0:00

Normally, when you give yourself to great love,

0:02

you're setting yourself on a path of great

0:04

suffering. Welcome

0:13

to the one you feed Throughout

0:15

time, great thinkers have recognized the

0:17

importance of the thoughts we have, quotes

0:20

like garbage in, garbage out,

0:22

or you are what you think ring

0:24

true. And yet for many of

0:26

us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower

0:29

us. We tend toward negativity, self

0:31

pity, jealousy, or fear.

0:34

We see what we don't have instead of what we

0:36

do. We think things that hold us

0:38

back and dampen our spirit. But

0:41

it's not just about thinking. Our

0:43

actions matter. It takes conscious,

0:45

consistent, and creative effort to make

0:47

a life worth living. This podcast

0:50

is about how other people keep themselves moving

0:52

in the right direction, how they feed

0:54

their good wolf h

1:08

thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:10

is Father Richard Roar, a globally

1:12

recognized ecumenical teacher bearing

1:14

witness to the universal awakening within

1:17

Christian mysticism and the Perennial

1:19

tradition. He is a Franciscan

1:21

priest of the New Mexico Province and founder

1:23

of the Center for Action and Contemplation.

1:26

Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan

1:28

Alternative Orthodoxy practices

1:30

of contemplation and self emptying, expressing

1:33

itself in radical compassion, particularly

1:36

for the socially marginalized. He is

1:38

the author of numerous books, including

1:40

The Naked Now, Falling Upward,

1:43

Immortal Diamond, and his newest book,

1:45

The Divine Dance, The Trinity and Your

1:47

Transformation. If you value

1:49

the content we put out each week, then

1:51

we need your help. As the

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show has grown, so have our expenses

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and time commitment. Go to

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one you feed dot net slash Support.

2:21

Thank you in advance for your help.

2:25

And here's part two of our interview

2:28

with Richard Rore, picking

2:30

up from kind of where we left off

2:33

talking about changing ourselves as

2:35

a primary thing. One of the things

2:37

that usually drives us to want

2:39

to change ourselves is suffering.

2:42

You talk a great deal about suffering

2:44

being one of the main tools

2:47

of transformation. You actually talk about

2:49

love and suffering as the two.

2:51

You say almost without exception. Great spiritual

2:54

teachers will always have strong direct

2:56

guidance about love and suffering. If

2:58

you never go there, you'll never ever know the essentials.

3:01

You always quote me so well,

3:05

I just got to repeat it, you know. First of all,

3:07

let me give my simple, non dramatic

3:09

definition of suffering. It's whenever

3:12

you're not in control, So you have

3:14

to practice not being in control,

3:16

or frankly, you become a control freak.

3:20

And it's the situations where

3:22

you're not in control where

3:25

you can hand over control to someone else.

3:27

I'm sure we learned this in every relationship.

3:30

For a marriage to survive, you have to learn

3:32

it. But I think for a relationship with

3:34

the divine you have to learn it too. That

3:37

if you're gonna allow someone else

3:39

to steer your ship, you have

3:41

to, at least on occasion, give up self

3:43

steering, you know, So that's called

3:45

suffering. Uh use

3:48

the silly example of a red light

3:51

where for thirty seconds you don't get

3:53

your way. You want to get across that

3:55

street, and who this doesn't know that experience.

3:58

It's essential messaging,

4:01

it's foundational learning. People

4:03

who don't learn that become

4:06

entitled narcissistic control

4:09

freaks. As I said before, now

4:11

I think none of us once

4:14

major suffering. But I think

4:16

that's when it gets hard to understand

4:19

why is so much asked

4:21

of some? For

4:23

the last two years, I've been thinking of the women and children

4:26

and Syrian refugee camps.

4:28

You know, why, why,

4:30

why should anybody have to suffer

4:33

that much? I don't have a rational

4:35

answer for that. Mystically, I can

4:37

see it as the eternal suffering

4:40

of God, and God is going to transform all

4:42

of it. See. I see Jesus as

4:44

a map, a map of the human

4:46

journey. Carl Young said that too.

4:49

And we came forth from God and we will

4:52

return to God, and they're suffering

4:54

in between. If I couldn't

4:56

see that that this this suffering

4:59

is going towards some kind of transformation,

5:02

it would be very hard for me not to be very

5:04

cynical, very negative,

5:07

very uh disbelieving.

5:10

I have to believe that there's

5:12

meaning, and I use that word

5:14

meaning with all the meaning

5:16

I can put into the word meaning. Uh.

5:20

If there isn't some meaning to suffering,

5:23

you have every good reason to be a bitter

5:25

person, especially once it happens

5:28

to your family, or your child or

5:30

your partner. But

5:33

apparently you've heard me say the normal

5:35

two paths of expanding

5:37

the soul are great love and great suffering.

5:40

And normally, when you give yourself to great

5:43

love, you're setting yourself

5:45

on a path of great suffering. It's

5:48

almost inevitable. Now,

5:51

the way I teach contemplation is

5:54

that I don't think you have to learn

5:57

my sophisticated or zen boo

6:00

it a sophisticated way of teaching

6:02

meditation or contemplation. But

6:04

I'll tell you this, if you do learn it,

6:06

it is a way of sustaining what

6:10

you learn in great love and great suffering

6:12

over the long haul. You see,

6:14

the great love, as you

6:16

well know, the honeymoon cannot be maintained,

6:18

that wonderful period of the honeymoon

6:22

and the and the unique liminal

6:24

space we're in after in grief

6:26

too, and great suffering, thank

6:29

god, that can be maintained in that

6:31

level of sadness or depression.

6:35

But you are in a non

6:37

dual state during

6:39

those periods, in the honeymoon

6:41

period and the grief period. Now,

6:44

what you're learning in contemplative

6:47

practice strictly called is

6:49

learning how to stay there, the

6:52

wisdom you learn of of holding

6:55

the field open. I don't need to

6:57

divide to what I like and what I don't

6:59

like. It is what it is, what it

7:01

is, and it's okay that

7:04

for contemporary men and women, has

7:07

to be learned, has to be taught.

