0:00

Any effort to create

0:02

a non agitated state of mind

0:04

is itself a form of agitation.

0:14

Welcome to the one you feed Throughout

0:17

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:19

importance of the thoughts we have, quotes

0:21

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:24

or you are what you think ring

0:26

true, and yet for many of

0:28

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:30

us. We tend toward negativity,

0:33

self pity, jealousy, or

0:35

fear. We see what we don't have

0:37

instead of what we do. We think

0:39

things that hold us back and dampen our

0:41

spirit. But it's not just about

0:43

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:46

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

0:48

effort to make a life worth living. This

0:51

podcast is about how other people keep themselves

0:53

moving in the right direction, how they

0:55

feed their good wolf m

1:13

Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:15

is Dean Slider, an award winning author

1:17

who has taught meditation and awakenings

1:19

since nineteen seventy. Dean leads

1:21

workshops, talks, and retreats throughout

1:24

the US and beyond, and has been featured

1:26

in The New York Times, USA, Today

1:28

in Style, New York Magazine,

1:31

OH, The Oprah Magazine, and many

1:33

others. He is also on the faculty

1:35

of the West Coast Writers Conferences. On

1:38

this episode, Eric and Dean discussed

1:40

his book fear Less, Living

1:42

Beyond Fear, Anxiety, Anger

1:44

and Addiction. Hi Dean, Welcome

1:46

to the show. Hi Eric, it's great to be here.

1:49

It's a pleasure to have you on. Your

1:52

book is called fear Less,

1:55

Living Beyond Fear, Anxiety,

1:57

Anger and Addiction. And we will go

1:59

in to all that here in a moment,

2:02

but let's start like we normally do with the

2:04

parable. There is a grandfather

2:06

who's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in

2:08

life, there are two wolves inside of

2:10

us that are always at battle. One is a

2:12

good wolf, which represents things like kindness

2:15

and bravery and love, and

2:17

the other is a bad wolf, which represents things

2:19

like greed and hatred and fear. And

2:22

the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for

2:24

a second, and she looks up at her grandfather and she says,

2:26

well, grandfather, which one wins?

2:29

And the grandfather says, the one you

2:31

feed. So I'd like to start off by asking

2:33

you what that parable means to you in

2:35

your life and in the work that you

2:38

do. Well, it's a very powerful

2:40

story. I can see why you've used

2:43

this as the central metaphor for

2:45

for your program. Here, Uh, so

2:47

many levels to it. I want to go straight

2:49

to a neurological level. Okay,

2:52

we could approximately,

2:54

we can identify the aggressive

2:57

wolf with the sympathetic

3:00

branch of the autonomic nervous

3:02

system. And that's the branch of the nervous

3:04

system, which, when it's activated, stimulates

3:07

the fight or flight response that

3:09

that you know, whatever is stimulus is out

3:11

there. We feel, okay, I have to deal

3:14

with this in a fearful way, get the heck out

3:16

of here, flight, or I have to deal with

3:18

it in an aggressive way. Fight. Now

3:21

we need that response. You know, we've

3:23

got caveman cave woman nervous

3:25

system still. But unfortunately,

3:28

in modern life, every time the

3:31

garbage truck goes by and you hear that

3:33

roar, our cave person

3:35

nervous system interprets that as, oh,

3:38

there's the saber tooth tiger. So

3:40

our sympathetic nervous

3:42

system, our fight or flight response tends

3:45

to kick in inappropriately.

3:47

So the way we balance that the good wealth,

3:50

so to speak, is the parasympathetic

3:52

system, and that's the branch

3:54

of the nervous system that does

3:57

just the opposite, gets us cooled doubt,

3:59

gets us settled into

4:02

the boundless, okay,

4:04

nous of this moment as it is the

4:08

the fact that from a

4:10

bigger perspective, that we don't

4:12

have to panic, we don't have to run,

4:15

we don't have to take arms

4:17

against what's going on. We can be

4:19

in harmony with it. And that

4:22

parasympathetic system, that good

4:25

wolf is the one that we feed

4:27

through meditative methods. Physiologically,

4:31

the meditative methods activate

4:34

the parasympathetic system and

4:36

tend to switch off the sympathetic system.

4:38

It's a great way for us to go into

4:40

this. You know, very early in your book

4:43

you you describe that the book is essentially

4:46

going to focus on two things. One is

4:48

practice, so some of the meditation

4:50

practices that we can do, and then

4:52

view, which is sort of a

4:55

way of looking at the world.

4:57

We're going to spend a fair amount of time on practice,

5:00

I think, but I thought let's start with view.

5:02

Let's talk about from your perspective, what is

5:04

right view and how does it relate

5:06

to specifically having

5:10

less fear in our lives? Right right

5:13

view? And we want

5:15

to be clear here by view We don't mean

5:17

view in the sense of opinion. By

5:20

view. We mean it quite literally

5:22

seeing what's in front of you. That's what right

5:24

view is. Right view is seeing actual

5:27

reality rather than our

5:31

thoughts about it or are feelings about

5:33

it. I think of reality as being

5:35

what is laid out in front of us in each

5:37

moment, and then all our thoughts

5:39

and concepts are like a piece of tracing

5:42

paper we've laid over it, and then we've drawn

5:45

all kinds of stuff and made all kinds of notes

5:47

and so forth, and and we're always

5:49

seeing reality filtered through all

5:51

of them. A wonderful example is

5:54

from the Steven Spielberg

5:57

film in two thousand fifteen, Bridge of Spies.

