#300: Jack Kornfield - Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy in the Present

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Check it out. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and gents, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job, every episode, to deconstruct world class performers, people who are excellent, if not the best, at what they do in many, many, many different fields, and that scratchiness is Tim Ferris coming off of antibiotics.

Because I had Some little gremlins inside me that I brought back from the Amazon. That's a separate story. In any case, my job, da da da da deconstruct, many fields. And This particular episode we have a wonderful guest.

Jack Cornfield. Alice Walker calls Jack, quote, one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time, end quote. Jack trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, shortly thereafter becoming one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. He has taught meditation internationally since 1974. That's before I was even a glimmer in my papa's eye. So it's been teaching for a very, very long time. And

He has had a profound and direct impact. directly on my life. So I'm thrilled to finally have him on the podcast to share our shared history His incredible stories and the

Practical tactics. And very detailed techniques. that you can use. And we dig into all of that. You can also say hi to him on the internet. At Jack Cornfield. On Twitter.

Check it out. Jack's history just a little bit, won't spend too much time on it. Jack co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Bar, Massachusetts, with fellow meditation teachers Sharon Salzberg, who's also been on this podcast, and Joseph Goldstein. Rock Center in Woodacre, California, which is where I did my first silent retreat and we talk about that.

He holds a PhD in clinical psychology, which is important to me. and comes into this conversation because he has a very, very diverse toolkit. for dealing with many different types of personal challenges, issues, questions, and so on. And is a father, husband, and activist. His books have been translated into twenty languages and sold more than a million copies. He is prolific His books include and I polled some of you for your favorites A wise heart?

That's number one. A lamp in the darkness. A path with heart. after the ecstasy the laundry, one of my favorite book titles of all time, and his most recent book, No Time Like the Present subtitle Finding Freedom, Love and Joy Right Where You Are. He is Quite possibly. The most

purely compassionate human being I've ever interacted with. And compassion isn't a word that I use very much. But Jack is unique and I'm thrilled to give you a window into his story and his teachings. Without further ado, please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Jack. Cornfield.

Yeah. Jack, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you, Tim. Pleasure to reconnect. I have wanted to have you on the show for some time now and uh you've had certainly a a Tremendous.

impact on my life, uh both through your writing and through uh first hand in person interaction, which I think we'll touch upon But first I wanted to from that, which is something that our mutual friend Adam Gazali suggested I ask you about. And Adam, for people who don't know him, is an incredible PhD MD

neuroscientist based at UCSF. And He suggested Then I ask you about hang gliding. And I have no idea why he suggested that.

But I'm gonna start there and if it d doesn't go anywhere we can we can change direction. But I figured we would just start with that and then we're gonna rewind the clock. Why did he suggest I ask you about hang gliding? Well, it started um Many years ago when I cross country with a

Friend who had a hand glider. And we would stop. periodically and go off different hills. Um and it was fantastic. And then I wanted to do paragliding and started to learn it now. Because everything is developed in paragliding slot.

No. You know. is a lot more official. You need a license which I don't have. But one of my favorite things is to

Tandem paraglide and go off the top of places like Grindelwald in uh um in Switzerland where you can take the ski lift up to nine thousand feet. And then jump off and float.

Silently like you're a bird. Among the clouds, the birds actually do come by sometimes and like check out what's this big bird flying up here. You can catch thermals And go way up above the glaciers. And um it's one of the most thrilling and delicious experiences that I know.

That's incredible. So you've you first experienced that at what age? And probably in my tw You know, late twenties. Um and did some and then sort of put it aside. Uh and then I was traveling and teaching in Europe.

um and I saw a sign for um paragliding and I said, Oh gosh, I really want to do it. Um And started and now each time I go where there's high mountains and paragliding. That's one of my Things that I love doing.

Uh. I I've had most people have these dreams once in a while, if you're lucky, a dream of flying. Or maybe in your meditation you have this sense of not being limited to your body. Um and and this is the closest thing that I know'cause it's absolutely silent. And you're floating there. It's quite fantastic. And this is something you still do.

Mm-hmm. And hope to do it and hope to do it next summer when I'm back in the Alps. And how how old are you now? Seventy two. Seventy two. Good man. Well we're gonna Then

go back a bit in chronology. And Ask about childhood. I would love to hear you describe Your childhood. What were you like as a child? What was your upbringing like?

Well, first thing to say is I remember when I got to Dartmouth College in nineteen sixty three. Um and I called my mom from the payphone in the dorm. Sometime in that fall. Didn't call very often, but you know how it is. And I said, Mom I said, Guess what?

There are a lot of other really fucked up families beside ours. So that's kind of where we s where we where we start. So uh They're uh

Yeah. I had three three brothers. Um and my father was uh a mixture of a um Tyrant and an a really abusive person and a brilliant guy. Um

I was born on and on a marine base in uh toward the end of World War Two. And they didn't send him overseas to do they put him in the medical part of the Marines. Because

He tested so high on their tests that they you know, okay, we're gonna use him for something. Um So he was brilliant in certain ways. He was a biophysicist who Uh. designed some of the first artificial hearts and lungs, worked on the space program, but also did Other kinds of

Weird stuff like work for the Army um biological weapons people not making biological weapons, but trying to design things.

that were kind of computer um biological interfaces, all kinds of creative stuff. But he was uh He was all he had mental problems. And so we didn't know when the car pulled in whether we were gonna get Doctor Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. He would come in and

You know, either He could shout, be abusive, throw my mother down the stairs, rant, ch chase after us, try to hit us, whatever, or we'd get this interesting creative person, but we hardly ever had people come over. when he was around during the daytime is the way we would

Um because you never knew what you would get. And so um Our family life. in my family life in some way was also There were

great parts of it'cause I had my brothers and we were like our own gang. We moved all the time. But we had each other. Um and because he was s uh wacky as well as smart. My father either quit or got fired every year or two. And then we would go from

one place to another I went to I don't know. eight schools by the time I finished high school. Um So my childhood Uh partly it was there were the the happy things of rough housing and being a boy w with with three other boys.

