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1:28

Mindfulness.

1:31

I mean, there's that sense that we

1:33

do everything in such a rush

1:36

now and that we do five

1:38

things at once always. That

1:41

means that we

1:43

just cannot pay attention

1:45

to the world that

1:48

is asking for our attention. We

1:50

don't spend time just

1:53

existing

1:56

within one paradigm at once.

2:12

Hello and welcome to

2:14

the Meta Hour podcast with

2:17

Sharon Salzberg. I'm

2:19

Lily Cushman. I'm the producer of

2:21

this podcast. Today

2:24

we're coming to you with episode 225, which is a

2:26

conversation between Sharon and Catherine

2:32

May. Catherine is

2:34

an author, an international,

2:36

self-selling author, to

2:38

be more specific. She's

2:41

a podcaster and today's

2:44

conversation is mostly centered

2:46

around her new book, Enchantment,

2:49

Awakening Awe in an Anxious

2:52

Age. This is Catherine's

2:54

newest book that came out earlier

2:57

in 2023. It was an instant

3:00

New York Times bestseller, a Sunday

3:02

Times bestseller. But Catherine

3:04

is probably more known for her

3:07

previous book, Wintering,

3:09

which was such a massive

3:12

international bestseller. It's

3:14

a hybrid memoir. She's

3:17

also been a

3:18

presenter for On Being in

3:20

their

3:21

Future of Hope series. So

3:24

this is one of my new favorite

3:26

episodes. And a lot

3:29

of this conversation centers around

3:31

how we can come into a more

3:34

vivid contact with life

3:38

and learning to pay attention again

3:40

in a different way, a new way. And

3:43

of course there is a lot looking at

3:45

some of the Buddhist approach to that. Catherine

3:48

is also just a beautiful writer,

3:51

a beautiful speaker, and she's

3:53

so deeply explored her

3:55

own relationship to awe and how

3:57

that has kind of expanded. her

4:00

whole way of relating to the world.

4:03

That includes the natural world, but also

4:06

not limiting awe

4:08

to something that's just pretty like

4:10

a sunset, but the way

4:12

we can just be real

4:14

with ourselves and be messy, but also

4:17

be really in direct contact

4:19

with life as it's

4:21

happening around us.

4:23

So I think you're gonna enjoy this

4:25

conversation a lot. I know I did. Before

4:29

we get to the episode, a

4:32

few announcements for you. If

4:35

you haven't heard, Sharon has a new

4:37

book coming out, October 10th,

4:41

Finding Your Way. And

4:43

this is her

4:44

second brand new book this year, which

4:48

is a lot of the fruits

4:50

of her time in quarantine coming

4:52

into the world.

4:55

This is a book unlike any other that

4:57

Sharon has put out. It is a full

4:59

color illustrated gift

5:02

book. It's kind of like a little

5:04

coffee table book. And

5:07

it centers around some

5:09

of Sharon's most popular quotes

5:11

as well as quotes from some other

5:14

incredible figures and

5:17

these small essays that Sharon

5:19

has written around each

5:22

of the quotes. So it's really

5:24

a book that I think is perfect

5:26

for someone who maybe isn't familiar

5:29

with Sharon's work, maybe not

5:31

a meditator, but it's

5:34

that kind of book you can open to any page

5:37

and walk away with a little nugget

5:39

to pick you up, to inspire

5:41

you, to encourage you. And

5:44

we've got a few things happening for

5:47

this book release. The first is

5:49

that you can pre-order the book today

5:52

and our publisher is offering

5:54

a 20% discount on the book

5:56

if you pre-order it.

5:58

So if you go to...

5:59

website you can find that link

6:02

and pre-order a copy. And

6:05

if you pre-order you can also receive

6:08

this free poster. It's

6:10

an illustration that's inspired by the

6:13

book so a publisher

6:15

will mail you one of those if you fill out the

6:17

little form with your pre-order. Also

6:21

Sharon's going to be doing a book launch

6:23

event on October 10th. It's

6:26

hosted by the Insight Meditation

6:29

Societies Book Club

6:32

and if you

6:33

go to our website you can join

6:35

us there.

6:36

So

6:37

let's get to today's conversation.

6:39

Sharon Salzberg

6:42

and Catherine May.

6:51

Hello Catherine, welcome to the podcast. Hi

6:55

Sharon, thank you so much for having me. It's

6:58

wonderful to be together with you again and I'm

7:01

looking forward to sharing you and your work with our

7:03

listeners out there. So tell me how you

7:06

are and where you are. Where are you beaming in from?

7:09

Yeah beaming in. I am

7:11

at home in Whittebull in

7:13

the very south east of England.

7:17

So I live about a five minute walk away

7:19

from the sea and

7:21

it's a beautiful day actually. It's

7:24

sunny and I can hear the sea goes. I

7:26

worry that you guys can hear the sea goes too because

7:28

quite often people don't. But

7:33

maybe that's like a little bit of texture I don't know.

7:36

I promise if I hear the sea go I'll say what's

7:39

that?

7:40

I know it's weird. I mean

7:42

I don't notice them that much because they're

7:45

just this constant

7:46

background to my life but other

7:49

people can hear them I get all excited and say

7:51

is that a sea fantasy sign? That's

7:54

beautiful.

7:57

So many congratulations on your

7:59

new book.

7:59

enchantment, awakening

8:02

wonder in an anxious age,

8:04

which came out this past spring of 2023. I

8:06

think it's a beautiful title. Thank

8:09

you. We refer

8:12

with the title a little because I felt

8:16

very strongly that I wanted to talk

8:18

about enchantments simply because we so often

8:20

talk about disenchantment. That's

8:23

a conversation that we fall

8:25

so easily into this sort of cynicism

8:28

and sense that everything's

8:30

terrible and there's nothing that can be done about

8:32

it. I really

8:34

wanted the word enchantment to feel

8:37

maybe even a little bit challenging to people,

8:41

a little bit terrifyingly

8:43

positive. But

8:46

we did wrestle with it because we were scared

8:48

it was going

8:48

to frighten people off. I

8:51

know that's not an excellent... I

8:54

also noticed that interestingly to me,

8:57

the

8:58

book's subtitle is slightly different between

9:00

the US

9:01

and the UK editions. The UK edition

9:04

is reawakening wonder in an exhausted

9:06

age and the US edition is

9:08

awakening wonder in an anxious age.

