in with our body inquired. How might the right diligence helps us to rest
throughout the day to quiet no mind to see whether mine is and to take care of it immediate
When some strong emotions arise when some negative views arise, we can take care of them, die away, that's right, diligence and it helps us to respond to situations and the present positively poor actively effectively, and it also helps us to see when the past is manifestly
in the present, because whatever that took place yesterday or ten years ago or forty years ago, is still part of us and it affects the way we think the way with
the way we behave and many of us mistaken. They say
well, that's just the way. I am that's how I think. That's how I thought I speak less, how I behave, but if we give ourselves time and look deeply, we know we are product,
past and pass is still very on life in us this moment. So when
we are aware of all that. Then we can choose o instead of saying this, which will cause people to be offended or to be hurt. I can choose to breathe and to not say anything or to smile or to say it in a different way, so that people are more open to receive my comment or feedback.
Say so, or instead of hitting pushing running getting in the car and driving away. I can also choose to breathe and just sit down and not say or do anything, so it gives us that self dignity that self control, thus through diligence and his undoing the habits that we have accumulated over the years. We have many different coping mechanism. In some situations we will fight not that a person will fight all the time. Some situations will will flight and in some other situations we will
freeze an example. There was a teenager in a coma and he had been physically abused by his own biological farther from in a number of years, so he was put in another fast, the whole and then he was again physically abused might have foster father, and when this doctor put new clause.
Was of his biological father in front of the nose of this teenager, who was in a coma his heart rate, totally decreased. His body just became flash it and then a few minutes later, the doctor put in front of his nose the close of his foster father, his heart rate, totally increased and his body tense up in a coma. This
boy react differently to the members of the clothing, because when he was a boy trapped, he could not run away. He froze he became withdrew. He kept out of his mind
So that's why, in a call, my whinnied smell, the close his heart rageous decreased just check out state our body experience in
people, but when he grew older and he live with a foster father and he beat him, he will try to fight back. You see I so then he had this fight response either
in his coma. So in that way of us, we have adopted different copy mechanisms, depending on this
situation, but they're really reactive and they become habits for us and sometimes we fight when is not necessary to fight. We we run away when is really not necessary to run away any more
or to freeze and dissociate when we really need to be there for the situation, because the situation now is different from then
But if we behave as if it was the same situation, we should live as a victim will never have a chance to live fully our lives, we say, saw the trust and the diligence I important to cultivate in our din enough so that we have a chance to truly live and to fully realize our potential. So thus trust and diligence coming
Mr De talks about the other three factors of my former concentration and insight, and she explains what she means by now mind them.
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Elite number dot com see store for details, mindfulness concentration and insight are the are the three factors now mindfulness in the chinese character, a book character is game means now and the law a character is dumb, which means
what mine. So my foreigners is the mind the heart that is in the now the now mine. Isn't that wonderful mindfulness is that now my now mine, that is here and now that knows
what's going on in the body in the thoughts in the feelings of oneself, the mind at ease, aware, what's going on in the bar data, thoughts and feelings of the person in front of him of her of them.
That's and now my end. We respond from one now mine and not from a pass. My the future might but are now might so. Mindfulness gives us that power to be under in the here and now, and we have all the practices when you are
practitioner. You really don't flock under a cloud walk on water. You do it
We think, like everybody else, but you are doing it with a win, as you do one thing at a time because we think multi tasking makes us effective, but multitasking is a myth. Your brain cannot do two things at once,
It does this and it jumps back to be a ghost from a to, b and b back to a and a to c and c to d and back to be you see it just jumps and so
it's never really attentive to anything and we make me
thanks and then we have to redo it and we have to regret it. But a now mine allows us to be
area. Where was going on and then to forecast that goes into the concentration. That's the fourth factor that we are capable of assuming is when you
aware of something and that awareness is sustained is card concentration just like a lot place that is made of the beads one bit and not a bead another bid. But if you string more beats together, it become slowly. It forms a necklace, so concentration judge amuse the beads
I'm for less strong together little by little. Today, you may be mindful of your breath only once or twice but twenty one years later. For me when I do sitting method
you shouldn't am able to follow my breathing more or less the whole way through before.
Could be a way of more than one brats at that time. Now I can consider- and if I count it'll be six hundred brats doing my sitting meditation. So you see, mindfulness becomes concentration and concentration serves like this energy that helps us to pierce through what we need to understand. When I was a child. Maybe you did this to
then? I would use a piece of saran grab and rapid on my pen and you'll get really hot, and then I had already torn people into little tiny pieces and then put that surround rob over the two pieces of paper. It would attract the paper like a magnet or you put a magnifier
over the piece of paper and a sunlight is shining on the magnifier. You can actually bond a piece of paper when he saw concentrated the light is never acted, ports that piece of paper concentration has the capacity to do that, to draw things together, to borrow the piece of paper to help us to see what I had gone through in my life. There was not just a long incident, but it was in the setting of our feet now war.
in the setting of a war torn country, the poverty of the family. I saw my uncle, I saw my mother, I saw my american gee, I father, they were all victims
of the vietnam war of the social dynamics. So then, when I saw it like that, I can empathy for all that I invite.