Um Yeah. And adventures. Um and then in the basement my father had all kinds of scientific equipment. He had all this stuff from World War Two, this huge radio from

a battleship that you could tune into a thousand different, you know, shortwave stations around the world. Um and projects he was trying to design stuff and so we learn from him you could pretty much take or design or do anything.

the in the physical world. Um And at the same time uh I felt like My whole childhood

was also uh Mm-hmm. Sho how to say it. Um Colored with the fear.

of his Um violence. And his uh unpredictability. Um so and I became kind of a peacemaker in the family. We all sort of had our roles and now I do it as a profession, right? Um

trying to kind of make it a little smoother between my parents so that they kill each other. Um And my each of my brothers had their own strategy. My twin brother, who was a lot bigger Um And much more outgoing.

um played football, which I certainly didn't. I was skinnier and you know I was in the orchestra and he was the football player. But anyway. I remember when he first got in a Hello. Fist fight with my dad.

'Cause my father was abusing Um our mom. And um the m my twin brother had been, as young men sometimes do It's probably thirteen, fourteen, anything.

grew pretty big and he was looking in the mirror, you know, making muscles in the mirror to see how strong he'd become. Anyway, he just You know. Um Got into a fist fight with my father. Um and I was both

Thrilled. And terrified. Um And uh but it worked in some way because the abuse uh settled down quite a lot after that. So that was his his strategy was just to get angry.

And then later kind of to Go his own way somewhat more, although we're all o all have been very close as brothers. Um So there was that

А та сам там за лав інтерес. intellectual interest. So we read and learned about all kinds of things. Both my parents were um really interested in the world around us and um Uh so it was sort of this mixed uh thing of the

You know. the gift of being together with my brothers and a mom who was basically pretty nurturing, although she kept trying to leave the him and never got it together. I think it was too scary in the fifties to have Poor boys. You know, no job.

Um And so we were in in the middle of this and the kind of healing that it took, it took a long time. Um to do the inner healing work from Um the pain of my family.

Um and I remember when I became a Buddhist monk. And I was sitting These first years with my teacher. in the forest monasteries of Thailand on the border of Thailand and Laos.

Um And I've been sitting quietly. And then some of these memories or energy would come where I remember one monk who had a hut near mine in the forest did something that annoyed me, and I just got enraged.

Inside. Mm-hmm. And and I sat and then I went to the teacher and I said You know. Um

I'm really getting angry here. And uh he smiled, he said, Yeah. Um, where where do you think that comes from, or something like that. And I said, Well I don't know. I said I thought I was a peaceful guy. I wasn't never gonna be like my father. I won't you know, I'm be peaceful.

But it turned out it just stuffed all that stuff. And so when I told uh my teacher about it, he said, Good. She said, Go back in your hut. It's the hot season. You got a little tin roof and Close the doors and windows and put all your robes on and if you're gonna be angry, do it right. In the middle of that.

You know, and sitting in the middle of the fire. And don't be so afraid of it,'cause if you're afraid of it, you're just gonna keep stuffing it. And on the other hand, or if you're afraid of it, it'll just explode. There's another way to be with it. Um and so that was the beginning of some healing. just to realise that I could actually tolerate

The suffering. um and the energy that was in my still carried from trauma in my body and heart. So we're gonna Absolutely

On that chapter. In your life. But just just so that I can create the proper visual in my own head. So you sat there in your hut In the sweltering heat with all of your robes on.

Were you were you angry in silence? Were you yelling? What what the I was I was pretty much angry in silence and that's an interesting question. Yeah, I you know, in the monastery the the culture was not was not much that you would yell. You could go somewhere out in the forest and yell. But it was it it wasn't decorous or something, people go, What the hell's wrong with that monk? Um so Mostly uh I was sitting in silence and then scenes would come and I would realize wow.

You know I thought I was peaceful. I carry every In every cell of my body. I also carry both the pain and anger of my childhood and my father and just the

the anger that comes with being a human being and human incarnation. And I was never gonna have that, but of course there it was. Um And it lasted, you know, this was I had days of and and actually um much longer, weeks or months of waves of of this coming. Um and learning how to, you know, be present for it and not get overwhelmed by it.

So I want to back track And then connect those dots. So between Childhood. And ending up

in Thailand. Uh you mentioned Dartmouth. earlier and from what I've read at least you were initially pre med and then ended up Asian studies. Could you describe that experience in Dartmouth or how you

went from pre med to Asian studies. Well, you know, we all get turned in these mysterious ways in our life. We think we're going one direction. And then something happens. Unexpectedly.

And a gateway opens. So I was Coming from an organic chemistry class. to the class that I'd signed up for out of interest on Asian studies.

uh raised in philosophy or something. And it was an old professor I'm Doctor Wing Sit Chan. Who'd come up from Harvard. He was kind of emeritus there. Um

And he even sat cross legged sometimes, you know, in the front of the room and would talk about Lao Tzu and Daoism and they talk about Uh Buddhist teachings and how the Buddha Taught.