9:11

So I'm wondering if

9:13

that was intentional, if we're actually more

9:15

anxious, which

9:16

I mean, most of the way through the year

9:19

the US would describe themselves

9:21

as anxious and exhausted.

9:23

Yeah, I think I could have just put a list

9:25

in that. I mean, honestly, my

9:28

chosen subtitle for both of them

9:30

was awakening wonder

9:34

in a burned out

9:35

age. So I didn't

9:37

get my wish. It's

9:40

interesting, isn't it, that the editors in different

9:42

countries felt like a different country,

9:45

and that the world resonated better. And of course, I'm

9:47

happy to defer to that. But

9:50

isn't

9:51

it interesting that in the UK, we're

9:53

more comfortable with talking about being

9:56

exhausted and Americans are more

9:58

comfortable with being exhausted. expressing

10:01

anxiety, like that it

10:03

tells such a lot about those different societies.

10:06

Whereas I'm just all about being burnt out with anxiety,

10:08

obviously. No,

10:12

there's a word in the Pali

10:16

language of the original Buddhist text that is longing

10:19

for a good translation and it's

10:22

kind of considered a near

10:24

enemy of compassion. It's like the state

10:28

that can masquerade as compassion

10:30

but isn't really and

10:32

it's close enough that on a superficial

10:35

level

10:36

it can look like compassion but it's not.

10:40

Recently a translator

10:42

scholar said to me, really it's burnout,

10:44

that's the state. You

10:46

know, where one acknowledges the suffering,

10:48

one is aware of it but it's like

10:50

too much.

10:53

There's

10:56

a term in there, compassion fatigue, which

10:59

I think is so very real

11:02

at the moment, that that sense that you

11:04

haven't got anything left in you to

11:07

carry on caring. That

11:10

sounds like a really very useful

11:12

word for right now.

11:15

I'd like to start with a short

11:17

passage from your book which

11:19

reads, I've lost

11:22

some fundamental part of my knowing,

11:24

some elemental human feeling.

11:27

Without it the world feels like tap water,

11:29

left overnight, flat and chemical,

11:32

devoid of life.

11:34

I'm like lightning seeking earth,

11:37

uneasy. I

11:38

carry the prickle of potential energy

11:40

in my limbs.

11:42

Ever deferred from the point of contact,

11:45

the moment of release.

11:47

Instead it gathers in me, masking

11:50

like a storm that never comes. I

11:54

lack the language to even describe it, this

11:56

vast unsettled sense that

11:59

I'm slipping over the the glassy surface

12:01

of things,

12:02

afraid of what lurks beneath. I

12:05

need a better way to walk through this life.

12:08

I want to be enchanted again. How

12:11

beautiful and evocative

12:13

of that. It's something great when you read it, honestly.

12:17

I love listening to that. Thank you.

12:22

Well, I mean, it's everything. It's both the

12:24

burnouts, the

12:26

almost despair, the caring.

12:30

And wishing one could actually move

12:34

from that caring, and I need a better

12:36

way to walk through this life.

12:39

Yeah. Yeah.

12:41

And I think the word in

12:43

that

12:43

that sort of draws me the most

12:45

is contact.

12:47

You know, this sense that we

12:49

have lost a feeling

12:51

of direct contact with so many

12:54

different things, you know, and I

12:57

think that expresses it in everything from

12:59

the way that technology is now so

13:01

mysterious to us, you know, that if

13:04

my computer broke, I couldn't fix it.

13:06

Whereas

13:08

when I was growing up, I

13:10

think pretty much most things that

13:12

I came into contact with, I had a chance

13:15

of fixing them if I knew how. And

13:17

now that's been taken away from

13:19

us, like how our sort of physical expertise

13:21

in the world has gone. But

13:24

also this sense of contact with

13:26

the divine, with how

13:29

we feel even, and

13:32

with our pleasure and with our joy,

13:35

everything's happening at one remove. And

13:37

I really meditated

13:40

a lot on this word contact

13:42

when I began to

13:43

write the book. It seemed really crucial to me.

13:45

Well,

13:48

it's interesting because writing,

13:53

like zooming, perhaps, like

13:57

being out of contact, but it's...

14:00

It's so intimate in its own way.

14:04

Yeah. In my

14:06

previous

14:06

job, I used to work with visual

14:08

artists. The

14:13

act of writing always seemed so bloodless

14:16

to them.

14:17

I remember talking

14:19

to them a lot about this and they always saw themselves

14:21

as doing something really physical

14:24

and having this direct contact

14:27

with the medium they worked in, and

14:29

they couldn't understand why I didn't want

14:32

that. Whereas to me,

14:34

that's what I seek through writing as well.

14:37

I'm often circling something, I'm

14:39

getting closer and closer to

14:42

exploring a feeling or a desire

14:45

or a need.

14:46

I often don't get there

14:48

very quickly. I have to keep working through

14:50

layers and layers until I get that electric

14:53

hit of contact. That's

14:57

exactly why I do it. I think I'm looking

15:00

for that over and over again.

15:02

One of the things that struck

15:04

me very strongly in that passage

15:06

was the sense of seeking. It's like there's

15:09

something very alive in it,

15:11

sort of

15:14

flat and chemical devoid of life.

15:17

Yeah. As it

15:18

may seem,

15:19

there's something in you

15:22

as the writer and expressing it for

15:24

the rest of us. That is

15:26

very vital and alive. That is almost

15:29

an essential aspect of being human that

15:32

wants a better way to walk through this life.

15:37

I think

15:39

I often experience being human as a

15:41

state of restlessness.

15:43

That nothing is ever

15:46

seen permanent or final to me. I

15:50

don't even want it to be, I don't think.

15:53

But that seeking, that

15:56

sense that you're looking

15:58

for, underneath

16:00

everything. You're looking to kind

16:03

of

16:03

on peel layers of life

16:06

to get to that core of it.