6:00

I cite this. I have a chapter about this in the book

6:02

actually titled would It Help

6:05

Uh? And that's the based

6:07

on the true story of Rudolph Able, the Soviet

6:10

spy captured in New York at the height

6:12

of the Cold War, and he's now

6:14

on trial for his life, and the Russians and

6:16

the Americans everyone wants him dead

6:18

because he's a very inconvenient person. And

6:21

his lawyer comes in and explains all this to

6:23

him. Fortunately, his lawyer is Tom

6:25

Hanks, so you know, probably things

6:27

will turn out okay. Uh. But

6:31

but in any movie, that's right,

6:33

that's right, you want Tom

6:35

on your team. So so Tom

6:38

explains to him the dire

6:41

straits that he's in and and uh

6:43

and the spy was played by the wonderful

6:45

um Uh. Mark Rilans

6:47

won an oscar for this role, actually, and

6:50

he digests this information for a moment

6:52

and then he says, all right, And

6:55

Hank says, you don't seem worried,

6:58

and he says, kind of shrugs, literally

7:01

says would it help? And

7:04

that's the best thing in the film. Actually, when Mark

7:06

Ryland's walk, when people spot them on the streets,

7:08

they say, hey, Mark, would it help? Uh?

7:12

I mean that cuts through so

7:15

much confusion. I grew up

7:17

in a very political family, and

7:19

I can remember my parents screaming at

7:22

the at the TV news, goddamn

7:24

Richard Nixon. Uh and

7:27

uh. And even then I used to wonder, do they

7:30

know Nixon can't hear them through

7:32

the TV screen. So

7:34

in this case, one aspect of view

7:37

is just seeing that that doesn't help,

7:40

and that it's actually very

7:43

right. View is always liberating. Right

7:46

view is always liberating when when you

7:48

see that that doesn't help. You realize,

7:50

oh, I can stop doing that. I

7:52

don't have to cultivate stopping

7:54

that. I don't have to try to push down my emotions.

7:57

I just just let that go. I mean, a very

7:59

similar thing everyday

8:01

experience is sitting at the red You

8:03

know, when you're sitting at the red light and you're in a hurry

8:06

and you tighten your grip on the steering

8:08

wheel, you're kind of straining forward in the seat

8:11

as you mentally try to make the red

8:13

light turn green faster. We've

8:15

all done that. Now does it help?

8:18

No? And

8:20

the and the extremely good news

8:22

here and again this is a matter of view.

8:26

Is is realizing that it

8:28

never has helped, it will never

8:30

help you. Can you can just

8:33

invest hundreds of man hours or woman

8:35

hours for the rest of your life and trying

8:37

to make the red light turned green faster,

8:40

It never will. Now, think of all the other kinds

8:42

of red lights in your life, the things

8:45

that other people do when you're going no,

8:47

no, don't say that, don't do that. It

8:50

doesn't help you. Can you can breathe

8:52

out, you can let that go, And that doesn't

8:54

make you less effective in

8:57

actually helping the situation. It makes

8:59

you more effective because you're

9:01

not burning up energy straining

9:04

at this kind of unproductive

9:06

response. Instead, you've got more bandwidth

9:09

open to look around and see, Okay, what can

9:11

I do that will help. Yeah. I had my own

9:14

version of that just a little while ago, because,

9:16

as you know, I was late to this interview

9:18

because I was stuck in traffic, and you

9:21

know, I had that moment of frustration

9:23

starting to rise, and then the you

9:25

know, and then the realization like there's

9:27

absolutely nothing that getting

9:30

upset is going to do about this. And

9:32

and sometimes I'm able to have that clarity

9:35

of you and and and other times,

9:37

you know, I'm not. Um, I think

9:39

we're all that way sometimes. I

9:41

also, particularly like you quote

9:43

another writer C. S. Lewis

9:46

in the book about this, and I'm just going to

9:48

read, um, just a short part of it

9:50

because I think it's so useful.

9:52

And and he's basically talking

9:55

about the slaughter and the suffering

9:57

of the World War Two giving way to the Cold

9:59

War. And um, this

10:01

is what he said in a letter to a friend. One mustn't

10:04

assume burdens that God does not lay

10:06

upon us. It is one of the evils

10:08

of rapid diffusion of news that the sorrows

10:11

of all the world come to us every morning.

10:14

I think each village was meant to feel pity

10:16

for its own sick and poor, whom it

10:18

can help. And I doubt if it

10:20

is the duty of any private person to fix

10:23

his mind on ills which he cannot

10:25

help. And then it goes on to

10:27

say a great many people do now

10:29

seem to think that the mere state of

10:32

being worried is in itself

10:34

meritorious. I don't think it

10:36

is. That's so profound, it's

10:38

sure as thank you so much for reading

10:40

that. I just love that quote. You

10:43

know that was uh

10:45

and talk about having all the woes of the

10:47

world that are do you know that was way before

10:50

internet. Every time I pick up my

10:52

phone, it's it's so easy to just

10:54

swipe right and there's the headlines,

10:57

here's the latest disasters. Yeah,

10:59

he hadn't even in twenty four hour news.

11:01

It's so staggering it and it is one of those

11:03

things that I think that good people

11:05

today wrestle with, yes, which

11:08

is I don't want to stick my head

11:10

in the sand. I'm a caring person.