Suffering. Um And its causes and its end. And that really I all of a sudden I sat up. I said, There's an end to suffering. There's a way to do and he said, Oh, there's all these teachings and practices where you can transform your heart and mind

And I became thrilled about it and realized that Whatever impulse I had to go to medical school. Um Probably part of it came.

From wanting to heal myself. Um and so I started to take more and more courses and then it was it it was the sixties and I became a Card carrying hippie. Um uh card carrying L S D taking.

Hippy, as a matter of fact. And um Uh at the end of I in yeah, when I was g getting ready to graduate, there was still the draft. And I thought well I I'm definitely don't want to go over And kill people in a war that I

that I've been protesting ac protesting against. Um so I decided to go into the Peace Corps. instead and ask them to send me to a Buddhist country where maybe I could find a One of those old Zenmasters that you read about. Um and got assigned to Thailand.

Um and when I got there Um people you could kind of Request where you went.

And they and and I said, Send me to the most remote place you can. I wanted adventure. But I also wanted to kind of reading all those old Zen stories. I wanted to see if that That still existed.

So um You know, and there were little detours like being in Hayed Ashbury in the summer of love and things like that that Definitely. Um They it changed my life also in a very deep way.

Um because for at least for a time there was a window when people were just giving things away. There was such a sense that the world could be transformed. Um some of it as we know. Very, very naive. But on the other hand it also

Felt like a greater sense of brotherhood and sisterhood than I had ever known. Um Um, except with my own brothers who I love a lot and we've done a lot of things together. And I started to feel like there are other ways for me and for the world to be and live.

Um and that was That was also very um wonderful. You mentioned You mentioned a three letter acronym that we're probably not gonna spend too too much time on, but I I

You and I you and I have had quite a number of conversations where I've wanted to ask you about some of your experiences Uh with psychedelics, including LSD, but we've never really gotten into it, so I figure why not do it in front of a few million people. Uh the The LSD at that point, your experiences with that did that inform

Your decisions at all. to then go into the Peace Corps and end up in a remote area. It did, and I've written a little bit about it in in a couple of different of my books. um chapters in my in the books I've written because um

Mm-hmm. Then Most Oh Buddhist teachers. And Hindu teachers of my generation.

Um Also started with psychedelics. You know, myself and Almost all my colleagues. Um You know, in the

spiritual industry that I'm in. Um that was a beginning and for me Um It showed an incredible possibility that all is created out of consciousness. um and the possibilities of inner freedom and

Well basically I was able At the at the best of it. To see Line. body and my personality

Um and my history and realize that that's not who I am. To become much more the conscious witness of it all. To see Yes, birth and death and to go through those kind of

Um uh death, rebirth experiences that can happen um at times in a deep Session with LSD. Um or death of ego or sense of self or removing and realizing wow, there's a freedom and a and a life force that's what we're made of.

Um and that profoundly influence my interest in spirituality and also interest in What the world can be. Now um just a few days ago I was on

Um Lowie with my beloved wife Trudy. Um and we were visiting spending time with Ram Das who Um for listeners that don't know was um the author of this bestseller in the sixties called Be Here Now and is now he's in eighty six.

in a wheelchair. Um But Ramdas, who had been at Harvard University and was one of the early explorers of L S D before he went to India and became a spiritual teacher. Um

Mm. Br in the living room w while we were there two days ago. Um, Roland Fisher, who is one of the senior Professors and psychopharmacologists at Johns Hopkins University. Medical school. Oh Rolling Rolling Griffiths. Roland. Roland Griffiths rather. And Roland excuse me, Roland Griffiths.

And Roland um laid out all the research that's happening now. on suicide and that he's been doing. Um

And it's success for people, terminal cancer patients all Losing A great deal of their The fears that they had. Um

uh working with people with Um Severe depression. Um And it was a beautiful session.

Because you could hear how these sacred substances And these mind altering substances. When they're used in the right context. Can really transform human beings. Um and NYU, Johns Hopkins, there's a whole series of

uh studies that are happening now. that are finally bringing it back into the mainstream. So I'd love to underscore just a few things that you mentioned. Uh

Number one. uh Ramdas for those people who want to do additional reading. formerly known as Richard Alpert, if I'm getting that right. Uh also has a fascinating story coming full circle with psychedelic research. beginning I guess at Harvard in some respects.

Uh so it makes sense to me why Roland's research would be mo so meaningful to him. Uh And Th a number of other just just quick comments for people. Uh number one is if you're interested in in looking into these

Uh considered the act of psychoactive uh ingredient in mm magic mushrooms. Uh at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere. I've actually been involved with

uh crowdfund and funding myself some of the research related to uh treatment resistant depression uh at Johns Hopkins with Roland Griffiths as the senior investigator. Uh and I'll be posting some updates to that, but fascinating work looking at everything from and this is also as you mentioned, NYU and at other very well regarded universities Um Alcohol addiction, nicotine slash tobacco addiction. as you mentioned, uh end of life anxiety in cancer patients.