7:10

Otherwise you lose the honeymoon. You

7:12

lose the wisdom of suffering. Usually

7:14

a matter of months, sometimes weeks,

7:17

sometimes days. Why. I think it was Thomas

7:20

Merton and I'm just gonna paraphrase, and I think

7:22

you mentioned it in one of your books, is you know watch

7:25

out for success? You know is

7:27

one of the surest ways to avoid transformation

7:29

is to be very successful, because you don't

7:32

why change if you feel like things are going well.

7:34

That's why Jesus says it's so hard

7:36

for a rich man. And know what he's talking about, because

7:39

a rich man is a man's given his whole

7:41

life to his personal success. Nor

7:43

Yeah. Yeah, Suffering as a

7:45

as a path to transformation is is

7:48

relatively well known. Christa Tippett, who does

7:50

on being and I think you had a conversation with her

7:52

not too long ago. Yes, it's supposed to come out

7:54

around Easter. She told me, Yeah,

7:56

I can't wait to hear that one. But she says something

7:59

along the lines of, you know, we

8:01

don't become great in spite

8:03

of our suffering, but because of our suffering.

8:06

But you also use the phrase that says,

8:08

if you don't transform your suffering, it

8:11

becomes a wood transmitted.

8:13

You transmit it. So what happens

8:16

One person becomes another person

8:18

and they become wonderful and warm and loving,

8:20

and somebody else becomes bitical bitical

8:23

that's a word for cynical together

8:25

a bitical person. Um.

8:27

What is the what are the elements that cause

8:29

transformation to occur? You

8:31

know, I said to the class last week. When

8:34

I see people change for

8:37

the good is when there's

8:39

this I'm gonna call it judicious

8:41

combination of feeling

8:44

safe and okay

8:47

with conflict. You have to feel

8:50

safe and okay, are you won't have

8:52

a big enough soul to embrace

8:54

the conflict. But there has

8:57

to be conflict. Uh.

9:00

The way I've been teaching it to the students for

9:02

growth to happen. Uh,

9:04

I say, picture three boxes order,

9:08

disorder, reorder, and

9:12

there's no NonStop flight from

9:14

the first box to the third box. To

9:17

grow up, you must go through

9:19

conflict disorder. Now Christian

9:21

language would be the cross

9:25

that a wrench has

9:27

to be thrown into your neatly constructed

9:30

first box of so called

9:32

order, your salvation project,

9:34

as Thomas Merton calls it,

9:37

it has to fall apart because you're not in

9:39

love with God at that point, and you're in love with the idea

9:41

of being in love, and you're in love with yourself.

9:43

You don't know that when you're young, but of

9:45

course you are. That's you only can see

9:48

that later and say I did

9:50

not yet know how to love, and

9:52

yet God used me anyway, and God grew

9:54

me up anyway. It doesn't

9:56

mean it was wrong. So

9:59

when there's this wonderful combination

10:02

of enough conflict and enough

10:04

safety, just put

10:06

it that way, that's when

10:08

it moves to the next

10:11

level. When there's

10:13

too much conflict and not enough safety,

10:16

it just gets cynical. You get

10:18

angry, you get rebellious. You have

10:21

to feel yourself being held, being

10:24

sustained, being believed in. And

10:27

that's what a partnership does for you. That Okay,

10:30

I can't believe in myself right now, But she

10:32

smiled at me, you understand, that will

10:34

hold me for another half day. And and

10:36

and that's why we have to give that to one

10:39

another, because we can't always

10:41

engender it inside of ourselves,

10:44

so we need to mirror the best from

10:46

one another. That's what friendship means,

10:48

That's what love means. I think back on my

10:51

moments of my big moments of suffering,

10:53

you know, heroin, addiction, a

10:55

divorce, and I'm thinking about what was

10:58

what was holding me in those moments, and I think

11:00

the first one was alcoholics anonymous.

11:02

He was holding me.

11:05

And then I think the second one, funny enough,

11:07

was Pema Chodren, even though I don't know her, but

11:11

there was something about her wisdom,

11:13

her wisdom and that belief

11:15

in your essential goodness underneath

11:17

of it all, and she's a marvelous teacher.

11:20

Sure well, good for you. Both

11:22

makes sense to me, you know, But

11:25

God gave you that to hold you. Yeah, I'm

11:27

going to read something else you say, because I

11:29

mean you say it so well. I can't help it. But

11:31

the loss and renewal pattern is so constant

11:34

and ubiquitous that it should hardly

11:36

be called a secret at all. Yet is still

11:38

a secret, probably because we do not want to

11:40

see it. We don't want to embark

11:42

on a further journey if it feels like going

11:45

down, especially after we have put

11:47

so much sound and fury into going

11:49

up. Yeah, that's the gist of

11:51

my book, Falling Upward. Now.

11:53

The Catholic language for that, which most

11:56

people don't understand, was the Paschal

11:58

mystery. And and it was

12:00

called a mystery because

12:03

it isn't logical, it isn't

12:05

common sense. At the way up

12:07

is the way down. That the way

12:10

through is the way of letting it

12:12

fall apart. The

12:14

previous stage always has to disappoint

12:17

you, fall apart

12:19

for you to go on to the next stage. You

12:21

know, if I had to say no offense

12:23

if you were raised in the Protestant

12:25

tradition. But the great Achilles

12:28

heel of Protestantism because

12:30

of the period of history it emerged in

12:32

after the sixteenth century where

12:35

we were all climbing and capitalizing

12:37

and achieving and performing, is

12:39

there's almost no theology of darkness,

12:42

almost none. You have to go to

12:44

the Catholic mystics. You have to go to the first years

12:48

to get all the teaching on darkness. And

12:51

that might be the greatest single liability

12:54

of Protestant spirituality

12:56

that when suffering darkness,

13:00

absurdity, desolation, tragedy

13:02

come, there aren't the tools

13:05

to know how to deal with it. You can't just quote

13:07

a scripture quote. They

13:09

have to be inner tool us. And that's

13:11

why the recovery movement has been

13:13

so important, because I think

13:15

the Recovery movement brought

13:18

a language of darkness, if you will. Powerlessness

13:21

was their word to a

13:23

Protestant world that didn't understand any

13:26

tools for dealing with powerlessness

13:28

whatsoever. So thank God, I always say,

13:31

when the spirit isn't getting through, the main line

13:33

of the spirit comes through the duct. Work has

13:36

to come through indirectly, like of

13:38

course, and miracles, payment

13:40

Chaudrin and UH twelve

13:43

step program, those are all works

13:45

of the spirit. You

13:47

know, Thomas Aquinas taught

13:49

us in the Catholic tradition, when

13:52

you hear truth, don't

13:54

ask who said it, because that will prejudice

13:56

you. Just ask is

13:58

it true? And if

14:00

it's true, it's always from the

14:02

Holy Spirit. If it's true, it's

14:05

all how could that not be true?