11:12

There's lots of things that are happening in the

11:14

world, but I feel like this is somehow

11:17

eroding me. How can I respond

11:19

to this in a wise way? So

11:21

what are some things you might say about that? Well,

11:24

the first part is, and

11:26

again this is a matter of view that

11:29

uh C. S. Lewis has articulated

11:31

so beautifully that the

11:33

state of worry is not itself

11:36

meritorious. The question

11:38

is would it help? It doesn't. And

11:41

you know, kind of the reverse of that is people

11:43

feel if they're not worrying, then

11:46

they're being flaky, they're not being conscientious,

11:49

and that's just not true.

11:51

They you know, if that were so, then the more

11:54

worried, the more stressed you became,

11:57

the more you would be helping the world. And

11:59

if if we think of the people who have really

12:02

liked the great great political

12:04

activists, you know,

12:06

and I had all my life, as I say, you

12:08

know, starting with the parents that I grew

12:11

up with, all my life, I've been around political

12:13

activists. Um,

12:15

and if you think of the ones who have really

12:18

changed the world, Mahatma

12:20

Gandhi, Dr

12:22

King right, people like

12:24

that, Nelson Mandela,

12:26

As soon as you think of them, you

12:29

know that they were not coming from a place

12:31

of stress or worry

12:33

or rage or any of these.

12:35

Just you know, negative, negative

12:37

toxic emotions that so many

12:40

people feel their activism

12:42

has to come from. You know that people

12:44

like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela

12:46

and Dr King, they were coming from a place

12:48

of great silence inside and really

12:50

from a place of great love

12:53

inside. And I think that it's

12:55

no accident that they're the ones

12:57

whose influence continues to affect

12:59

the exactly I often think

13:02

of. Dr Stephen Covey wrote a

13:04

book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective

13:06

People, which I think is a master work. Gets

13:08

classified as a business book, but it's

13:10

not really in any way, shape or form. But

13:13

he expounds this idea of circle of concern

13:15

versus circle of influence. And if you think of

13:18

a big circle with a smaller circle inside

13:20

of it, the big circle is your circle of concern,

13:22

everything you're concerned about, and the smaller

13:24

circles the things you can actually do something about.

13:27

And his point is the more time that you spend

13:29

in your circle of concern, your

13:31

circle of influence actually shrinks. And

13:34

the more time that you spend in your circle of influence,

13:37

the more it grows. And it it speaks

13:40

to this exact same point, which is

13:42

that if I spend all of my time worrying

13:45

or being angry or railing at

13:47

the television or all of that.

13:49

Then that dissipates the energy

13:51

that I can put into my circle of influence,

13:53

which is the place that I can actually make a

13:56

positive change in the world. Right absolutely

13:59

so, So you know, job one is you have

14:01

to take care of yourself and

14:04

um uh, you know you need

14:06

to have the clarity and the balance

14:08

and the groundedness and and the

14:11

genuine compassion to help

14:14

others. Otherwise you're you're not

14:16

going to be making things better, You're going

14:18

to be making things worse. It seems like there's

14:20

been at tension and this has existed in

14:23

lots of people for many years between

14:26

how much of their time needs to be spent

14:28

in contemplation versus

14:31

in action, you know, in activism

14:33

and again to your point, looking at someone like Gandhi,

14:35

who um, I don't remember the exact numbers,

14:37

but apparently spent several hours a day

14:40

off on his own in prayer or

14:42

so. I think it's one of those tensions that runs

14:45

through people in the modern world

14:47

who are really trying to live

14:49

a good life. Is how do I balance

14:52

those two elements? Right now?

14:54

That really brings things into my wheelhouse,

14:57

which is that I've functioned as a meditation

14:59

teacher since oh my,

15:01

since nineteen seventy now,

15:04

uh, and I've had the incredible

15:07

opportunity to teach all over the country

15:09

and in a few other countries and all different

15:11

kinds of people. I've worked for years

15:14

with kids at a top, top

15:16

prep school. I've worked with kids at

15:18

ivy league colleges. I've worked

15:21

with prisoners and maximum security,

15:23

and with corporate executives and creative

15:26

artists. So I've had the

15:29

great opportunity to find out

15:31

what works and to find

15:34

out how to share

15:38

the skills of meditation in a

15:40

way that practical people living

15:42

in you know, the actual world, not

15:44

living in a story book about

15:46

about India in the Middle Ages, but

15:49

living in America in two thousand and eighteen.

15:51

How can actual people integrate

15:54

meditative practice into their lives in

15:56

a way that they really can do it and it really will

15:58

do it, and that it's really a fact to now.

16:01

The key that I've been

16:03

fortunate enough to learn from my

16:05

own teachers is to take

16:08

a natural approach to

16:10

meditation. I wrote

16:12

a book actually with the title Natural

16:14

Meditation Um.

16:17

Usually when people hear the word meditation,

16:20

they think of trying to control the mind.

16:22

I mean, when I meet someone at a party, they

16:24

say, what do you do? I'm a meditation teacher. They

16:26

say, oh, I tried to meditate, but it was so

16:28

hard. I couldn't concentrate, I

16:31

couldn't clear my mind, that I couldn't

16:33

make the thoughts stop coming. And

16:35

that's the really kind of most widespread

16:39

conception, I would say, misconception about

16:41

what meditation is that you're trying

16:44

to control the mind. Now here's the problem

16:46

with that approach, and there's no way

16:48

around this problem if if you take that approach,

16:50

which is that any

16:53

effort to create a non agitated

16:55

state of mind is itself a

16:58

form of agitation? Are right?