The implications are are are really profound and the data very, very promising. And I I wanted to also mention to folks who are perhaps saying to themselves, Well I'm not interested in taking c psychedelics myself that There are people

I know good friends of mine who do not currently use psychedelics. but had the ego dissolving uh experience of a non ordinary reality through psychedelics that then led them to become uh or contributed to them becoming very, very dil uh diligent meditators. And uh Sam Harris who's a PhD in neuroscience, uh, and thought of or very well known as

uh an a an atheist, uh or you know, one of the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse along with Richard Dawkins and others. uh is a very close friend and extremely diligator and he's he's written about how his psychedelic experiences, which were in some respects very some of them uncontrolled, and you really have a coin flip there, uh is in terms of which direction you can go, but showed him possibilities within his own mind that then led to a a very, very Um I'm not gonna call it devout although I should just to bother maybe. Diligent practice. So I I don't wanna take us Too far off the rails.

You go to South East Asia. Well I w I just want to say one more thing before we move on. Um, because we are talking about this. It turns out for those who are Listening that set and setting and intention are extremely important if one uses these

you know, psychedelics like psilocybin or something. To set the intention to learn to open, to have a quiet. It's not not as a party experience. Absolutely. brings your attention inward

And then all the kind of discoveries um become right in front of your Um the but the other thing is that whether it's right for somebody to use psychedelics or to use meditation

These are all uh invitations To step back. And see the mystery of your life. Because we tend to live in the

You know Mm. daily minutia and checking off our list of um tasks that we have to do in completing them, our work or or you know, or eating or all the kind of Things that

Make up a day. And we go on to automatic. Um and whether it's meditation and different s or other spiritual disciplines, or for some people, it also can just be that they have what in Greek is called a katabas, a blow. you know, somebody close to them gets cancer or

Or is dying, or they have some accident or something and all of a sudden you step back and you realize, Whoa Life is un certain the way I've been taking it, and it's not just um checking off the list. This is a mystery human incarnation.

And what am I gonna do with it? And wow, look at this, how did I get in this body? Look at plants and Tree and And um language, the air coming out of your mouth that You shape it different ways and it vibrates a little drum in the ear of someone else and I can say Golden Gate Bridge and they can envision it and you start to realize that all of it is alive and made of consciousness.

And then the whole sense. of who you are. And what matters begins to shift. And you start to realize that Life is not just getting through the hoops.

But it actually also can be A celebration of the heart of something. That you have to bring to the world that you come out of life. And my friend Maladoma Some who's a

West African shaman and medicine man also two PhDs are kind of remarkable guy. Um he says with the Dagor people in West Africa that he's from That um They say that every child comes into the world uh with a certain cargo is their metaphor, like the cargo ships that fly the

rivers of West Africa. And it That they're given gifts. to bring into the world. And that we have

gifts to bring to this mystery which include opening to it. And as we do Love grows, connection grows, and And a whole different way of being in the world happens that we need um so much at this time. So

That's a little Interlude there. Before we move on to Then that your next question. I welcome as many interludes as you would like to interject, and I want to just

It was, I believe, Greek word for Katabas, which means a blow. It's like something comes and it just sets your life spinning in an entirely different direction. Right, like a catalyzing event. And that that's Exactly. I've I've had a few of those recently that I'd like to selfishly ask you about later, but so I can bookmark Just so I can bookmark this name. Uh S uh Stanislav Groff, if I'm saying that correctly.

meet him roughly what age or what date just so I can come back to it. Because this is another thing I've been meaning to ask you about for a long time and get into, but I haven't had the chance. So I had there's Two things um to to say. Um, when I came back from the monastery And now it's you know

I guess the year that I connect with Stan was maybe nineteen seventy three. I made two really important connections. I came back and Start A psychology in graduate school. Um

It was in Boston. Um and the first really important connection. happened. When I went to a meeting of the Massachusetts Psychological Association.

And there was this Guy who looked like he'd He didn't look just like the straight psychologist and then turned out he'd just come back from India not long before. Named Dan Golman.

Um who was a who was a graduate student at Harvard, and he'd projected on the screen this Tibetan wheel of birth and death that you see in the Tibetan Tankas that that normally would be taken as some kind of primitive um icon, iconic uh

you know, symbol. And he said, No no no, this is a psychological diagram. The Buddha was actually More than anything else. Um He was uh a scientist of the mind.

And a a s a a profound psychologist and Here is how craving turns into Contentment and here's how Aggression can be transformed into powerful energy to heal yourself and others and he was going through this diagram and I went and I talked to him and he said, Oh, you you come back from monastery. You've got to come over

Um and so he took me to David McClellan, who had been the chairman of the social science and psychology department at Harvard at that time. The one who hired Tim Leary and Ramdoss. And then later had to fire them for their L S D work. Um and his house.

He and his wife Mary were Quakers. His whole Um Where

Ramdas and Tibetan lamas like Chogyam Trumpa and I think Krishna Murti and various spiritual figures would come Um, people were going to India and coming back. Um and and um I connected with this whole group of folks

Who've now been friends for forty five years. Um Richie Davidson was another that I met there, who's now one of the preeminent neuroscientists in the Well done.

studying contemplative neuroscience and um affective emotional neuroscience. There was a whole Dan Goldman who wrote. emotional intelligence that sold ten million copies and Um many others.