14:08

If it's true, it's of the Holy Spirit. I don't

14:10

care if pain with Shadrin said it and she's Ludha's

14:12

two cares. You know, Jesus said,

14:14

and he was a Jew, So you

14:17

know, if I'm just gonna take Christians, I'm

14:19

in trouble. Yeah. I try and do the same thing with

14:21

listening to music, Like if I put on like you

14:23

know, a Spotify or whatever it's playing,

14:25

I'll hear a song before I go to see who it

14:27

is. I want to listen to it. I want to experience

14:29

it without because

14:32

as soon as I know who it is, I immediately

14:34

have some Oh he's gonna be good,

14:36

She's going to be exactly.

14:39

So you've just taught me something. I like

14:41

that. Yeah that makes sense because I can

14:44

see my mind work that way. Well, I won't like him,

14:46

Yeah, I can't. I can't hear it clearly

14:49

once I know what it is. One

14:51

of the things that you talk about is necessary

14:54

versus unnecessary suffering.

14:56

I think that's a theme on the show a lot.

14:59

We I talk a lot of the second arrow parable

15:02

from Buddhism. I don't know if you're familiar with that one

15:04

where we get shot with the first

15:06

arrow and that's kind of what life does to

15:08

us, right, and then we tend

15:10

to shoot ourselves with the second arrow on

15:12

the second arrow is what all this means?

15:15

Oh, you know, I break my leg and I'm the kind of person

15:17

who always break my leg? Or why does this happen

15:20

to me? Or you know, and you talk about

15:22

you quote young saying that so much

15:24

unnecessary suffering comes into the world

15:26

because we won't accept the legitimate suffering.

15:28

Again, don't take offense.

15:30

I don't mean to say Jesus my only

15:33

teacher, but I think it was

15:35

important in the Christian mythology,

15:38

the Christian storyline, that

15:41

Jesus suffering be undeserved,

15:44

be unjust. That's

15:47

crucial to the story because

15:49

of the very point you made, because

15:52

if it's just, well he deserved, if that

15:54

changes it. But to deal with undeserved

15:57

suffering, which is most of it, let's

16:00

be honest, right, almost all of

16:02

it? Who deserves anything?

16:05

That's the breakthrough too, that

16:07

Jesus was the the willing

16:10

victim, even though he was not the

16:13

unworthy person. That

16:16

takes such a high level of transformation

16:19

to accept that when we're

16:21

in it, When we're in that position, everything

16:24

in us wants to say. You know, I was jail

16:26

chaplaineer for fourteen years in

16:28

Albuquerque, and I would say,

16:30

I never knew whether it was true, but my

16:33

suspicion was half of the people

16:36

I worked with should not have been in jail,

16:38

maybe more than half for all kinds

16:40

of reasons, but a lot of were.

16:43

They didn't do it, you understand, And

16:46

I just would have to work

16:49

through that with them sitting there every

16:51

day knowing you didn't do it.

16:53

Yeah, I can't imagine. Can

16:56

you what it must take to not

16:58

be better and people?

17:00

Man? Yeah?

17:03

Or when a friend lied about you, bore

17:05

false witness against you, can

17:08

you imagine the kind

17:11

of holiness? I don't know what other word to use.

17:14

Wholeness and holiness are the same word

17:16

that it takes too to

17:19

wake up each day and be happy. I was just on

17:21

the phone with a prisoner yesterday, and young

17:24

man who was I'm quite sure falsely

17:26

imprisoned. You know, he thinks

17:29

he might be there the rest of his life.

17:32

He's just in his early twenties. Just

17:35

ah, So I'm not really answering your question,

17:37

I'm talking around it. But but if

17:40

we can't deal with necessary suffering

17:42

the cost of being a human being,

17:45

which is I don't always get my own

17:47

way, I get old, my body doesn't work

17:49

like it used to when I was your age, and

17:52

all of that is so hard to accept that and

17:54

I can't change it, you know it, It is

17:56

that way. But if I can't surrender

17:59

those things, imagine if

18:01

if I'm falsely accused tomorrow and oh

18:05

so, you've got to use every chance

18:08

of not getting your own way, not being in control.

18:11

You've got to use it as a practice,

18:14

as a practicing, uh

18:17

so that you don't turn bitter, and you can help

18:19

other people not turn bitter. Because

18:21

the natural movement of the human journey

18:24

is it devolves, you

18:26

know, the the rejections, betrayals,

18:29

abandonments of life, the

18:32

people who've lied about you, walked away

18:34

from you, starting in your childhood.

18:36

They pile up. And

18:39

I'm about to turn seventy four in a few weeks,

18:41

and there's a

18:44

lot of pile up there now. By the

18:46

grace of God, I don't think

18:48

I'm better. I don't think I'm cynical,

18:50

but I have to fight it every day,

18:53

every day, not

18:55

always consciously. But you

18:57

know, like I said, I wake up yes

19:00

today feeling just I

19:02

think that's some of that left over hurt.

19:05

When I gave the male initiation rights,

19:08

I we had a whole day devoted to grief

19:10

work. And I defined

19:13

grief as I talked to those men as

19:15

unfinished hurt. And

19:18

I would just talk to them for a while to

19:20

find how much unfinished

19:23

hurt they had in their life.