17:01

Okay, I'm gonna try real hard to just

17:03

be. It's a contradiction in terms.

17:07

So the approach and natural meditation

17:10

is we start by noticing

17:13

how the mind naturally works all

17:15

the time, and what the mind naturally

17:17

is doing all the time is seeking happiness,

17:20

it's seeking fulfillment, it's seeking that

17:23

moment you know, after you

17:25

you drink the tea and you say ah,

17:28

and you go through whatever you need to go through. You

17:30

you buy the tea, bags and you boil the water

17:32

and you pour the water in the kettle. All that it's

17:35

all aimed at getting at that moment, to that moment

17:37

of saying ah. Everything

17:40

else is a means to that end okay.

17:42

And it's because we're built that way. The mind

17:45

is seeking that sense of that

17:47

sense of just o kayness, nothing

17:49

else that needs to be done for me to just

17:52

bask in this moment. The mind

17:54

is seeking that all the time. Now,

17:57

the good news, as all

17:59

the stage is, whether it's the Buddha or

18:01

Jesus or Shankarra or Louts

18:03

or Socrates, the Balsamtov,

18:06

all the stages in their different language,

18:09

say one way or another that there is

18:11

an awe that never ends,

18:14

that's not dependent on outer circumstances,

18:17

and it's your own inmost core

18:20

of being. So all we

18:22

need to do is get the mind

18:25

turned just a little bit turned in that

18:27

direction and let

18:29

go of all our effort. And then and then

18:31

the mind's natural gravitation toward

18:34

that happiness, towards that piece and that

18:36

silence, that gravity just pulls

18:38

us within. So when I

18:40

lead meditation, and I do this in workshops

18:43

all over the country, um

18:45

and also I have a actually

18:48

we have a group that meets here in Santa

18:50

Monica usually every other Tuesday

18:52

night, and now we broadcast that live on

18:55

YouTube. That will be tonight on YouTube. Actually,

18:57

so what I do is simply I gently

19:00

guide people, show them how to let go

19:02

of effort, and then the gravity

19:04

takes over. Now, when you practice

19:07

in that way, it doesn't take a

19:09

whole lot of time out of your day. This is coming

19:11

back to your presenting question here.

19:14

When people think, and you'll hear

19:16

this a lot from people, oh yeah, meditation has

19:18

really changed my life, but you have to practice

19:20

for two hours a day. Now. The

19:23

reason you hear that is that the

19:25

way most people practice meditation

19:28

trying to concentrate, trying to control

19:30

the mind, that's very strenuous.

19:32

It takes a lot of effort. So they're sitting

19:34

there for an hour and forty

19:36

five minutes beating their head against the wall,

19:38

so to speak. And then finally they

19:41

get so tired, the mind gets so exhausted

19:43

trying to do this unnatural act

19:46

of concentration that finally

19:48

the mind gives up and it finally

19:50

just sinks. And

19:53

then that last fifteen minutes

19:55

is just ah, there, it is

19:57

so what fortunate

20:00

well I've learned from my teachers is how

20:02

to skip the first hour and minutes,

20:04

go go straight to the to

20:06

the just letting go and sinking part.

20:09

And that's how I teach meditation. What

20:45

I thought was interesting about

20:48

your meditation, and knowing

20:50

a little bit about your past

20:52

and your teachers, is that

20:55

the style of meditation you describe,

20:58

the natural meditation right, sounds very much

21:00

like something I learned from Adi Shanty,

21:02

like the way he recommends

21:05

a meditation. But when I first

21:07

heard natural meditation, I thought this

21:09

guy might be a t M guy, because

21:11

that's the way transcendental meditation

21:14

UM is often described. It's natural,

21:17

It's just natural. And I think

21:19

based on UM, what sounds

21:21

like some of your previous work you you did do

21:23

transcendental meditation, is that, Yes,

21:26

I learned and practiced uh TM,

21:29

and I became a TM teacher and I worked

21:31

in the TM organization. I taught

21:34

probably a couple of thousand people TM

21:36

and all over the country for

21:39

for several years. So you're right, the

21:41

basic principle of effortlessness is

21:43

there in TM,

21:45

but it's not exclusively there

21:47

in t M. And one of the reasons

21:50

that I eventually went my my own

21:52

way uh and and stopped

21:54

teaching through the TM organization.

21:58

Um. There were a number

22:00

of and by the way, I still have some of my best

22:02

friends are our TM teachers.

22:05

UM. But I

22:07

personally had to go my one was

22:09

because they started charging

22:12

I thought too much money. Uh.

22:14

And you know, the the original idea

22:17

was let's share this with everyone. And

22:19

secondly, there's a tendency

22:22

there to feel that TM is the

22:24

only form of effortless meditation,

22:27

that that we've got a monopoly on it. And

22:29

in fact they're right that most meditation

22:31

is taught in terms of effort

22:34

and concentration, but not Allso

22:37

once I had to go my way from

22:39

from TM, that really

22:42

form the direction of my search.

22:44

And I found oh here

22:47

in within the Tibetan

22:49

teachings, there's this Tibetan teaching

22:52

called so chen or um.