And then I got a job working for a an ethylen like growth center in Boston at that time'cause I was excited in all the new gestalt bioenergetics. What are the things that are transformative here? Um, and they asked me to help set up programs and I thought, Well who do I wanna uh Who do I want to meet? So I set up a program with John Lilly. And I set up a program.

with Stan Groff, who was still at Johns Hopkins. And married at that time, just married to Joan. Halifax Joan Groff. And we became friends. And so we have Stan and I have now worked together for forty five years. I went out to

Join him. at Esseln for many, many years, spending many months together helping during his development of the holotropic breath work that's a this powerful breath transformation. And um he has been a a partner in a

And a in a heart friend. For um exploration and we've traveled and we've taught and Russia and in you know, places in Europe and

um various places around the world. So This is This is definitely a path that we're gonna come down. And dig.

Further into the But I I'm gonna steer us to uh Ajan Shah because I want to know how

Do you land with the Peace Corps in a remote remote well, what most people would consider a remote corner of the world And end up Finding the A living master. How does that how does that actually happen? I I don't know I but I assume you didn't speak Thai at the time. I did actually because the Peace Corps and then I had to learn Lau

I did because the Peace Corps at that time, it was very early in the Peace Corps. had really good language training. They borrowed it from the Monterey Language Institute. So But you know, initially I didn't speak that well, but um because I'd also studied Chinese at Dartmouth, it came more easily. Um and I was there working in these um

In the health. Rural Health Department. on tropical medicine teams, mostly malaria, but also typhoid and Teams going out to different villages and taking drawing blood and Um

giving out medicine and things like that. And then somebody said there's a There's a Western monk in this province we heard about. Um, do you want to meet him? I said, Of course I do. So I I went to this

Little mount and and Walk up. Two thousand steps to the old Cambodian temple ruins at the top. And there was this very interesting guy Um

Who had just finished a couple of years before the first Peace Corps, I think, in Borneo. And then got interested in Buddhism and Come and ordained as a monk. And I talk with him. He's now his name Djang Sumado is his um

monk's name'cause he's still a monk and he became quite famous in Thailand and then became the abbot of a Temple in in England. Um And I've I became

Friends with him. And he said, Oh, I found I found a really fine teacher. He said, You know, a lot of them they kinda take you you're a Westerner and they treat you special. He said, This guy doesn't treat you any differently than anyone else. He just wants you to do the work. You know, and learn the learn And he's in this

Forest jungle. And I said, I'm going there. So having heard that, I went and I visited. And he was a little bit like the Dalai Lama, he was funny. And wise and very warm hearted, but also

very strict and very demanding, but he did it in this loving way. Um and I thought okay, this is the real deal. This guy looks like uh Like what I was reading about in all those Zen stories. So I I read That he

Said to you And uh I'd love for you to tell us when he said this to you. I hope you're not afraid to suffer. Uh if that's true. When did he say that and why did he say that?

He uh so I visited him a number of times and told him I was going to become a monk and then I ordained in it. village where I was living in the Peace Corps. People wanted me to do that. It was a beautiful ritual. And then after

Some days. um made my way down to his temple. And he said that's that was his opening gamut. I'm walking in into the gates and I see him I bow and say, I'm here. And he looks at me, you know, kinda leans back a little a little skeptically said, All right, I hope you're not afraid to suffer. Welcome.

And it was it was a it was like, you know, you didn't come here just to kind of do some Interesting, cool anthropologicals. experiment or something like that. If you're gonna do it, we're gonna put you through the training. Um and and and he did. But he you know, there was like this little smile as he said it, like, Okay, you are you up for it?

All right. Dude, come on in. What did what did the training cons consist of? What were what were some of the first things that you had to do and then what What was this suffering that he alluded to? What were some examples? Um okay. So of course the the first training was just how to walk around and not have my robe

you know, fall on the ground and embarrass me and everyone else's they all loved it. Oh yeah, right, look at the Westerner. So part of it was just the unfamiliarity of it culturally and otherwise. Right. Um uh There were the there were the two kinds of suffering. The big suffering, of course. was being alone with my own mind. I mean there you go.

You know. having to do hours of Meditation. um when I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Um

And then as I talked about with anger, fear, confusion, or you know, all those kind of states. Um learning to deal in a very conscious and mindful way And then more importantly In a compassionate way.

In a kind. And loving way. With all the energies that make up. our my humanity and our humanity. Um and that means when you sit and you get quiet.

Anything unfinished in your heart will also come up, all the unfinished business. So You know Um relationships that I'd had that ended badly in college or

Or um certainly stuff from my childhood and family. um dreams that I carried, things fulfilled and not All that comes up. It's Um Yeah, my friend Annie the Mott.

humorist and writer says, My mind is like a bad neighborhood. I try not to go there alone. Um and there's some way in which um in community sitting together with others in meditation and then sitting in my hut. Um It was really facing myself. And my full humanity. That was the That was probably the mo most difficult thing.'Cause then you get insanely bored or insanely restless or

And then how do you deal with all those energies normally when we're restless or bored? You know What do we do? We you know um open the refrigerator or, you know, go online or something because we can't be with our own loneliness. Hm.

Around here. Um So that was the inner and then there's the outer one. What are the things that the outer one outer ones were things like Mm.

uh getting up the the bell would ring at three thirty in the morning. I'm and I'm not an early riser by nature. I go, Oh God, here we go. And we walked through it was actually very beautiful. Then we'd walk through the forest at night. Either by moonlight or sometimes you'd have a tiny little flashlight or Um

And in one of the forest monasteries where there were a lot of cobras we'd have a little stick and you'd tap the So that the snakes would know you or feel you coming and move out of the way. wouldn't step on them. Um

And then we would sit. um silently for a couple of hours and then do an hour of chanting. On a hard stone floor, mind you. Everybody else seemed comfortable and my body was killing me. Um

And then at least once a week we would sit up all night with the teacher. And he would sit there comfortably meditating, maybe talking with another colleague that it would come. And we'd just be sitting and meditating and He would kinda peek over at us, like How are you doing? I go, God. It's been four hours. When are we when is he gonna let us go back to

Sleeping. He didn't. You know, so Sitting up all night. Um it got very cold. In the cold season.