19:26

You would not believe men

19:28

who were completely healthy,

19:30

normal, happy, successful, smiling

19:33

once they were given space, once

19:35

they were given permission to

19:38

go there. I mean, I

19:40

saw a lot of men sobbing, unfinished

19:44

hurt, and I think we all have

19:46

to compartmentalize it because we've got

19:48

to get through another day. I don't have time

19:50

to feel this. And we men are

19:53

especially good at that, as you probably know, compartmentalizing

19:56

it, putting it to his side, and

20:00

so wanting somewhere to be a little boy

20:02

again and just cry it through.

20:05

But that's what a lot of my men's work

20:07

was helping men do that. But

20:11

nothing in this American system

20:13

gives them that freedom, space or

20:16

permission. So they're

20:18

by the time their age, they're highly

20:21

stuffed men. No

20:23

wonder they become addicts. I

20:26

drink vodka every night too, or

20:29

something if allowed,

20:31

that is just eating away at you. Sure whoa

21:10

slow down, easy on that trigger finger

21:12

on the fast forward button on your podcast

21:14

player, because I've got

21:16

more good news. Was very Casey case

21:19

Some of you it was pretty

21:21

good. I used I love my boy. That was

21:24

it. I

21:26

do love Casey Caseum, and I can't

21:28

form a complete sentence when you bring him up where

21:30

he could. He was very good at forming very

21:33

good. I'm sorry.

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The winner of the first week

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So go to at one

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23:01

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dot net slash support to enter the contest.

23:08

And now back to the wonderful

23:10

show with Richard Roar. Some

23:12

people call him Papa Bear, so I'm not quite sure

23:15

why, but just leave it alone.

23:17

Chris hop a bear. Actually

23:19

this is the rest of the show with Papa Bear,

23:22

Part two, because last week

23:24

was Papa Bear Part one. A lot

23:26

of us turned to spirituality

23:29

with the hope of never hurting

23:31

again, and I think that's why a lot of people.

23:33

It feels to me like on a

23:35

spiritual bunny hop one thing to the

23:37

next to the next, because I'm waiting for it

23:40

to take all the pain away. And as

23:42

I've gotten older, I think I've recognized it's

23:44

going to take unnecessary pain away,

23:47

but it's not going to take the pain. And my mother died

23:49

away, right, That's gonna happen. It's just the way

23:51

life is. And the comfort I think comes from

23:54

knowing that's part of being human and

23:56

not taking that stuff personally. And I think

23:58

that's what, like, you know, your work does. I

24:00

think for people also, it's like, this is going to happen

24:03

and it's not personal. You

24:05

know, I take what's rather common American

24:07

occurrence, but I've just known so

24:09

many people just in the last year, the dumb

24:12

thing of a car wreck. Uh,

24:15

why did that have to happen to me? And

24:17

why now I was on the way to this It was a

24:19

normal day, and my entire

24:22

not just day, but the next few months are

24:24

thrown into complete disarray because if

24:26

that stupid guy ran a red

24:28

light. Oh you want to

24:30

talk about unnecessary suffering, but of

24:32

a mundane nature. You know you

24:35

aren't even hurt. Maybe, but it's

24:37

a lot of pain insurance

24:40

and sucks. But

24:43

but we do have a we do have a

24:45

very strong tendency to make it worse. I'd

24:48

be the same way. I'd be pissing

24:50

and moaning if I got hit by a car. I've

24:52

never been in a serious accident because

24:55

we like to go on the course we're on, don't

24:57

we, And we don't want anything to be

24:59

in a re doing it. Yep. And

25:01

I guess that is human nature. That

25:03

can be the power of suffering

25:06

is that it interrupts your course. You have to you

25:08

don't have to think as as you know, I preached

25:11

in much of the world for many years, and without

25:14

any doubt, people

25:16

in the poor countries and poor villages

25:19

are much more practiced and

25:21

not getting their own way. They just

25:23

don't show that immediate pushback

25:26

and resent what that we do. It said,

25:28

Oh, yeah, well this is what every day is. I don't

25:30

get my own way. Yeah. I was watching The Sopranos

25:33

and in the show there's this fascinating

25:35

part where there's a Russian woman who's talking to

25:37

Tony Soprano and she says, the problem

25:39

is you Americans expect that

25:41

nothing bad is going to happen, and

25:44

the rest of the world we expect that mostly

25:46

bad is going to happen, and

25:49

it ends up sometimes being

25:51

a grace. Now. I know it can be fatalism.

25:54

I know it can be a negative

25:56

worldview, but very often they

25:59

can maintain peace easier than weekend.

26:01

And I think if you tying it back to this

26:04

middle way thinking is to to recognize

26:06

it's not all suffering and it's not

26:08

all wonderful, it's very good, very

26:11

good. I want to talk about clear

26:13

seeing, about seeing things clearly as

26:15

another phrase. I think that comes through your

26:18

work a lot. And you say that postmodern people,

26:20

the universe is not inherently enchanted

26:22

as it was for the ancients. We have to do

26:24

all the enchanting ourselves. This leaves us alone,

26:27

confused and doubtful. You know Allen

26:29

Barfield, who was the spiritual teacher

26:31

of J. R. R. Tolkin, C. S. Lewis

26:34

and T. S. Elliott. He spoke

26:36

of original participation and

26:39

he says there's strong evidence that

26:41

the ancient people's

26:43

who naturally felt

26:45

that they belonged to the

26:47

forest, to the family,

26:50

to the universe, to the sky.

26:53

It was an enchanted universe for

26:55

them and they were a part of the enchanted

26:58

salvation came to use that Christian

27:01

word overused word, Uh,

27:04

it came much more naturally we grow

27:07

up and you use the word postmodern too.