22:55

It goes by by other names in other

22:57

schools of Tibetan Buddhism um

23:00

Haamudra or a Ti yoga. And

23:02

oh here in certain schools

23:05

of the Indian uh

23:08

philosophical teachings of Vita,

23:11

here's that that vein of

23:13

effortlessness, of just being as

23:16

well. So what

23:18

I've done is to educate

23:20

myself as much as I can in those

23:22

traditions and try and okay, what's

23:25

the essence? What did they all have in common? And

23:27

it's all this teaching of letting go, of

23:29

just being and again

23:31

being in America teaching in

23:33

two thousand and eighteen. I always

23:36

acknowledge that my my debt of

23:38

gratitude to those traditions. But we

23:41

teach this in plain American. You don't have to learn

23:43

sanscrit and you don't have to

23:46

uh chant mantra,

23:49

Tibetan mantras or so forth to in

23:51

order to practice like this. You can if you

23:53

want. I love my seeing mantras in the shower every

23:56

morning. But as I always say

23:58

with especially with my guys that I were within

24:00

prison, everything's optional. Thank

24:02

you. That was helpful. I was just curious about

24:04

that evolution for you, because I could kind of

24:06

see where it started. And that's you

24:08

know, the term natural meditation has often

24:11

been in my life. UM. I

24:13

tried TM in UM

24:15

in nineteen seventy, UM, which sounds

24:17

like about when you started teaching it. I was um

24:20

just experimenting, and I was amazed I could find

24:22

any kind of meditation in Columbus, Ohio in

24:24

nineteen seventy. So

24:27

let's talk a little bit then about

24:29

natural meditation. Um,

24:31

I just want to read something you wrote,

24:34

and then I'm gonna let you just sort of talk a little

24:36

bit more about it. But you describe

24:38

it like this, we'll be hanging out in tasklessness.

24:42

The Italians have a lovely expression

24:44

for this. I'm gonna probably pronounce this because

24:46

I can't speak Italian, dol se

24:48

far niente. Okay,

24:51

don't don't and

24:54

you have to. You have to. You have to wave your hand. Yes,

24:56

there you go. Don't sweet

24:59

doing nothing. And then you also

25:01

go on to make this analogy, and I thought this

25:04

was a really useful because you're saying that if

25:06

you leave the mind alone, it's going to

25:08

settle by itself. And you say, think of leaves

25:10

falling from a tree. They tell the

25:12

whole story. A falling leaf will reach the

25:14

ground in a percent of cases. And

25:17

then a little bit later you say, but rather

25:19

than a leaf falling to the ground, most people approach

25:22

meditation like they're pushing a boulder up

25:24

a mountain fighting gravity, rather

25:26

than using it grunting away at whatever

25:29

task they've set themselves. And I

25:31

think that's such a great way to sort of frame

25:33

up the way you think about this. And

25:35

now I'm wondering if you could talk just a little

25:37

bit about the practice of natural

25:40

meditation. So listeners are going

25:42

to be intrigued by this. They're gonna hear, oh wow, that that

25:44

all sounds great. Boy, I have been, you know,

25:47

it does feel like I'm fighting my brain every step

25:49

of the way. Deems probably onto something

25:51

here. What do I do? And you can't

25:53

teach all that in a in a five minute

25:56

answer to a question. But I'm wondered if you could point in

25:58

the right direction. Right.

26:01

Let me mention, by the way, that there's

26:04

a page on my website. My website

26:06

is Dean words dot com and

26:09

there's a page they're called meditate

26:11

now where I have guided meditation

26:14

audio tracks and anyone can stream them

26:16

for free. And uh and in

26:18

those tracks you it's you know, ten minutes

26:21

or fifteen minutes, and I'm just

26:23

walking you through the thing. I'm guiding you the

26:25

same way that I know guide the groups

26:28

and guide my workshops. So we're going

26:30

to talk about it in principle right now. But

26:32

people can get the direct experience

26:34

by going to that page on my website, wonderful,

26:37

and I'll link to it in our show notes for sure. Perfect,

26:40

thank you. So yeah.

26:42

Tasklessness. The thing is, if

26:44

you set yourself any kind of task

26:47

in meditation as meditation, then

26:51

um, there's something you're trying to

26:53

accomplish, and you're

26:55

creating more agitation by by

26:58

trying to create a non agitated state

27:00

of mind. Your any effort,

27:02

any effort that you expand, is

27:04

a form of agitation, So you

27:07

wind up chasing your tail. If I

27:09

had a dollar for every time someone has

27:11

said to me, well, I tried to meditate, but

27:13

it was hard. You know, what I want to tell

27:15

them is no, no, no, you tried to meditate,

27:18

and therefore it was hard.

27:21

What I do is I point

27:23

out to people that

27:27

there's a delicious, effortless

27:30

natural nous to the way we're experiencing

27:33

things right now. Right

27:35

now, people who are listening to this, they're

27:37

hearing the sound of my voice. They

27:40

are feeling

27:43

perhaps a chair or a couch

27:45

or an automobile seat under

27:47

their butt. They're seeing

27:50

whatever shapes and colors are

27:53

there before their eyes. And all

27:55

of this seeing and feeling and hearing

27:58

happens completely completely automatically.