Um and it got insanely hot. In the hot season. Um and somehow learning to Live extremely simply.

With a set of sandals and a set of robes. and an alms bowl. And then you would eat what you got. offer it in the village and we would share it in that monastery with others. Oh around us. Um

And sometimes you'd get Nice food and a lot of times in the dry season. You get really, really skimpy food and there wasn't that much to eat. Um and so picture a day where you get up at three thirty in the morning You know.

Um You sit for a couple of hours in meditation and do long uh than an hour long chanting on a stone floor. Then it's getting dawn and you walk barefoot, you know, three miles, five miles, ten miles with a alms bowl and a handful of other monks. And get your food and come back.

Whatever you've been offered, and that's the food for the day. Um And then you go back to your meditation or to the work of the monastery of sewing robes or Drawing water from the well. Um and it's you know

Muggy and a hundred and Five degrees hot season. Um And uh Then you go back and you join in the community for more meditation.

And then the teacher smiles and you say, How are you doing? you know? Um Uh and then other kinds of practices, for example, we had a charro there. And so on what ground? A charnal ground, which is where a cremation ground, where people

Bodding. And so on occasion. would go to a cremation and then sit up all night. And contemplate tests. Mm.

Um and you know, w look at the body and then watch as it burned. And then do these meditations where you would reflect on, Well, this is gonna happen to the body that you're inhabiting as well. Who do you think you are? Do you think you're this physical body made of, you know. Hamburgers or you know lettuce or whatever you happen to eat is that you are you hamburgers and lettuce?

You know, or Oh are you your feelings, or are you your thoughts? Who are you really born into this body? Um like co ons. Yeah.

So anyway. And The Alms bowl, so you would be Did you eat whatever you gathered in?

One meal was it spread throughout the One meal. One meal. You eat one meal a day, which makes you very easy to Makes your life easy. Um Yeah, and at the same at that monastery things were shared. There was other monasteries I stayed in. Where you would just eat what was put in your own bowl.

Um Uh, and um you didn't have to eat everything that was given to you. There were some things that were You know, in the Dry, poor season. the there would be

curries that were too hot for me to eat'cause they used the chilies to kind of Um Preserve the food. Preserve preserve the food. But you know, when when it was a really poor village or something, you know, they would have to make curries out of um F field lice or field rats or bat.

Or bats or you know, I remember eating there was a um Curry that was made out of Um Basically the grasshoppers that had come swept through and there was this whole big

You know, in s insect wave of Mm-hmm. Huh. Insects that were Kind of.

eating the crops and they they collected them all and made a curry out of it. Um so you know, okay, this is this is what you get for your food today. You I think I might take the grasshoppers over the over the bats. That's true. We all had mystery meat in middle school anyway. This was like mystery meat on steroids. What was the what was the longest period of time that you spent in silence during that time in Thailand? Well then I went to a Burmese monastery'cause I wanted to do This very intense meditative training and I spent about five hundred days, so

Less less than a year and a half in silence. The with the exception that I would talk to the teacher. Mm-hmm. Um uh every couple of days I'd have that little ten minute conversation about what was happening in my meditation. And the rest of the I was just sitting and walking

eighteen hours a day w when I could or Or so sleeping a little bit. Um and I remember Um at one point Uh it was relatively early on. I'd been s sitting and walking and and

pushing it as young men do, you know, I'm gonna get enlightened and Uh, all of that and not moving, sitting with a lot of pain. Which is also part of what happened at At the forest monastery sitting on a stone floor for hours. And without moving.

Um really had to learn how to deal with your own physical pain. And um I was exhausted from sitting and walking in my little Hot that I had. for uh that long retreat. And after a couple of months I thought, I'm really tired. I d I gotta lie down.

But then I thought, Well, but I'm not gonna nap for very long'cause I'm I'm on my way to enlightenment. Whatever. Um, I'm gonna do this right. So I said, All right, I'll lie down on the wooden floor rather than on the little mat that I had. And that way it won't sleep so long. I'm lying there. Um

And then I wake up. And I get up and I walk very slowly doing this mindful slow walking to the And of the hot. And look out the window. toward where some of the other monks and the teachers live some some way down some way down through the trees.

Um And then I turn around and I start walking the other direction in this this meditation hut that I had then he could walk probably it was maybe fifteen, eighteen feet long. It was long and narrow. And I see this body.

Lying on the floor. And all of a sudden I go, Oh That's me. And then I realized that um I'm having an out of the body experience. And what had happened is that I was so

intent. I'm not gonna sleep long, I'll get up very soon. That intention was really strong. But my body didn't want to get up, so I got up. But it was it wasn't in my body. And I walk very slowly and I peered down at my body and I turned around and walked the other way, walk back. Mm-hmm.

And then the second time I walk back up. I got closer and then I fell into my body and I woke up and I said, Oh Wow, that's interesting. But what I saw out the window wasn't just like a dream. Because I was watching, you know, my teacher and talking to these other monks and and then I got up again and that's exactly what was happening.