27:09

We grew up in a world that is

27:11

disenchanted where we're

27:13

in. The philosophers call

27:15

it the state of alienation. You

27:18

know that we don't feel we belong

27:21

to the universe, to

27:23

the forest, to the animals, to

27:26

to even our families. I mean,

27:28

most people are alienated. I'm

27:30

told most people have

27:33

strong alienation from their own family,

27:35

you know, just because we don't have the skills

27:37

of human relationship even at

27:39

that level. So that creates a very

27:42

incoherent universe where

27:46

you're grasping for belonging,

27:49

meaning, goal, purpose,

27:52

identity. It's no surprise

27:54

to me we have such a high amount

27:57

of mental and emotional illness. I'm

27:59

sure any of us can name ten

28:02

people we know who, frank you, we're

28:04

not trying to put them down, but they're not real, stable

28:06

or not real. One of them might be behind

28:08

a microphone or I

28:11

don't think so. But it breaks

28:14

are my heart the amount of unhappy,

28:17

unstable people our culture is producing.

28:20

And I find, as someone who has

28:23

worked in the healing ministry trying to pray

28:25

for people's healing and counsel them

28:28

toward healing, that it's very

28:30

hard to heal an individual when

28:32

the whole culture is so unhealthy.

28:35

You send them back after a wonderful weekend

28:38

retreat, and

28:40

they're right back into the cynicism, the negativity,

28:43

the consumerism is going to make me happy,

28:45

which will never work, but

28:48

everybody thinks it will, so they buy it

28:50

again. You know, it works temporarily,

28:53

just for a few minutes. It didn't

28:55

work at all. That's

28:58

a good way to foot it if it did. But it works.

29:00

The teams attle bit enough, just

29:03

yeah, placebo. What is

29:05

clear seeing? What is? Oh?

29:08

Yeah, that was your question. See,

29:10

you're being so kind to me, you're letting me off. A look.

29:13

Clear seeing would be

29:15

that sounds obvious. It

29:18

would be to see the whole picture

29:21

without my filters of rejection,

29:24

denial, resembment,

29:27

blocking, filtering out.

29:30

It is what it is, what it is, what it is

29:33

now. We all have created our filters.

29:35

You have to to survive. But

29:37

when your filters so dominate

29:41

that all it gets in is what you already agree

29:43

with, what does not threaten your

29:45

ego, And we'll give you immediate

29:47

comfort. You're seeing

29:50

is so narrow, so limited,

29:53

You're you're going to be stupid. I have to say

29:55

it all right, You're not gonna see reality

29:57

or yourself or other people very

29:59

well. So much

30:02

of the work of teaching contemplation

30:05

is helping people recognize those blockages,

30:08

those resistances, those

30:11

filters, and quietly

30:13

let go of them. So what

30:15

can get in is both the good

30:17

and the bad, which

30:19

everything holds. I don't

30:21

have to just let in the good now. Once

30:23

you can learn that, frankly, you're

30:26

capable of love. So I don't think you can

30:28

love just perfect things. Love

30:30

applies to imperfect, ordinary,

30:33

broken human things.

30:36

And I don't know why someone didn't tell us that early.

30:39

If you're not a non dual thinker, you can't love

30:41

anything. You'll wait around

30:44

for I don't know, Mr Perfect,

30:46

or you know, a princess or

30:48

something, and then you'll find out she hasn't

30:50

a princess anyway. It's

30:52

just we were done such a number

30:56

by being given this expectation

30:58

of finding odd jecks that

31:00

would be worthy of our immense

31:03

and perfect love. And in

31:05

fact, what God gives us things which

31:08

makes us learn how to love because

31:10

they're imperfect, and that grows us

31:12

both up hopefully, So

31:15

that's clear seeing to see, you

31:17

know, when Jesus has some of his banquet stories,

31:20

he tells the disciples to go out

31:22

the highways and the byeways and invite

31:25

everybody to the banquet, good and bad

31:27

alike. In Matthew's Gospel,

31:29

it says good and bad alike. I

31:31

think to have your your table fully

31:34

set, as it were, the table of

31:36

your mind and heart, you have

31:38

to invite everybody to the table, both

31:40

good and bad. The parts of yourself

31:43

you like, and there's there's

31:45

qualities of my temperament and personality

31:49

that I started

31:51

disliking when I was nineteen, and

31:54

like my one energy on the angiogram,

31:57

I wish I weren't that way, that I'm so idealistic,

32:00

perfectionistic, pushy, judgmental,

32:03

demanding mostly of myself.

32:05

Now I admit at this age it's become

32:08

my greatest gift too, but I

32:10

still suffer that it's my

32:12

greatest fault. That's

32:14

I don't know. You can untie those two, that's

32:17

my point. You got it. You cannot

32:19

untie those two. I have to carry the

32:21

big black bag of what I don't

32:23

like about myself. Some of the medieval

32:26

Catholic mystics, in their writings,

32:29

spoke of carrying the burden

32:31

of self. It was a common

32:33

phrase, the burden of self.

32:37

Now. You and I were raised on a psychological

32:39

age where we thought we could heal

32:42

the self, and you can to believe

32:45

me, I've had wonderful therapists

32:47

in my life, wonderful spiritual directions,

32:50

wonderful healing programs. But

32:53

I still have to carry the burden of Richard, you

32:56

know, and I think we all do.

32:59

And I when when when we say Jesus

33:01

was fully human and fully divine, I

33:04

think the divinity of Jesus had

33:06

to carry the burden of the humanity

33:09

of Jesus, and he loved it. He

33:11

accepted it, He forgave it. All

33:13

the evidences, but most

33:15

of us had little training. We thought

33:17

it was to eliminate the human

33:20

part, which largely amounts the sexual

33:22

part, the emotional part, the physical

33:25

part, the eliminated. No

33:28

spirituality of of elimination

33:32

and exclusion is over. We

33:34

tried it for too many centuries and

33:36

all it created was an exclusionary

33:39

religion which was always looking

33:41

for you know, who are the sinners

33:44

or heretics or black

33:46

people, are gay people that we can exclude?