16:09

Yeah, it's definitely everything

16:12

that drives me, I think. I

16:15

find it hard to understand people that don't have that

16:18

restlessness, you know.

16:21

It seems really fundamental to me. Well,

16:24

that's very interesting too. And it

16:27

makes me feel the

16:30

ways we pay attention and even the

16:33

quality of awe, you know, which

16:36

has a lot to

16:37

do with how we pay attention and what we

16:39

pay attention to, I think, because

16:43

I wouldn't describe myself as a restless person

16:45

at all. It's more my

16:48

issues on the other side, like let's pick

16:50

up the energy a little bit, you know. But

16:57

I can see that the

16:59

quality of attention is absolutely

17:02

crucial, you know, because without

17:06

paying attention more fully or more

17:09

cleanly in a way, without so much assumption

17:12

and ideas of what to expect and

17:17

without a kind of cleaner, clearer,

17:20

better attention,

17:21

I'm not going to connect to anything, you know, the cup

17:24

of tea I'm drinking or the person in

17:26

front of me that's speaking or the

17:28

world around me.

17:31

No, absolutely. And I

17:34

mean, there's that sense that we

17:36

do everything in such a rush

17:38

now, and that we do five

17:41

things at once always.

17:43

That means that we just

17:45

cannot pay attention

17:47

to

17:49

the world that is asking for our

17:51

attention, you know. We don't

17:54

spend time just

17:56

existing

17:58

within one paragraph.

17:59

paradigm at once.

18:01

And I've, you know, like I say

18:04

that in full recognition that I definitely

18:07

do it too. You know, I will quite often be

18:09

watching TV and doing a crossword at the same

18:12

time, for example. But

18:14

I

18:14

absolutely try and practice

18:17

paying attention to one thing at a time

18:20

as often as I can. And I, you know, draw

18:22

myself back in to

18:24

not existing within that constant

18:27

noise. And

18:30

I find, you know, like people often begin

18:32

interviews with me by asking, what do

18:34

we need to do to feel awe?

18:37

How can we bring that about? And I don't

18:40

think that's the question in lots of ways. I think

18:42

the question is, how can I learn to pay attention again?

18:44

Because the wonder, the awe,

18:47

the fascination will flow from that.

18:50

The world is fundamentally

18:52

fascinating. But

18:55

we have to make space to allow

18:57

that fascination to arrive.

19:00

And actually, that

19:02

means doing one thing at a time,

19:04

it means slowing down a bit, it means

19:06

not overlooking our calendars.

19:10

But the the awe itself

19:12

is right there, I think.

19:14

It's just that we

19:16

have to train our attention a little bit differently.

19:21

I would completely, wholeheartedly

19:24

agree with that. And my favorite word, because

19:28

I realize I tend to have a favorite word. For

19:31

a long period, actually, it was poignant. And

19:35

that made that sense of compassion, which is

19:38

a little bit heartbreaking a little bit

19:41

sometimes, you know, that hopefully so

19:43

much that you just need to go back to bed

19:46

because then it's compassion fatigue

19:48

or empathy fatigue or burnout,

19:52

you know, but

19:53

nowadays my favorite word actually

19:56

is emergent. I

19:58

feel like so many people are going to be like, I'm going to do this. of the things

20:01

I want or we want, we seek love,

20:04

connection, awe,

20:07

clarity, our

20:09

emergent properties of the way we pay

20:11

attention. And

20:14

if we

20:16

address that question of attention,

20:18

many of the things we long for will emerge.

20:21

Yeah,

20:22

yeah.

20:25

It's the key to say very much, isn't it? And

20:28

I also like in

20:30

terms of thinking about the world at the moment,

20:32

because it feels to me

20:34

that there is so much that is emergent right

20:38

now. There's a cycle

20:40

that's closed and I call this opening up

20:42

again.

20:43

And I don't think any one of us know

20:45

how to truly understand it at the

20:47

moment. But

20:49

being this sort of uncontrollable

20:51

optimist, which I haven't

20:52

always been, apparently I am these days, and

20:57

I'm paying attention to those things.

20:58

I can't help but notice that there

21:01

are some really

21:03

incredible emergent

21:05

values that are

21:07

coming in and that are settling themselves upon

21:09

us.

21:10

And yeah, I'm going to share your favourite

21:13

word at the moment. I like it.

21:18

Great. I

21:20

hope you don't mind sharing.

21:23

That was wonderful.

21:26

We'll have to keep checking in with one another and watch

21:28

what emerges over time because

21:31

I see my own.

21:34

I've heard or read that this

21:36

book is almost

21:38

in sequence with wintering, which was

21:40

your last book,

21:42

almost like a next natural step.

21:44

Do you agree with that?

21:46

Yeah, I think so.

21:48

I mean, that was

21:50

the question I was asking myself when I was writing it,

21:53

certainly, is literally, well,

21:54

what do I write next? And I mean, that was really

21:56

great.

21:59

It was a hard thing

22:02

to do because I

22:05

was aware by the time I sat down to write Enchantments

22:08

that wintering events so much to so

22:10

many people and I found

22:14

that kind of mysterious, if

22:16

I'm honest, that it had had that level

22:18

of impact. I had not expected

22:21

it. I'm

22:25

still working through the process of understanding that,

22:27

honestly,

22:28

and

22:29

understanding the depth of feeling that there

22:31

is around that book. I spent a long

22:34

time denying that there was that depth of feeling and I

22:36

know at least I've moved

22:38

on from there. It

22:41

left me a bit of a loss to think

22:44

about

22:44

what I could possibly

22:47

say next that would help

22:48

and that would speak

22:50

into this moment.

22:53

I started writing it when

22:56

we were just at the beginning of the

22:59

pandemic and

23:01

I knew that by

23:03

the time it was published, the

23:06

world was completely unpredictable to me. We

23:09

know that it takes a long time for a book to come into

23:11

the world and so I was thinking, well,

23:15

what can I possibly say that's going to matter

23:18

then? I

23:21

suppose I really turned. It took me a long

23:23

time. It took me

23:23

a lot of drafts.

23:25

To get to thinking about

23:27

what I needed in that moment, which was that I

23:29

felt

23:31

like a layer of dust had fallen over me and

23:33

that I needed to renew my sense of

23:35

contact with the world.