28:01

They're not expending any effort in

28:04

order to have the awareness of the

28:06

sounds and the and the smells

28:08

and the tastes and all of that. Also,

28:12

thoughts are there. Also feelings

28:14

are there, and the thoughts and the feelings

28:16

come and go, just like sounds

28:18

or or shapes coming and

28:21

going. There's nothing special about them. They're

28:23

just you know, in Buddhist psychology,

28:26

thinking is considered to be the sixth sense,

28:29

so you have hearing, seeing, tasting,

28:31

touching, smelling, thinking, So

28:33

thoughts, thoughts are just objects

28:35

of experience passing through the scope

28:38

of our experience, the scope of

28:40

our the porthole of our awareness.

28:42

Just like sounds. There's nothing special

28:44

about them, and there's something very liberating

28:47

and knowing that, Okay, a thought is there. It's

28:49

just like a sound being there. It's just like the

28:51

texture, the temperature, the air being

28:54

here. There's nothing special about it. It's

28:57

there's nothing I have to do about it. It's

28:59

kind of like sitting by the side

29:01

of of the lake and

29:04

you know, you see the breeze blowing

29:06

the trees, you see the ripples

29:08

on the lake coming and going. Stuff is just slashing

29:11

around and we're just sitting there letting

29:13

it be. There's nothing we need to do about

29:15

it now. If we just sit in this

29:18

easy way, another

29:20

thing we may start to notice is

29:22

that as all these things

29:24

come and go within

29:27

our awareness, there's one

29:29

thing that does not come and go, and

29:32

that's our awareness itself.

29:36

Awareness itself is like open

29:38

space, right, So if

29:41

we have objects here and think

29:43

of the space of the room that you're in. If

29:46

we happen to move the teacup to

29:49

a different place on the table, or we move our

29:51

guitar from one corner of the room to another,

29:54

the objects are moving through the space, but

29:56

the space is not affected. Space

29:58

is always open, it's always free,

30:00

it's always space. So

30:03

our awareness is

30:06

like space, and

30:08

all the different experiences that we have,

30:10

all the things we're aware of are like

30:12

the different objects that sitting

30:15

in the space or moving through the space, and

30:17

space has plenty of room

30:20

for everything, and space is not affected

30:22

by anything. You know, if I move the

30:24

teacup to the other side of the table, it

30:27

doesn't damage the space, it doesn't

30:29

improve the space. So

30:32

in this way we can start to notice our

30:34

awareness itself and go, Okay, I

30:36

can just rest in this awareness. I

30:38

can just rest in this openness.

30:42

In this openness, I can just rest in

30:44

this natural spaciousness and

30:47

let everything come and go within this space

30:50

in its own natural, frictionless

30:52

way, and know that I have no role

30:55

in it. I'm just the observer. I'm

30:57

just the witness. Really, I am

31:00

the space because what is that, that's

31:02

the awareness. I'm the awareness that's aware

31:04

of all this stuff. And just remain like

31:07

open space, just allow

31:10

spaciousness to be there, and

31:14

whatever is there coming and going within

31:16

it, let it come and go within it. And I've

31:18

actually done some practices

31:21

very similar to what you're describing, and was

31:24

startled by the fact that actually,

31:28

some of the time, for sure, there was

31:30

a true settling. I was like, holy mackerel,

31:32

I'm just leaving my brain alone.

31:35

Yes, so you yeah,

31:38

you did not do anything to make

31:40

settling happen. There's nothing you can do

31:43

to make settling happen, because any effort

31:46

is going to be non settling. So

31:48

and in fact, often it sneaks

31:51

up on people when you lead them in this natural

31:54

way. It sneaks up on them

31:56

and such so naturally

31:58

and kind of organically and incrementally

32:01

that uh, you know, when I ring

32:03

the little bell to signal the end of the meditation.

32:06

People go, you know, they may

32:09

startle a little, and I tell them take the time,

32:11

opening your eyes, and then they raised

32:13

the hands. They go, boy, how long was that? And

32:16

often they have no idea. Was it five minutes?

32:18

What was it an hour? And that's because you've

32:20

just settled deeply into

32:23

the place, which is really where there's no time,

32:25

there's no space, there's no cause and effect.

32:28

You're you're truly off the grid, You're

32:30

truly out of the matrix. Sometimes

32:33

people practicing in this way, you may be practicing

32:35

at home and feel, no, nothing's really

32:37

going on here, you know, I'm kind of wasting

32:39

my time. And then suddenly the phone rings you forgot

32:42

to turn your phone off, or the cat jumps

32:44

in your lap, and you go, uh no,

32:46

no, no, no, I don't want to come out of this right now. I

32:49

guess I really am settled. So

33:25

let's talk about the times that that

33:28

is not the experience.

33:31

So, you know, I love that that

33:33

idea of that thinking is a

33:35

sixth sense, because I do really think that

33:38

is. I think it's true, and I think

33:40

it's a it's a great way to look at it. However,

33:43

for a lot of us, it's as if like

33:45

all our other senses are blind

33:48

or deaf or whatever they are, and so our

33:50

sixth sense is so hyper

33:53

developed that thinking sense

33:56

is what dominates. And again

33:58

I know you're going to object to the word effort,

34:00

but that if we don't work on a redirection,

34:03

often we sit right in there. And and sometimes

34:06

that what I think about with the open

34:08

space, right, that awareness

34:11

is our is our open space, um,

34:13

and that we can rest in that awareness and

34:15

that these things come and go. And you made

34:18

the analogy of in the room, like if I've got this

34:20

teacup here and I move it over there, Sometimes

34:22

it seems like thoughts aren't a teacup, that

34:24

they are the size of the room itself. Yeah.