33:48

Now, there was always a group that we could

33:50

exclude. The world doesn't have time

33:52

for that anymore. You

34:37

use the word sin there, and I've

34:39

heard you at different points refer

34:41

to it in a variety of different ways. That's

34:44

a place that is really easy to get

34:46

hung up on, is you know,

34:49

if you're a sinner, it means you're this bad, worthless

34:51

person, right, And you put you

34:53

put it in terms to me that seemed

34:55

like a useful like I look at that,

34:57

and I go, yeah, I don't. I don't want to be like

35:00

that. That's good. Yeah, you know, so what you

35:02

want to hit me with a couple of your few little

35:04

things? Okay. First of all, the

35:06

word that's used in the Bible hamartia

35:09

in Greek literally means

35:12

when you're shooting an arrow and

35:14

you miss the bull's eye. All right,

35:17

that's very helpful, And that doesn't

35:19

mean a culpable

35:22

thing that makes God not

35:24

like you. And now that's the way if

35:26

any of us were raised Christian, that's

35:29

the way. In my early understanding of sin,

35:31

there's certain actions somewhat arbitrary.

35:34

I might add that this whimsical

35:36

God has decided upset him.

35:40

I don't know, if you've read my recent book on the Trinity

35:43

Divine Dance, you know and that's the reason

35:45

we use him, because we don't have a

35:47

trinitarian notion of God. You make God masculine

35:50

almost all the time. So

35:53

I was mainly concerned about upsetting

35:55

God as if I could. You

35:57

know, it was giving myself an awful

35:59

lot of power that I could upset

36:02

God culpability.

36:04

So it built on parental practices

36:08

of parenting, which if I were

36:10

a parent, I probably do the same thing. But most

36:12

parenting until the very

36:14

recent West, and I mean very

36:17

recent West, and I don't mean all of

36:19

the West, even more of the sophisticated

36:22

West, and even there,

36:25

most parenting was punitive and

36:28

shaming. That's the way you controlled

36:30

children. I probably would have done the same

36:32

thing if I'd been a young parent, because

36:35

in the short run it works. So

36:37

all of that got projected onto

36:39

God, the father, you know, especially

36:42

if you had a shaming father too. You

36:44

were just programmed to believe that.

36:47

That's why I make so much

36:49

of prayer, because unless you go

36:51

on an inner, interior, mutual

36:55

give and take journey of prayer with

36:57

God, most people will settle with

37:00

the shaming, judging, guilt

37:02

based notion of God. It's such

37:04

a waste of time. It really is. Takes

37:06

much of your life to get beyond it. But

37:09

once you see that clergy

37:12

and here I'm going to be very critical of

37:14

my own group. I don't

37:16

think we were that motivated

37:18

to move people beyond that. And

37:20

you probably know what I'm gonna say.

37:23

It kept the laity

37:25

code dependent. To use

37:27

that very good word, which

37:29

only emerged thirty years ago. By the way,

37:32

this understanding of how you create

37:35

relationships based on guilt and shame

37:37

and you owe me, it's not love.

37:39

It passes for love, but it isn't. And

37:43

I mean, I've been a priest forty seven years

37:46

and I've worked with every

37:49

group. Much of

37:51

religion, Catholic and Protestant, is

37:53

massive code dependency of

37:56

the laity upon the clergy. And we

37:58

perpetuate that. I'm

38:00

not trying to be cynical or unkind, I'm really

38:03

not, but we perpetuate that

38:06

without realizing it, and

38:08

largely in the name of job security.

38:11

If we want to keep him coming back every

38:13

Sunday, the best way to keep

38:15

the tether, to keep him tied

38:17

to us is shame and guilt and

38:19

fear of God, fear of going to Hell.

38:22

The lowest level of motivation

38:25

and so what when you appeal to

38:27

the lowest level of motivation. I'm

38:30

sorry to say this, but you get a

38:32

lot of people in the Christian world who

38:34

are very lowly motivated

38:37

people. You follow the logic of any

38:39

world, any Yeah, any world,

38:41

any world. I don't think we

38:44

can get by And if there is a future

38:46

to Christianity with motivating

38:48

people by fear of God, because

38:51

the God they end up with is not God. So

38:55

the whole thing falls apart. The

38:57

real people who pray, the mystics

38:59

all know that God is infinite

39:02

love infinite remember

39:04

that's one of the five We can't form

39:07

concepts of infinity, so

39:09

we don't know. We don't know how to imagine infinite

39:12

love. So we pulled God down into

39:14

a quid pro quote tipfort's out.

39:17

Okay, if I obey the ten commandments,

39:19

then he'll love me. Who of us wasn't

39:22

trained to think that way. But

39:24

it has nothing to do with the Gospel. It's

39:28

not the Gospel at all. It's

39:30

cleaning up, but it's not growing

39:32

up. It's not waking up, and

39:34

it's not showing up. Yeah, you talk about

39:37

you say the shape of evil is

39:39

much more superficiality and blindness

39:42

than the usually listed hot sins.

39:45

You know, I've even we find that a little

39:47

bit in recent maybe it's what we've been

39:49

through the last eighteen months, but I

39:52

find the evil is

39:55

almost always absolutely

39:57

sure of itself. Evil suffers

39:59

no so of doubt. Yeah, I think that's

40:01

a Virtrand Russell quote. Right, I'm

40:04

gonna miss it. The problem with the world is that the cockture

40:08

so uh full of certainty,

40:11

and the the other are so full of doubt. It's

40:15

the same point, I mean, yeah, And and

40:17

see faith as

40:20

I understand, the biblical concept of faith

40:23

is to balance knowing with not knowing. Now,

40:26

when I say Protestantism didn't teach

40:28

the not knowing very well at all, that's

40:31

what we're up against in fundamentalist

40:33

Christianity. This insistence

40:35

on knowing and being absolutely

40:38

certain. That's the character of evil. What

40:41

you and I, if we're gonna be people of faith

40:43

but we have to endure, is faith.