23:37

But also

23:39

I think that I needed to challenge

23:41

some

23:43

of my very long standing

23:44

approaches to the world which were

23:48

uncomfortable with

23:50

expressing something as soft as that

23:53

and as

23:54

uncivil as that.

23:55

It was a moment for me of

23:58

shedding a bit of the teenage.

23:59

me really and

24:02

realizing that she'd been wrong about a lot of things. So

24:05

yeah, it felt quite revolutionary for

24:07

me to write it, definitely. Well,

24:11

that's beautiful. It also, in so many

24:13

parallels, my process

24:15

in the beginning of the pandemic,

24:17

which is that I kept asking myself,

24:20

what's still true? On a

24:23

certain level of expectation,

24:26

I

24:27

expected to be in New York City or traveling.

24:29

I said I was in Barry, Massachusetts,

24:32

where

24:32

I have a home and I was

24:34

living in the country. I came up here

24:37

from New York thinking I'd be here for

24:39

two weeks. And it was

24:41

eight months before I got back to New York for

24:43

the first time.

24:46

And everything was different. And the

24:49

retreat center that I had co-founded that

24:51

was such a deep part

24:53

of my own heart. I had a close. Who

24:56

knew? If we'd ever be able to go.

24:59

That must

25:00

be a huge love. It was the most love. It's kind of written in that, isn't

25:02

it?

25:03

Yeah. And we started it in 1976.

25:05

And all I

25:06

kept thinking is, I want

25:09

to make it to 50 years. Why

25:13

can't we make it to 50 years? And

25:15

now I look at that and I think it's all right. It

25:18

never happens. But I

25:20

was just on fire. We have to

25:22

make it to 50 years. So we went online. We

25:26

began teaching online, which

25:28

had never been a strong component really. And

25:31

it was inventing for

25:34

us. It was reinventing ourselves. And then

25:38

the staff who were still here and who were

25:41

there, and it was such a complex system.

25:44

And I kept thinking, what's

25:46

still true? What

25:48

can you rely on

25:50

as a North Star? As

25:54

something to

25:55

help you

25:57

make choices, provide your actions?

26:00

decide what's right for today,

26:02

whatever it might be. It's

26:04

a very powerful process just to ask that. You

26:08

did it when you said, in a way, what's deeper?

26:12

What's even deeper than this

26:16

presentation to the world that I did?

26:21

I'm just kind of processing

26:24

what that must have been like for you, really, because

26:28

it's that huge change

26:30

that comes

26:31

to you totally without

26:34

any choice involved. But

26:38

that sense of

26:40

reorientation that I always find

26:42

so interesting in people,

26:45

that we are capable of feeling

26:47

absolute despair and

26:50

rolling from that into a completely new

26:52

vision of how life is going to be. And it's almost

26:54

seamless. And that's obviously what

26:56

you had to do. It's

26:59

not to negate the suffering that was involved, but

27:02

you obviously found this completely

27:04

new way to do it.

27:08

Yeah, it's like really amazed

27:12

at the human capacity. And it comes down,

27:15

I think, in some ways, again,

27:18

to awareness or attention or mindfulness,

27:20

that we can look again. We

27:23

can be more fully present. We can

27:25

look at our assumptions and think, well, maybe

27:27

it's not going to be the old thing. Maybe it's going

27:30

to

27:31

be a new way, which may also be the engine

27:33

of our ability to find awe.

27:36

Yeah, I mean, I find awe in that.

27:40

I mean, I get lots and lots

27:42

of letters from people about just these

27:44

kind of situations because that's

27:46

what they read into wintering. That's why

27:48

they responded to wintering. And

27:51

I find it really

27:53

does trigger my sense of awe to hear

27:56

how people scramble.

28:02

But there, they see, it seems to

28:04

me that a key part of that process

28:07

is getting to an acceptance

28:10

of what is, you know, what

28:12

is right

28:13

now, what situation am I actually

28:15

in as opposed to

28:17

the situation I think I should be in

28:20

or I want to be in. And

28:24

that is, that's almost the work

28:26

of a moment. It can take a long time to get there,

28:28

but when it comes,

28:29

when you truly

28:31

absorb like, oh,

28:34

this is how it's happening now.

28:38

This is not in my control and this

28:40

is what I'm being presented with. People

28:43

have got this incredible capacity

28:45

to then just completely

28:47

switch realities almost into the

28:50

current one. I love that.

28:54

Yeah, and it's absolutely beautiful and you're

28:56

describing it beautifully. I think it's also, it reminds

29:00

me of something that I found a

29:04

surprise, you know,

29:06

sort of lacking in my own understanding,

29:08

which was that I was so

29:10

accustomed to thinking of awe partly

29:13

because of the research that I was familiar with having

29:16

to do with the natural world, you know, like

29:20

research would be done with

29:22

people going into, you know, a grand

29:24

forest somewhere and seeing the immensity

29:26

of the trees and feeling awe at

29:29

their lifespan, at their majesty

29:31

and all of that. And

29:34

so I assumed it was like really

29:36

where people were

29:39

contouring their understanding of awe and it turned

29:42

out that both through readings I did and

29:44

through understanding

29:46

more where the research was going

29:48

that

29:49

more people, it seems, feel awe

29:51

at human endeavor than

29:54

at, you know, magnificent trees that somebody

29:57

made it and they survived or look

29:59

at that. adversity and look

30:01

at how they

30:02

cared about others during it and

30:05

that really helped

30:08

me it really inspired me think look at that we

30:10

we can have tremendous awe for one another.