And that was the first of the A series of All kinds of very interesting Experiences that happen. And those

The what what would uh Other examples of those types of unusual experiences be in and d was it th your time in Burma That found you experiencing these for the first time? Well, um

First of all the the first experiences even though I had experiment with meditation back in In uh And in college and so forth. Um were experiences again that came through psychedelics.

Um and so I was Familiar with All kinds of weird and and powerful and and m mysterious or mystical kind of experiences. Um but they

But there's something about learning how to navigate it. Without taking a substance and learning that your own Consciousness is the field that you can that that you can learn to navigate. First all the

personality and emotions and history and so forth. But then you start to realize that you're bigger than that, that who you are is not just your thoughts and feelings in your mind. Um And so whether it's out of body experience Or the experience of vastness of becoming the sky.

um within which everything arises and passes. or the experience Um of profound silence or of the void where you enter up. Enter

a stillness before Experience even arises. Or the experience of luminosity where Um Uh where my body would dissolve into light.

uh their time sitting as you get concentrated and samadhi or concentration builds that your whole body and mind open up and You know, first you get the elements your body can feel Um heavy like a stone, the earth element, or it can feel

so light that you have to peek your open your eyes and make sure you're not floating'cause it feels like you're floating in the air. Or it can be filled with fire and you feel like you're in the middle of a raging fire. Or can get icy cold. You know, or all kinds of vibrations and kundalini energies and chakras start to open.

And sometimes it's present, sometimes it's not. You know, as deep energies. start to move through your body, they also kind of push open the places that are held closed so that When you're

heart starts to open in deep meditation. Sometimes it feels like you're having a heart attack that's physically painful because all the m all the things that you've held around your heart to protect yourself. start to loosen. Or when the energy hits your throat. And it starts to open. Weird sounds come out, you know, and then you get to

Visions that come in there. Yeah. you know, brow chakra and you start to see all kinds of colours and visions and Mm hear things. all possibilities of the play of consciousness can start to open.

After um both period of silence but also really deeply training attention and concentration. So Th these experiences just to put them in

Or at least part of uh what you said in context for people Listening. Uh there are a number of things you mentioned, but one in particular that opening in the chest that I experienced in the ten day retreat. Done it.

Uh Spirit Rock. Uh which which for which you are one of the the instructors or the lead instructor. Uh and I it was an incredibly powerful experience and

listening to your description of some of the feelings It makes me want to go to the jungle and and s spend time doing this type of training. However The ten day retreat, as you know from firsthand observation and interacting with me, was incredibly difficult for me. and terrifying at a number of points where I felt like I had

Cross the boundary. into maybe even madness, where I I I I was fearful I wouldn't be able to return from And so I'm curious to know During that period of time in Thailand

In Burma Could be afterwards as well, but when you were in the in the jungle and doing this very intense work. Were there any particular points when you wanted to quit to go h to go home? How did you Oh absolutely. I mean and I remember I I got

What I think was malaria. I have really high fever and I was sick as a dog and I'm lying in the bottom of my Little hut there. Um high fever and shivering and um cha came to visit me. And i in the Lao language and he was he was also funny and quite blunt.

Um and the La language is a very straightforward kind of The sentence structures are fairly simple. So he looked at me and he said, Sick, huh? And I said, Yeah. And he said, Hurt's all over, huh? I said it's your task, he said Hot and cold, yeah.

He said You know, makes you afraid. I nodded. He said, Makes you want to go home and see your mother, doesn't it? And I'm nodding there. And then he looked at me and he said, You know This is the jungle fever. This is malaria. We've all had it. Um But now there's some good medicine. I'll send the medicine monk over and in a couple of days you'll be fine.

Um um And then he looked at me and he said, You can do this, you know, you can do this. So I mean that was an example of wanting to go home to my mother. What am I doing here? What kept you what kept you going? I mean, I don't want to interrupt, but it's like what kept you going? I'm imagining five hundred days of silence. I could barely handle ten days You know, Tim, I mean, what's kept you going? What keeps any of us going about things that we care about? I had somehow, I don't know, kind of a wacky But I think also

um important kind of passion to say, I want to understand. Or I I you know, I've started down this road and I wanna see where it goes. And I think all of us find at a certain point in our life that they're or if we're lucky.

that something really matters and you've done it in your work and your travel You want to explore what your human capacity is. Um And I'd read read these old Zen stories and this and I said, I wanna see if this is true. I wanna find out. And then as I s I started things started to happen like that. out of the body experience and rapture and changes and

And openings. Um And I realized there's really something to learn here. But there are a couple other things that I wanna add to this.

Um One of them that's the most important is that it turns out that it wasn't Uh and it isn't so much about the actual experiences.

So uh Jan Cha, my teacher the first eight years in the jungle Um He had been a very ardent meditator and had all kinds of

Insights and dissolving into Māori and Jhana experiences all kinds of Somebody is awakening. How would you treat it? Samadis a has a lot of meanings as a word, but it It can mean profound states of concentration. in which the mind dissolves into light or into joy or bliss or um

becomes absorbed with uh any one of all kinds of states. So we went to the most famous teacher of that time, another Ajun Ajunman. And told them about all these experiences in the the the master looked back into me and said, Cha, you missed the point. These are just experiences.

You know, it's like going to the movies and you have a romantic comedy and you have a war movie and you have a documentary. You know, and you have uh you know, a Disney movie said they're just movies on the screen, some pleasant, some unpleasant. The only question is To whom do they happen? Turn your attention back.