40:46

And the word faith implies not knowing,

40:48

you understand and being able to live

40:51

with not knowing because quite

40:53

frankly, God knows, and

40:55

I can trust God's goodness enough. If

40:58

God knows, then

41:00

I can live with it. Unders and

41:02

I don't need to know. So it's

41:04

not only not knowing, but not even needing

41:07

to know that you grow in. That's

41:09

the journey you see in Mother Treece at the end

41:11

of her life. You see it, Thomas Murder,

41:14

You've see it all the great mystics that

41:16

I would respect. They

41:18

can live without being certain,

41:21

but people who do evil suffer

41:24

no uncertainty. Yeah,

41:27

and that this has invaded so

41:30

much of fundamentalist Christianity is

41:33

what scares me. That they

41:35

call themselves believers, not

41:39

in the classic sense. They're

41:42

believing in a system that

41:44

aggrandizes them, but

41:46

believing in a loving God despite

41:50

all the contrary evidence. I

41:53

don't see much of that because

41:55

anything that's outside their comfort zone.

41:58

People have never another as people

42:01

on the other side of the border, people

42:03

who are handicapped, they don't seem

42:05

to have much love for them. You know, that's

42:07

the giveaway that we're not dealing with faith anymore.

42:10

One of your phrases, we moved from wondering

42:13

to answering, which has not served as well

42:15

at all. The other definition of

42:17

sin that you've used was um

42:20

refusing to go into depth

42:23

on particularly hold of things. You

42:25

know, I've said that for many years that I

42:28

think the great sin of America's superficiality.

42:32

We're we're not malicious people, were really

42:34

not and we're really very

42:36

kind. In terms of generalized

42:38

charity and phil philanthropy.

42:42

We surpassed most countries. We really are.

42:44

There's so much good about America.

42:48

But I would still say that the stereotype

42:52

that most people have of Americans is we're

42:54

nice people, but very superficial. And

42:58

I think that's true. And that's what happens

43:00

when you cannot embrace the dark side

43:02

of things. You're you have to me in on

43:04

the likable superficial level.

43:07

To go to the depth of anything is

43:10

to see its dark side. And I don't mean that means

43:12

you have to hate it. I just means you

43:15

see it's not perfect. Now,

43:17

I could also say the contrary, to go to

43:19

the depths of anything is to see it's good side.

43:23

Uh so maybe they're both paradise

43:26

equally true, equally true. Yeah,

43:29

you know what do they say? That? Are most of

43:31

our television, the commercials and

43:35

the vocabulary of even of the evening

43:37

news and all the sitcoms

43:39

are aimed for fourteen year olds, fourteen

43:42

year old minds. What can we expect.

43:45

But what we're getting now when

43:47

the constant pandering is to dumb down

43:50

the population, and

43:54

that you know, even Thomas

43:56

Jefferson said, this whole thing of democracy

43:58

would only work if we had an educated

44:01

populace, some degree

44:03

of awareness. Let me just use the

44:05

word awareness, so it doesn't sound like

44:08

I'm talking about you got to go to Harvard. I'm

44:10

not saying Harvard, but to

44:13

have the beginnings of critical thinking,

44:16

the beginnings of seeing things at

44:19

a level of truth and not just

44:21

a level of how do they advantage

44:23

me? So a

44:26

lot of this, We've talked about contemplation,

44:28

We've talked about prayer, We've talked about non

44:31

dual thinking. What are some of the practices

44:34

in these things. So people who listen to the show

44:36

have been exposed to plenty

44:39

of Buddhist meditation teachers, so

44:41

I think that that part has been colored. I'm

44:43

interested in the things from the Christian tradition

44:46

that that that are under this umbrella. Let

44:48

me tell you the big difference. Even though I

44:51

have learned so much from my Buddhist friends

44:53

and Eastern religions about shedding

44:56

of thoughts and letting go of of

44:59

my filters and all you

45:02

know if the Spanish word for emptiness

45:06

or nothingness is not a the

45:08

Spanish word for somethingness or

45:11

things is cosa. And

45:13

we Franciscan's in particular said

45:16

ours isn't the way of nothingness, it's

45:18

a way of finding God in things.

45:21

That's the incarnation why God

45:24

came ever Christians belief

45:27

as a person, a thing,

45:29

a human. He wasn't

45:32

wanting to take us away from the world, but

45:34

trying to help us find God in the

45:37

things of this world. So

45:40

I would still learn much from the practice

45:43

of Eastern meditation to get Richard

45:46

out of the way so he can see

45:48

with the clarity you talked

45:50

about. But I still want to see

45:54

things, and I don't need to call

45:56

those trees secular

45:59

or merely natural. For

46:02

me, there's nothing merely natural. There's

46:04

only the supernatural. You

46:07

know. The early Eastern fathers in Christianity,

46:10

they didn't limit the incarnation to the body

46:12

of Jesus. They say the

46:15

body of Jesus was the symbol of

46:17

what God was doing everywhere all the time.

46:20

God took on flesh, as

46:23

John one fourteen says, God took

46:25

on materiality. God took

46:27

on physicality, that matter

46:29

and spirit are two sides

46:31

of the same mystery that the hiding

46:34

place for spirit is matter, and

46:37

they've never been separate since the

46:39

Big Bank. This is gonna be my next book.

46:41

So if you hear me getting excited in my

46:43

talking, because this is filling me

46:46

right now. I've already talked about

46:48

it, but now I've got to make it complete. So

46:51

Christian meditation is

46:54

the freeing of yourself

46:57

from yourself so that you

46:59

can see God and everything, even

47:01

your enemy, even failure,

47:04

even the dark side, that's

47:07

good seeing. And it freezes

47:10

from this the centuries of Christianity

47:13

where we've tried to get out of

47:15

this world for heaven, I think

47:18

that's heresy. You look at the life

47:20

of Jesus, Jesus healing people

47:22

in this world for today.

47:25

There's hardly any passages

47:28

where he's talking about an evacuation

47:30

plan for another world. You know, you

47:33

want to talk about destroying the Gospel we

47:35

did it with that. A lot of Christians

47:38

grew up without understanding it was

47:40

all about an evacuation plan for

47:42

the next world. Once we recognize

47:45

it's how to live with freedom and joy and

47:48

love today in this

47:50

world. Now you've got

47:53

a really a real agent

47:55

of transformation. For the world,

47:57

people who love this world, who love the earth,

48:00

and then don't think of that as being secular.