30:12

Yeah

30:14

it's I

30:17

mean I when I began writing the book

30:19

I

30:20

started with those I mean traditional

30:23

kind of expressions of all you know I thought

30:25

about the giant redwood trees

30:27

and I thought about mountains and things

30:30

like that

30:31

and I think I was

30:32

rescued from

30:33

that track of thinking by the pandemic funnily

30:36

enough in that

30:38

I had this kind of desolate moment of

30:40

thinking well if I'm going to write about

30:42

awe then I need to go to a mountain and I can't

30:44

go to a mountain because I'm in lockdown and I can't

30:46

tell you through for myself about that

30:49

for a couple of weeks and then this

30:51

realization kicked in that said that's

30:55

so that's such a recent

30:57

idea of awe that it's part

30:59

of tourism almost you

31:02

know that it's a thing that you

31:04

go to visit on holiday and

31:07

you have a nice time and you see something

31:10

beautiful and you take a photo and you put

31:12

it on Instagram

31:13

and everyone admires you

31:15

for going there somehow

31:16

I'm not sure how that works but that seems

31:18

to be what happens and

31:21

there you go you've arranged your all and

31:23

of course most people can't

31:26

do that

31:27

and I suddenly got filled with this sort

31:29

of political uprising

31:32

of like right well then it's

31:34

my responsibility to talk about or in

31:36

a completely different way and to figure out

31:39

how how we help everybody

31:42

can find out how people that are confined to their houses

31:44

can find it people who are sick

31:47

people who are caring for someone people who don't

31:49

have enough money to travel

31:51

to these remarkable locations

31:54

and I and that really totally

31:57

changed the course of the book and

31:59

there was fun enough for a chapter that I ended up cutting

32:01

because I couldn't make it fit about

32:03

experiencing awe at a protest

32:05

march

32:06

and the awe that came from being

32:08

amongst this mass of people who

32:11

were all pointed

32:14

in the same direction and

32:16

you could feel the deep

32:19

passion in the room when

32:22

you were amongst them.

32:25

And yeah, that

32:27

was kind of a touchstone for me really about thinking

32:30

about how awe is

32:32

not just about tarantinas, it's

32:35

not just about something nice to see and

32:37

it's not something we can necessarily take a photograph

32:39

of.

32:43

And going back to your

32:46

comments about acceptance, as

32:48

we think of this quotation

32:51

from the late theologian Howard Thurman

32:54

who talked about looking

32:57

at the world with quiet eyes as a

33:01

way of encountering the world in a new way and how

33:04

it sounds perhaps passive or quietistic,

33:07

but it's really not. That

33:09

acceptance is kind of the essential foundation

33:12

for movement, for action,

33:14

otherwise we're

33:15

just kind of in battle with what is rather

33:17

than starting from a very different

33:20

place.

33:23

Yeah, I mean

33:28

I really have gone deep

33:31

into the kind of practice of acknowledging

33:33

what I don't know

33:35

lately and what I don't know how to

33:37

solve

33:39

because actually

33:42

I almost think some of the trouble we're in is

33:45

caused by people

33:47

wanting to rush forward with a solution before

33:49

they've really engaged

33:50

with the fullness of the problem. And

33:55

I think that's a difficult

33:57

place to be

33:58

in. I was watching a documentary. in

34:00

the country, in the UK, environmental

34:03

presentivity event called Chris Packham this

34:05

week. And he's just

34:07

made a program basically asking,

34:10

what do we do next?

34:12

Do we start, you know,

34:15

is it time for math, civil disobedience? Will

34:18

that even work? And

34:20

what I admired in it, and it was something

34:22

that I'd not

34:22

really seen hitting

34:25

the mainstream too much before was his, he

34:28

just, ability to reside in his own doubts,

34:31

and his complete

34:32

uncertainty, and

34:34

to really explore the lack of clarity

34:36

about

34:38

what will do something, you know, or what

34:40

will make others take action, what will convince

34:42

people of the urgent

34:45

danger that we're in.

34:47

And that,

34:49

as you say, that could seem to be really passive,

34:52

it could seem to be a really

34:53

useless approach, but actually

34:56

I think we need to

34:57

go through that stage, it's a crucial

35:00

stage to go

35:02

through before we know, begin to understand

35:04

what to do, it's an exploration phase,

35:07

because what we know is that what

35:09

used to work doesn't work anymore,

35:11

in terms of the way we speak to each other, in terms

35:14

of the way we take action,

35:17

we need new ways. And

35:20

yeah, that state

35:22

of watching and listening

35:25

it's such a soft

35:26

thing to do, and I think that

35:28

softness is so important for us to

35:30

find at this particular stage in our history.

35:35

You tell the story in the book about first

35:37

learning meditation, and

35:39

it's actually that learning to take off your shoes,

35:42

I'm wondering if you could share that story.

35:46

Yeah, so I learned

35:49

meditation, I'd wanted to

35:51

do it for a long time, but I was

35:54

propelled into it by a huge

35:56

personal crisis, and

35:58

I was incredible.

35:59

I'm so

36:02

deeply unsettled that I think it allowed

36:05

me to

36:05

make this huge change.

36:09

And the teacher that I worked with,

36:11

he was very firm

36:14

that you had to just do the thing.

36:18

And

36:20

I try to explain this to other people now, and I really

36:22

admire the way he got it across me because it is hard

36:25

to convince people of this that

36:27

you actually have to go into

36:28

meditation expecting very

36:31

little from it. If

36:34

you're going in seeking a

36:36

psychedelic experience with a full light

36:38

show, like some

36:40

sort of revelation, that's

36:44

just not going to work. But

36:48

I kept coming back to him and saying,

36:50

I feel really weird.

36:51

He was like, great, go meditate.

36:57

And I think

36:58

that time was a real period of learning

37:00

for me about

37:02

all I had to

37:03

do was take off my shoes and make contact with the ground.

37:06

That was what I was craving. That

37:09

was what I needed to do in order

37:12

to get there. But

37:15

also, that could just be the end result in

37:17

itself. I didn't have to be looking

37:19

for anything bigger than that. It was

37:21

actually this very

37:23

beautiful, small

37:26

moment of connection that

37:28

was actually the thing that I needed to heal me,

37:30

and it really, really did. But

37:33

it was that very humble commitment

37:37

to going back and sitting

37:39

in

37:39

meditation and

37:41

letting that be the

37:43

end in itself.

37:45

And it was like, I'm not

37:47

being the special chosen one that gets the special

37:49

experience. I'm

37:53

sure you've battled this personally many times with

37:56

lots and lots of students over the years.