Those that I know those I do ever know in my life. They still affect me very deeply. You see that brings understanding. That brings love empathy and from there
it bounds. My wrong view that I did something wrong. That's my penance! That's my karma, my punishment or
hey my uncle. I want him to go to hell, for example, because those views only perpetuate further suffering, but the right view. The insight and wisdom helps me to release that hatred towards myself towards others tells me to key love and compassion. You know recently when what happened to the afghan people,
and I saw photographs of afghans people, especially at the military base in
They try to get out of the country.
I really like the experience of the far off cycle all over again all over. It was exactly that in nineteen. Seventy five forty some years ago,
It took place in vietnam when the americans left vietnam and what we were left with us.
children and adults, and now what happens in afghans? History is repeating itself because we as people's we have not learned
our lessons, and so we will cause suffering to ourselves, our own people and other people in the world again and again,
if we do not learn that war is not the answer
not learn that retaliation and punishment they're. Not the answer
And so there won't be children. Unfortunately, in afghans will face their lives just
I want my brother and I have faced our lives with the vietnamese people have faced this past forty something years
and mainly american g eyes, the vietnam vets that they are still facing
in their daily life. Those who are still alive herself
I have to vietnam war? Many of them are still suffering right. Now, history repeats itself again and again, because we have not learned to stop and look deeply individually and collectively, and we need to do that. So the practices of trust of right delegations, right, mindfulness, right concentration and incite will help us
to repeat history in a negative way. It will help us to care for each other better. As a human family, it will help us to care for the planet earth as our
other in a better way, so that the matter generations have a chance to have a place to live and to grow, but that was a fantastic. I think deeply useful summary of these five practices, these five qualities that can be trained together to make us
stronger and, as you said, there are kind of geo political consequences to getting your own self together. This is about making yourself stronger and happier, but here contributing to society all over the planet, and ideally this kind of strength and insight and compassion they are talking about here can be scaled up, and I believe many people are worried that this you know the clock is ticking. We need to get ourselves together before the patient
Climate change and war gets unstoppable. Before I let you go. Let me just ask you a question. I ask a lot of our gas, which is: is there something
should have asked but failed to ask today commit any journalistic malpractice here today
You're very compassionate listener. You have deep wisdom and yourself then, and thank you
then, and dj for doing what you are doing. I am very grateful.
And I noticed that you're a program called ten percent happier. I promise you
when we have more awareness in our daily life. We are ten percent have
every time we can release a wrong view of view of hatred and discrimination. We are definitely
percent happier every moment when we can send love to ourselves
when we can be kind to out
ideas, thoughts and feelings were deaf.
only ten percent happier
healthier when we are able to look at others with the eyes of understand
and compassion
every moment is not ten percent happier in a big scale. Just do it
just every single moment that were able to recognise things as they are to take a mine for step to give rise to
positive thought we are more than ten percent happier in that moment and freer too, and we don't
to be imprisoned by the past, nothing
they don't have to be imprisoned by our thoughts and feelings. We can be a soul mate to ourselves and to each other.
That makes us infinitely freer and happier as a people, and we will take better care of other species of mother earth when we're happier when were miserable, who care
about other people right. You want there, no damage, you won't get revenge, you want to hurt you dont care, but you know the moon
you'll feel happier and lighter and more peaceful uses care and uses do simple things, but they they help others. So, yes, we and all of us need to be ten percent happier and more in each moment
so that we can take better care of the world. Thank you dear down. Take it easy. Thank you. Sister DE she's also thinking a dj kashmir. The producer of this episode,
and before we go, I just want to read off again the names of sr ds books. The latest is flowers in the dark. He was preceded by healing a woman's journey from doctor to none and also mindfulness as medicine, so go check out,
three books, security. Thank you again. Thank you, my dear brother, you are so what.
Therefore, I am so glad you out there in the world. I fell asleep
where about you, can't give less you thanks again to sister de credible person. Thanks to you
listening and thanks very much to everybody who worked so hard on the show. Ten percent happier is produced by adjusting davy gabby
that remain dj, cashmere, lauren, psmith and terror Anderson, our senior editor is mercer. Schneider been and can be regular, is our managing producer scoring
sing by Peter bonaventure of ultraviolet audio and nick thorburn of the great rock band islands, road. Our think, we'll see on friday for a bonus.
a prime members. You can listen to ten percent happier Earl
and ad free on amazon music down
the amazon music tat today or you can listen early and ad free with one replace in apple pie cas before you go to a salad.
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Transcript generated on 2023-08-17.