48:04

You know, I meet people research,

48:07

scientists and lawyers honestly

48:09

who don't go to church on Sunday and

48:12

who are more passionate about

48:15

their neighbor and the future of the planet

48:17

than people who go to church every day and Sunday

48:20

and don't care about anybody except

48:23

their own salvation. I don't

48:25

have time for that Christianity anymore, because

48:28

I don't think it's Christianity. I don't think they

48:30

learn either. The good meditation

48:33

would have freed them from themselves, and

48:36

so they interpreted the whole Gospel

48:39

in a very limited, self

48:41

serving way, which allowed

48:44

them, you know, to barely love

48:46

themselves because they couldn't love their

48:48

own dark side, but

48:50

only to be able to find God in other

48:52

people who are just like them, which

48:55

usually meant white, middle class,

48:57

successful, heterosexual

49:01

and what else not

49:03

disabled. You know, that

49:06

means God loves very little of God's

49:09

own world, very little. It's not a very

49:11

big number. No, it's not very hopeful.

49:13

And that we've produced so many Christians

49:16

who live at that level, God

49:19

must just cry. That's all I can

49:21

say. That we could have missed the message

49:24

that much. But

49:26

I all I can do is work to do

49:30

it better myself. I can't point

49:32

the finger to other people because I know I've

49:34

wasted days there. I've

49:37

wasted more than days, weeks and months.

49:40

Tell me about the true self briefly. Oh

49:42

yeah, I jumped over that. You alluded

49:45

to it before. The true self is

49:47

your objective

49:49

self. You're ontological self.

49:51

I know that's a big word. Your metaphysical

49:54

self, your eternal self. You're

49:56

yourself which doesn't rise and fall.

49:59

It's who you are to use religious

50:01

names, it's who you are in the eyes of God,

50:04

from all eternity. You

50:06

can't do anything to adjust that. You

50:09

can't push it higher, you can't push it lower.

50:11

It's defined eternally with

50:14

the It's divine d n A as

50:16

a creature of God. It's

50:19

the anchored self, it's the absolute self.

50:21

I'm just grabbing for different metaphors,

50:24

different than your true self. Yes,

50:27

we've got to maintain uniqueness, but the

50:30

true self is also utterly united,

50:34

and it took till the seventh century for

50:36

the Church to put that in the creed.

50:38

I believe in the Communion of Saints that's

50:41

what they were saying, that once you get to

50:43

the true self, we're all one. So

50:46

I'm glad you put it that way, and

50:49

yet I have to protect uniqueness.

50:53

I'm still rich and you're still Eric, and that's

50:55

okay. That's why the title

50:57

of my next book is just this, Just

51:00

this. Now. You

51:02

can only fully understand

51:05

it in contradistinction to the false

51:07

self. So the false self,

51:10

first of all, let me say it is not the bad self.

51:12

It is not the self to be rejected. I

51:15

know the faults might imply that, but

51:17

it's just the raw material that God

51:20

uses to break you through to your

51:22

true self. But it's contingent,

51:25

it's temporary, it's transitional.

51:27

It's relative, it's psychological,

51:30

it's passing, it's cultural, it's

51:33

learned. It's your Myers

51:35

Briggs typology or angiogram

51:38

number, your gender, your

51:40

gender too, And that's what a lot of people can accept.

51:43

Your gender is not your true self. We

51:46

could have dealt with gender issues much better

51:48

if we'd known that. But we

51:51

define gender even in a binary

51:53

way, you know, eliminating a whole

51:55

bunch of people who must have had very

51:57

hard lies in all of his

52:00

Until we started talking about it in the last

52:02

century, just started talking about it. That's

52:05

how attached we are to our binary understanding

52:08

of reality. So many things that

52:10

we define as the essential self,

52:13

role, title, bodily

52:16

shape, appearance, skin color,

52:19

those are all the things that are gonna die

52:21

when you die. They're not absolute truth. And

52:23

we go through this world advertising

52:26

our skin color and our good looks and

52:28

our hair, lack of air, all

52:30

of that you're you're

52:33

gonna lose. You're gonna lose if

52:35

you stay there, because all of

52:37

it is passing away, and

52:39

if you don't fall into the true self,

52:42

the substantial self, the

52:44

god self, the boodh of self. I don't care

52:46

what word you use. You're like a movable

52:49

famine. You're just constantly grabbing

52:52

for identity, grabbing for

52:54

who am I? Now? Who am I? Now? Can

52:57

you hear me? Now? Am I significant?

52:59

Now? I do

53:01

think the Boomer generation

53:03

that immediately followed me, I

53:06

think the next ten years, I

53:09

can only predict suicide

53:11

increasing in this country, an addiction

53:14

increasing, because they really,

53:16

well every generation does, but certainly

53:18

the Boomer generation put all their

53:21

eggs in the false self basket. You

53:23

know, success, power, money,

53:26

control, health, good

53:28

looks. That's all

53:30

the false self again. Let me repeat,

53:32

I'm not saying it's a bad self, but

53:35

you don't pitch your tent there.

53:38

You transition through it and

53:41

you don't take it too seriously or

53:43

it ends up making you settle for very

53:45

little. Yeah. I love the word the

53:47

small self. You

53:50

know, it's like the little it's there, it's

53:52

real, it's important, and it's not even bad,

53:55

but it's so limited. Small self,

53:57

big self is very good, which is why you

53:59

uncop aalized the oneself

54:02

and for

54:04

the other self. Well,

54:07

thank you so much for spending this much

54:09

time for us, having us out to your

54:11

lovely place. Yeah, glad you could

54:14

come to the land of enchantment. It's been

54:16

We are proud of our state. There's something spiritual

54:19

about New Mexico. Everybody who comes

54:21

here, not everybody, but awful lot of

54:23

people say that. So

54:25

thank you, Thank you your joy to

54:27

me. God bless you. Thank you too.

54:47

If what you just heard was helpful to you, please

54:49

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