37:58

And in myself, because of... coming

38:00

up in my mind is beautiful and

38:04

was

38:06

you know sometimes I think looking back

38:08

at my life that I'm

38:10

learning the same lesson over and over again

38:12

but hopefully at a deeper level each

38:15

time because yeah 1971 this teacher said this to

38:20

me in 1974 this other

38:22

teacher said kind of some of things man

38:25

each time it was this great opening and in 1984

38:28

I'd

38:30

already been practicing meditation for like

38:33

almost 14 years and

38:37

we brought this Burmese teacher side of Upandita

38:40

from Burma which

38:42

is very hard to do in those days and probably

38:44

again and he taught

38:46

a three-month retreat that I sat under his

38:48

guidance never having met him before and we

38:51

were meeting him six days a week for these short

38:53

meetings just to describe our practice and we were

38:56

told to be able to describe one sitting

38:59

and one walking period

39:01

of meditation to him and so

39:03

most of us took notes but before I could read any

39:05

of my notes

39:07

he would look at me and say something like for long

39:09

one period he would look at me and say tell

39:11

me everything you noticed when you took off your shoes

39:14

which was nothing

39:15

so I'd leave that was the end of the meeting

39:18

and I'd sit and walk as mindful

39:20

as I could and

39:21

take off my shoes as mindful as I could and then

39:23

I'd come in the next day and say tell me everything

39:26

you noticed when you drank a cup of tea which was

39:28

nothing so I'd

39:31

leave and I you know take off my shoes as

39:33

mindful as I could in case he went back to that you

39:35

know

39:36

drink the cup of tea as mindful as I could feeling

39:39

the warmth of the tea cup and smelling

39:42

the tea and tasting the tea and

39:43

I'd come in the next day and he'd say tell

39:46

me everything you noticed when you washed your face which was

39:48

nothing so I quickly saw where

39:50

things were going and I

39:52

called it in my mind a torment of continuity

39:55

but of course in reality

39:57

it was fabulous because everything

40:00

thing mattered as much as everything

40:02

else. Yeah.

40:04

Yeah.

40:06

Yeah.

40:07

That's just such a wonderful way of, I've

40:09

been still doing that in your mind. I

40:11

love that. But I also,

40:14

I also think about how, um,

40:17

how would, how, I worry that we're learning

40:20

to perform that contact rather than

40:22

to actually have it, you know,

40:24

like I, as you were saying about, you

40:26

know, what did you notice about drinking your cup of tea,

40:29

I think about all of those images I've seen

40:31

on Instagram of a woman

40:32

I call her yoga girl.

40:35

Um, she's like the kind of perfect,

40:38

the perfect white Guinea woman, her

40:41

like perfect yoga gear. And,

40:44

you know, she's either sitting in a perfect

40:46

lotus, um,

40:49

or she's, you know, she's really cherishing

40:52

her cup of tea, like really

40:54

properly cherishing it. You know,

40:56

and I, and I think we,

40:59

we get handed this vision of what perfect

41:02

practice

41:02

looks like,

41:04

um, and we believe in it and

41:06

we believe in it a little too much because actually

41:09

the truth of living of being

41:12

in that, in that constant, you know,

41:15

mindful, that pursuit of

41:17

mindfulness, that, that kind of way

41:19

of life is that

41:21

it looks really disorderly from the outside

41:24

and it feels quite disorderly and

41:27

it's not full of these moments of Instagrammable

41:30

bliss.

41:30

It's

41:33

actually, it's actually a little more patchy than

41:35

that for most of us. Um, and

41:38

I, I'm always seeking to convey

41:40

that as my experience, you know, that, Oh

41:42

God, I just burned myself on the cup of tea

41:44

instead.

41:48

How do they hold those hot cups of tea

41:50

in two fans? I just, I don't think they

41:52

drink a

41:52

very good tea on this thing.

41:54

Well, that's why the subtitle of your book

41:56

in either country is so

41:58

great.

42:01

What's the reality? We're

42:03

anxious or we're exhausted or we're

42:06

sad or we're afraid. That is the

42:08

reality. It

42:11

can't all be sweetness and light and

42:14

still be real.

42:16

No. The

42:18

last thing we should all start doing is

42:20

trying to make it look more like we're

42:22

experiencing that. That's

42:24

the opposite of

42:25

a useful approach to this. It's much

42:28

better to wade into the suffering

42:30

and the chaos, I think, and to just

42:32

be there. That's one

42:34

of the greatest things you can learn to do sometimes.

42:37

The other side that I will say, which also

42:39

just occurred to me is that sometimes we just need a

42:41

break. We need respite and

42:44

delight of a nice cup of tea. Yeah.

42:48

Just have your cup of tea.

42:52

We're fortified to

42:54

look at the anxiety and deal with

42:56

the suffering, which is so immense

42:58

sometimes.

42:59

Yeah. It's really hard to

43:01

get the balance right when talking about these things, I

43:03

find, because sometimes

43:06

we just need to escape ourselves. There's

43:09

a period of time when it's good to fit with these things,

43:12

but we also need to learn when

43:14

to just move on to do something else for

43:16

a while.

43:17

That's the kind

43:19

of fine balance of life skills

43:22

that we find it very hard to communicate these

43:24

days. It's not an absolute. Sometimes

43:28

be with the trouble. Sometimes

43:31

watch an episode of Friends and just

43:34

forget about your existence for a little while

43:36

and you'll feel better after that. Yeah.

43:39

Yeah. I mean, I'm

43:41

really drawn

43:43

to that in so many ways. In

43:46

a funny way, and now

43:48

I'm moving closer to the word balance and an

43:50

appreciation. I used to think of balance

43:53

as mediocrity. I felt it was boring.

43:57

But it's something so... Um,

44:01

different than that. You know, if you feel like

44:04

so many beautiful things can emerge.

44:07

If our being were only more in balance,

44:10

you know, if our pace

44:12

was only a little more balanced

44:14

or we had options, we thought, you

44:17

know what, I can't

44:18

right now. I need to drink this cup

44:20

of tea or I need to watch an episode

44:22

of friends or, or whatever it might

44:25

be. Yeah.