34:27

Yeah, Or it's a Tyrannosaurus Rex

34:29

stomping through the And so to your

34:32

point, I think it's I think it can't

34:34

be stressed enough. That thought

34:36

is not going away, right, That's

34:39

what our brains do, and it and it doesn't

34:41

write, and thought doesn't have to go away,

34:44

just as the mind. The the

34:47

eye doesn't have to stop seeing colors,

34:50

and the ear doesn't have to stop hearing

34:52

sounds. The mind does not have to stop

34:55

entertaining thoughts. I mean, do you think

34:57

that the Buddha had to say, oh,

35:00

no, I'm seeing colors in this room. I got to

35:02

close my eyes in order for me to enjoy my

35:04

Buddha hood. No, uh, it's

35:07

it's it's compatible with everything

35:09

you know. But in giving

35:12

meditation instruction, I don't tell people,

35:14

okay, just don't do anything. You're

35:16

absolutely right. When we're

35:18

in that situation where it's just okay,

35:21

we noticed things are just easily coming and

35:23

going um uh, then

35:25

then find there's nothing we have to do. Just rest.

35:28

Is that open space now when

35:31

the the when whatever is

35:33

going on, the thoughts of the feelings, whatever

35:35

is going on, seems so intense

35:38

or so engaging, it seems like the Tyrannosaurus

35:42

rects brand paging through the

35:44

room. Then there's

35:46

one more instruction. First

35:48

of all, a couple of things not to do. The

35:51

thing that what what most people

35:53

will try to do at that point is find some way to

35:56

slay the tyrannosaurs. You can't

35:58

it he's bigger than you or

36:01

or else. Run away from the tyrannosaurs.

36:04

You can't. He will outrun you. Okay,

36:07

So here's the third thing, The third

36:09

way is just when you feel you're

36:12

you're resisting something, or you're

36:14

deeply engaged with something, or you're struggling

36:17

with something, a thought of feeling, whatever it is.

36:19

In meditation, simply this, relax

36:22

your grip, relax

36:26

your grip on it, and then relax

36:28

back into yourself. Relax back into

36:31

that open space of awareness,

36:33

and then don't worry about whether it

36:35

continues to be there or not, because

36:38

no matter how big or intense

36:40

or troubling or whatever the thought or the emotion

36:43

is, it can't do anything to

36:45

you unless you're gripping

36:47

it. We think it's gripping us. We

36:49

think, oh, the tyrannosaurs is

36:52

gripping me. It's if you experiment

36:55

around a little bit with this, you'll find

36:57

and this is a life changing discovery.

37:00

It has no power to grip you. Only

37:03

you grip it. And once you realize

37:05

it's you gripping it, then you

37:07

realize you have the power to relax

37:10

your grip. I used to say let go, and

37:12

you hear that a lot in you know, the meditation

37:14

world, in the spiritual room. Just let go,

37:16

just let go. That's valid, but it

37:18

gets misunderstood. I don't say let go anymore.

37:21

Because people here let go and

37:23

they think, oh, the thing has to go away.

37:26

Let's say I'm trying to let go, but it keeps

37:28

being there. No, that's not letting go. That's

37:30

like requiring it to go away, which

37:33

is a form of holding on. So what

37:35

you do is, you know, like, right now, I'm

37:37

taking a ballpoint pen, I'm gripping

37:39

it hard. So this is me, This is my mind

37:41

and meditation where I'm starting to engage

37:44

with this thing, struggling with it or or

37:46

resisting it or whatever it is. Now,

37:49

if I relax my grip, it

37:51

doesn't matter that it's still there, because

37:53

now my hand is open to the whole

37:56

space of the room. And in fact, once

37:58

I since I've relaxed my grip, eventually

38:01

the thing's going to fall away of its own accord.

38:03

But but that's none of my business. It doesn't

38:05

matter whether it falls away later

38:08

or sooner. I love that relax your grip,

38:10

recognizing that, you know, feelings might

38:12

not be gripping us, we're gripping them. And I

38:14

think that let it go. The way I've learned

38:17

to think about it is let it be, like you

38:19

know, because because they let it go sort of assumes

38:22

to your point. Like I remember, like early

38:24

I was, you know, I was UM in a a

38:27

for a number of years, and that was such a big thing

38:29

early on in my recovery. Let it go, Let it go. You

38:31

just gotta let it go. And so I would try

38:33

and let it go and it wouldn't go anywhere,

38:36

and I would think I'm failing, you

38:39

know, I'm failing. And I just realized, like

38:41

it was just I can't I

38:43

can't control whether it goes or doesn't go. I

38:46

can just control my relationship

38:48

to it or my gripping or or not gripping

38:51

of it. Right, there's a

38:53

related principle. And actually

38:55

I have a chapter about this in the book

38:58

UM titled Relax at the Moment

39:00

of Contacts and UM.