44:27

Yeah. I, I've written

44:29

a little bit about balance in the last couple of

44:31

years as well in terms of

44:33

my actually look like

44:36

is doing both extremes

44:38

rather than living in this perfect kind of

44:40

midway path, you know, that,

44:43

um, I find that I quite often

44:45

need

44:45

to do both and

44:48

that my behavior across the year balances,

44:51

but yeah, within, within the moment we might

44:53

be living in, in one extreme or

44:56

another, but across a longer

44:58

period of time, that looks like balance. Um,

45:01

and I, I often think about that as the, the

45:04

idea that, you know, when water's boiling, if

45:06

you measure different points of it,

45:09

it will be all sorts of different temperatures,

45:11

but overall we get this, this sense

45:13

of, of

45:15

balance. Um,

45:17

and I think it's another

45:19

way of saying, you don't have to get it perfectly right

45:21

all the time.

45:22

Sometimes it's about exploring the

45:24

edges of things and then coming back to the middle.

45:30

Yeah, beautiful. And

45:32

most of the thing of, um, some years ago, my pre-pandemic

45:35

book in

45:36

terms of writing it, but it was released

45:38

right in the,

45:40

uh,

45:41

part of it, um, was called Reel

45:43

Change is about the

45:46

ways that interchange and transformation can

45:48

empower us as change makers in the world.

45:51

And

45:52

in that book, one of the things I wrote about

45:54

is the necessity of joining goodness for

45:56

activists. You know, it's that side of things for

45:59

that balance.

45:59

hear people who are

46:02

right on the front lines of suffering either

46:04

in their personal lives in their

46:06

family or a community or their

46:08

livelihood and

46:11

Working so hard to write

46:13

the world's injustices to do what

46:15

we can and and how

46:17

it can be so important and so difficult to

46:20

have moments to just enjoy

46:23

something it really is and

46:27

All the people I talked to you know for that book

46:30

I think every single one of them struggled with that thing

46:32

that just it

46:34

came out with Predominantly

46:36

with this one friend and the guilt

46:39

he felt just to enjoy a banana You

46:41

know it was pretty

46:45

So I'm curious about your own Impressions

46:48

of this and

46:49

the blocks we may have to experience

46:52

enchantment

46:54

Yeah, well actually I I've had some you

46:57

know some people say very directly to

46:59

me

47:00

Well, how can I let myself do

47:02

that? You know how can

47:04

I allow myself to have?

47:06

pleasure almost when the world's

47:08

on fire yeah, and

47:10

I think my

47:13

honest answer to that is I

47:15

mean it's twofold because You know

47:17

on a very basic level There's

47:20

a long fight ahead of us and we need

47:22

to be able to restore ourselves to

47:24

take enormous care

47:26

of ourselves to sustain Long-term

47:30

activism and long-term change

47:33

Rather than to burn out very quickly,

47:35

which is what we'll do if we don't

47:38

have these moments of not just

47:40

rest of joy

47:42

But

47:44

I I also think

47:46

in a in a kind of in

47:49

a more political way

47:53

You know the bad guys make being bad

47:55

look fun

47:56

Like

48:00

people who are behaving the most

48:02

destructively

48:04

make it look great,

48:06

great, fun. That's their argument

48:09

that we cannot let these pure,

48:12

botanical people take away our

48:14

pleasure

48:15

and our joy. I

48:17

think we have

48:19

a responsibility to show our joy,

48:23

to really

48:23

manifest it, to

48:24

really

48:25

show what we're

48:28

fighting for, what the good,

48:30

what the, I'm going to even say fun. I don't

48:33

like the word fun. I think we're going

48:34

to say fun like, where's the pleasure? Where's

48:36

the fun? Where's the joy? Where's

48:38

the happiness in what we're arguing

48:41

for, in this better world that we're arguing

48:43

for, where people are

48:45

kinder and more considerate to each other,

48:47

where they take better care of their planet, where

48:49

they, you know, with

48:52

all their being resist violence. We

48:56

need to make, we need to not just make

48:58

it look joyful in a false way, but we need to

49:00

show what

49:01

a joyful thing that is. And

49:04

so

49:05

we should lead into that. You know, we should,

49:07

we should

49:08

be taking those moments

49:10

of pleasure because that's ultimately what this

49:12

is

49:13

about. This is what this battle is. It's for

49:16

all the things to be raging across the world at

49:18

the moment.

49:19

It's a set of values. And yeah,

49:22

but it does. It certainly comes up a lot for

49:24

me.

49:28

Well, a life of attention

49:31

and curiosity and connection and contact

49:34

and awe.

49:35

It

49:38

sounds like a lot of fun.

49:40

Well, we know that,

49:42

sorry. I

49:45

should bring in balance because

49:48

certainly, you know, that

49:50

clarity is so important not

49:52

to be

49:53

overriding or overlooking the very

49:56

real distress and pain and difficulty.

49:59

There is. being able to hold both.

50:03

The joy and the possibility and

50:05

the movement and the

50:08

very real pain that

50:11

a lot of people go through

50:13

in life and systems support

50:16

in some cases. To hold

50:19

them both implies the kind

50:21

of openness and expansiveness and

50:24

freedom in our own minds, which is kind

50:27

of the greatest joy. Yeah,

50:31

yeah and unfortunately I think

50:34

maybe that joy doesn't transmit very well

50:36

as a

50:37

TV show, you know.

50:39

It's quiet, it's you know,

50:41

it's maybe

50:44

like

50:45

it doesn't show extreme emotions

50:50

but it's

50:52

a much nicer way to live

50:55

and that's because

50:58

it

50:58

has the capacity to integrate pain

51:01

into its worldview and integrate suffering

51:03

and to acknowledge people's

51:06

struggles rather

51:08

than to reject anyone

51:10

who's struggling

51:12

or to deny that it's happening or

51:14

to kind of constantly push it back.

51:16

And to me that just

51:19

feels so urgent

51:22

to express

51:24

and so yeah that takes me

51:26

back to choosing a word like in childhood.

51:31

Yeah, that's great.

51:33

The natural world is such

51:36

a big part of this book and your life

51:38

and one of the things that strikes

51:41

me about the natural world and that

51:43

reflection is how it relates

51:45

to interconnection in the Buddhist framework that

51:49

however alone or separate we might feel

51:51

we're actually part of a vast network

51:54

of life and what

51:57

happens over here is not separate from our

51:59

own. over there. I'd love

52:01

to hear your thoughts about interconnection

52:04

and this more vivid connection to

52:06

nature.

52:08

Yeah, I mean, I think you've put it really

52:10

well, actually. I think that when

52:12

we talk about interconnection, we often assume

52:14

that that's a human interconnection

52:16

and that that

52:18

derives directly from

52:20

being in the company of other people. But I

52:24

experience it really differently to that. I

52:27

feel like the interconnection is bigger,

52:29

it's planetary, it's with landscape,

52:32

it's with animals,

52:34

it's plants. It's

52:37

about feeling the sentience

52:39

of the entire system and

52:43

the way that we are not the master

52:46

of it, but that we're absorbed into it, that

52:48

we're part of it, that we're part of this

52:49

huge

52:51

being.

52:52

That's how that expresses

52:54

for me, really. But

52:56

also, for

52:59

me,

52:59

and I always write

53:01

from my perspective as an autistic person,

53:05

I need time in solitude

53:08

and in reflection to

53:10

really

53:10

feel that human connection. Social

53:13

relationships take a

53:15

long time to process for me. I need

53:17

my time.

53:20

I need

53:22

my time walking, I

53:25

need my time swimming, I need

53:26

my time sitting

53:28

in the woods

53:32

to really process

53:34

what I've learnt from people in

53:37

my last bar of contact with them. It's

53:40

often at those moments when I actually feel

53:42

closest to them, when I feel

53:44

like I'm truly able to engage

53:46

with

53:48

their needs and what they're telling me

53:51

and how that relationship

53:53

is expressing itself. I

53:55

think

53:59

there's a sort

54:02

of mode of thought that doesn't

54:04

take you kindly yourself. Going

54:07

into contemplation is selfish

54:10

and it's isolated,

54:12

but my experience

54:14

of it is the opposite.

54:16

I feel like I come back as a better friend,

54:18

a better family member, a better

54:20

parent when I've

54:22

had that engagement with people

54:25

that comes from

54:27

quiet, from silence.

54:33

This has been such a wonderful conversation.

54:35

I don't want it to stop, but we're

54:37

nearing the end. I'm already thinking about,

54:40

oh, I

54:42

can have you back when we

54:43

talk about creativity. Oh boy, it's great. Oh

54:46

yeah, at least two. Happy back. I'm

54:51

wondering if,

54:52

as we close the conversation, you

54:55

could give us a reading

54:57

from the book.

54:59

Oh, I'd love to.

55:01

So this is

55:03

a little bit in the section

55:05

on fire.

55:09

In summer months and in the business

55:11

of catching moss,

55:13

where there is a lit bulb and an open

55:16

window, I'm there too,

55:18

cupping my hands around a

55:20

fluttering form that's determined

55:22

to hurl itself against the light.

55:25

Both my husband and Bert are afraid

55:27

of them.

55:28

They're too quick, too intense.

55:31

I don't think they mean to menace us.

55:33

It's just that we're invisible to them,

55:36

a thing of such scale that

55:38

we're beyond perception. I

55:41

will not have them batted out with a

55:43

newspaper so I clamber

55:45

over the kitchen table and balance on

55:47

the backs of chairs to reach them

55:49

before setting them loose into the night.

55:52

It's a thankless task because

55:55

soon they're back again, bumping against

55:57

the glass.

55:59

It must be such a...

55:59

baffling to them this invisible barrier

56:02

between desire and possibility.

56:06

We are more lost than we know, small,

56:09

frustrated, capable

56:11

of only tickling a world that

56:14

we wish would feel our hest. We

56:17

share that attraction towards the brightest

56:19

object in our field of view,

56:21

an equal fascination with candles

56:24

and conflagration.

56:26

We sense the danger that we can't look

56:29

away. In fact,

56:31

we're drawn to circle again, roughly, getting

56:34

closer and closer until

56:36

it consumes us. Even

56:39

when we think the sky might be falling, we

56:41

stay to watch. It's

56:43

elemental to us, this alertness, this

56:46

panicked, flitting attention. Fire

56:51

is the shadow side of enchantment, the

56:53

dark, gleaming sorcery from which

56:56

we can't pair our gaze. It

56:58

shows us the wild danger that still resides

57:01

in nature, the

57:02

power it retains to devour

57:05

and

57:05

destroy.

57:07

It is impolite, contagious,

57:09

capable of catching from house

57:11

to house while we stand helpless. It

57:14

licks our palms like a moss in cut

57:17

hands.

57:18

We have not understood this earth full potency

57:22

until we have recognized fire.

57:29

I'm now trying to play the book so quietly that

57:31

you can't hear it, but I'm failing. Very,

57:35

very beautiful. Thank you.

57:37

You're an inspiring

57:39

writer, really. It's beautiful.

57:43

Oh, well, the feeling is really

57:45

mutual. So it's just been lovely to talk to

57:47

you again.

57:48

Well, it's lovely speaking to you again. Now I want to

57:50

go to England and I haven't gone anywhere in years. Oh,

57:54

come, come, come, come. Thank

57:56

you. For everybody listening.

57:59

I really recommend getting

58:02

a copy of Catherine's new book, Enchantment,

58:04

Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age, which

58:07

is available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook

58:09

formats wherever books are sold. Thank

58:12

you so much.

58:19

Hey folks, thanks for listening.

58:22

If you'd like to learn more about

58:24

Catherine's work, to get

58:26

a copy of Enchantment

58:29

or any of her other books, you

58:32

can visit her website Catherine-May.co.uk

58:37

And for

58:39

more on Sharon's teachings, her

58:42

many online offerings, or to pre-order

58:45

a copy of her new book, Finding

58:47

Your Way, you can visit

58:49

SharonSalzburg.com This

58:53

has been the Metta Hour podcast

58:56

from the Be Here Now Network. May

58:59

you be safe, may you

59:01

be happy, may you be

59:03

healthy, and may you live

59:05

with ease.

59:26

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