39:03

And this came out of this is a I think a

39:05

wonderful story. Really years

39:07

ago, I was practicing I kid, it's

39:10

a beautiful, very graceful martial

39:13

art. It's a non fighting, non conflict

39:15

of Japanese martial art where

39:18

when the other person attacks

39:20

you, uh, you joined the direction

39:23

of the attack and you go, okay, you want to rush

39:25

in this direction towards me, I'll just help you fly

39:27

across the room. I'll just help you keep going. And

39:30

I was in the dojo one day. I was

39:33

practicing for my next promotion test,

39:36

and the particular thing I was

39:38

practicing is where three guys, one after another,

39:41

all attack me and try to tackle me. And

39:43

I'm supposed to be just helping usher them

39:45

across the mat, and instead

39:48

I kept winding up grappling with them, and then

39:50

the first one would pull me down and the other two would

39:52

pile on top of me. It was a complete mess.

39:54

I was getting more and more frustrated and

39:57

got up, dusted myself off of getting

40:00

I need to do this again. And suddenly I hear the

40:02

voice of my my instructor. He's

40:04

across the room and he calls out, dean, relax

40:07

at the moment of contact. And

40:10

it came as a surprise to me because I was

40:13

so caught up in in tensing

40:15

that I didn't realize I was tensing right.

40:18

There's a catch twenty two there. That's why sometimes

40:20

you need outside intervention. You need

40:22

that. In this case, I needed the teacher to

40:25

point that out to me. So the next time

40:27

the guy rushed me, instead of tensing

40:30

up and my shoulders rising up towards

40:32

my ears and my you know, my my gut

40:35

tightening up. Instead, I

40:38

relaxed and as the guy and I

40:40

did exactly the same thing with pivoting

40:42

my hips and using my arms as I had before,

40:45

only now at work. Now we the

40:47

guy just went flying across the room, and the

40:49

next guy and the next guy. Now, most

40:51

people are never going to practice i q do in

40:53

their lives. But the real i q do is life. The

40:56

stuff that's coming towards you can

40:58

be the whatever it

41:01

is that makes you fearful, whether you're afraid

41:03

of flying, or afraid of

41:05

public speaking, or afraid of you

41:07

know, asking that nice attractive

41:10

person out on a date, or it

41:12

could you're you're probably the thing coming. Yet you could

41:14

be rage, you know, at the driver

41:17

on the road that's cut you off, Or

41:20

it could be if you you have a problem

41:22

with with drink or with

41:24

drugs or anything any addictive

41:27

cravings. When the the that

41:29

craving is coming towards you, that rather

41:33

than do what we've done before,

41:35

which is just automatically tense

41:38

up when we have that encounter, do the opposite,

41:40

very deliberately relax at the moment

41:43

of contact, just let the thing

41:45

go past you and It's so

41:47

simple, but it's really powerful. Yeah, that is

41:49

such a great story that you tell. And I that's

41:51

such a great catchphrase, relax at the moment

41:54

of contact. And you describe another

41:57

version of that in your own life, which I've burienced

42:00

often. Um, you say, I once spentner

42:03

winner in Southeast Iowa, and I will

42:05

say I've spent an entire lifetime of winners

42:08

um in Ohio. But that

42:10

that idea of you know, we get cold

42:12

and we just tense up. Our shoulders are up,

42:14

our whole bodies tight, We're just clenched

42:16

against it. And you know, for me,

42:19

I just found like when I when I just relaxed

42:22

into it and stopped the resistance

42:24

of it in such a way, you know, the experience

42:27

of it changes. I'm still cold, but I'm

42:29

not miserable in the same way. And I thought that

42:31

was another example that you use

42:34

that that I've certainly experienced in my

42:36

own life. So interesting the way you put that,

42:38

Okay, I'm cold, but I'm not miserable,

42:41

And that recalls a saying that you've

42:43

probably heard, which is pain

42:45

as mandatory, suffering as

42:48

optional. Yeah. We interviewed

42:50

shin Zen Young on the show, who you probably

42:52

have at least heard of through your meditation

42:54

travels. But he wrote out

42:57

this equation, you know, um, suffering

42:59

equals pain times resistance, and it

43:02

has lived with me just constantly,

43:05

and I it's a lesson I learned over

43:07

and over and over again, is

43:09

that you know, yes, I mean

43:11

like I have, I have back pain, and

43:14

you know, sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, but

43:17

it's always worse when I am like resisting

43:19

it, when I am really like fighting

43:21

it. It shouldn't be here. It shouldn't be this way, you

43:24

know. I just I find that that non

43:26

resistance is and it really gets

43:28

to the heart of your meditation method, right,

43:30

it's the non resistance of what's

43:33

happening in the moment and just knowing

43:35

that whatever is happening in the moment is

43:38

is here. There's nothing. I once

43:41

saw what I felt was the perfect complete

43:43

meditation instruction on the side

43:46

of a carton of Tropicana orange juice.

43:49

UM. It said, nothing added,

43:52

nothing taken away, not from

43:54

concentrate. That's

43:56

great. Well, that is a great place for

43:58

us to wrap up because we are out

44:01

of time. You and I are going to continue

44:03

in the post show conversation and we're going

44:05

to talk about. You mentioned the idea

44:08

of on roads to meditation, ways

44:10

to sort of go into meditation, and boy, that

44:12

has been something over the last year that has fundamentally

44:15

changed my meditation practice is

44:17

having some of those, and you've got some great ones. So

44:19

we're going to discuss those. Um.

44:21

I'll have links, as we mentioned in the show,

44:23

notes to your book, to your homepage

44:27

all that. But I've had a great time

44:29

talking with you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank

44:32

you, it's really been great. All right bye.

44:51

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44:56

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