And ask. Look to see. Who is the witness of these? What is the consciousness That is knowing these ever changing experiences, this is where your liberation will come.

He said become w his language if I translate it is the one who knows become the knowing rather than the experiences and then you can tolerate anything and you can respond with love and understanding Because you rest In the timeless

Consciousness which is your true nature. So part of what I also learned in meditation and teach. is that it's not so much about the experiences, oh I want to have this or that experience But it's just

Profound turning back. To ask who am I? What is this consciousness itself? That was born into this body. That will leave it. We can talk about death at some point if you want.

Um Uh what is this mysterious consciousness itself? Um so there is that. Um and then um Then I'm also had the opportunity

of being with a few other teachers and one of my Yeah. But one of the people that I was Very close to and Um

inspired me profoundly was a Cambodian monk, um named Mahosananda. Who was the Gandhi of Cambodia. And when I met him we were living and training together in a forest monastery in Thailand. And it was during the time the Khmer Rouge came to power. And and eventually

killed two million Cambodians in a kind of genocide. And he was he survived because he wasn't in country. But all nineteen of his family members were killed. His temple burn, um You know, uh all the All the Buddhist

Texts and so forth were destroyed. Um And when he was able to He went to the refugee camps, refugees were pouring out of Cambodia. By the hundreds of thousands.

And he went to the refugee camps on the border of Thailand and Cambodia and Um I was able to go with him. And At uh a certain point. And he decided to open a temple.

in the middle of one of the biggest refugee camps, here's fifty or a hundred thousand people, these tiny little bamboo huts. Um and got permission from the UN H CR High Commissioner of Refugees. Uh and build a platform with a little roof over it and put an altar with a traditional Cambodian Buddha on it and so forth.

But it was a camp with the Kamer Rouge underground. Um, lots of them. And so they put the word out that if anyone went to be with this monk.

When they got out of the camp back to Cambodia, they would all be shot. So we wondered who would if anyone would come. And uh Went through the camp the day the opening day. With a big

kind of temple gong ringing it. And twenty five thousand people poured into the central square around this little temple. And he Mahagosananda sat there and he was a scholar. He Spoke fifteen languages and

He was a you know extremely Um Oh god. kind hearted human being. Um, who'd suffered enormously.

Um and had transformed it into the kind of compassion that we think of with the Dalai Lama or something like that. In fact they became friends. and Gosanana became the head of all of Cambodian Business, but there he was. At this point She

looking out at twenty five thousand people who had suffered immense traumas and you could see there was a Grandmother And the only two surviving grandchildren that she had, or an uncle and one niece and Their faces were the faces of trauma.

um and of survivors. And I thought all right, what is he gonna say to them? And he sat very quietly for a long time. Just in their presence. And then he put his hands together.

In this kind of modest way. Um and began to chant in the microphone yet a sound system. uh in Cambodian and in Sanskrit or Pali, the Buddhist language. One of the first verses from the Buddhist texts

Um That goes Hatred never ceases by hatred. but by love alone is healed. This is the ancient

an eternal law. And he chanted it over and over in Cambodian and in Sanskrit poly. And pretty soon

The chant was picked up and In a little while twenty five thousand people. We're chanting this verse with him. And I looked out and they were weeping, many of them'cause they hadn't heard their sacred chants for years.

Um But also Because he was offering them a truth. That was even bigger. than their sorrows.

That hatred never ends by hatred. But by love alone is healed. This is the ancient an eternal law. And they were sitting in the middle of the the the healing energy of the dharma of the teachings of the heart.

that can liberate us. Later on, go Sananda, who was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize a number of times. Um, spent fifteen years walking through the killing fields and the m you know, mind areas and so forth.

Leading people on foot back to their village. Um and he said to the refugees, You can't go back in A bus or the back of a truck or something like that. You have to reclaim your land with love. And so he would lead a thousand people and he'd be in the front with a

bell and a gong and a few other monks. And the whole way back they would be chanting the chants of loving kindness so that by the time they got to their village. or whatever had been destroyed. There was this sense that they were reclaiming not just the land.

But they were reclaiming their own Hearts. That's a beautiful. Really beautiful story and It

It prompts me to ask a question that I struggle with answering myself. Uh and and it's also a a question many of my friends have asked themselves. And I'll take a stab at it. Uh

How do you decide? When to do Deep inner work. And take an extended period to do that. Versus

being in the world. And Trying to Impact others. and the world.

I have friends who are building businesses or building careers of some type or families and Mm. I at this point do not have wife, kids, or company to build, at least with a a large organization. And I've come back from various Experiments, sojourns.

experiences over weeks or months and shared these with them and they've they've expressed this longing, this deep yearning to do something similar. And then they ask this question, like how do I How do I best decide? Yeah. If and when to do The deep

extended work versus being in the world. And I I know it might be a false dichotomy. You might not have to choose, but Um I'll talk a little bit more just just to fill the space. But the uh I I had this experience personally not long ago when I was in South America. And had someone telling me uh in sec in Spanish, which was not their native language. Uh this is an indigenous tribe, but this uh Apple, this mayor effectively, who worked a lot with

different um plant medicines and he said. that he recommended one fifteen month diet. very, very strict fifteen month period. with many different restrictions, uh no sex, no alcohol, no pork, et cetera. And to develop certain capacities and to practice

In effect, I mean at certain types of meditative Practices uh So I struggle with this myself as well. How do you how do you suggest someone think through So did you give up sex and pork?

Uh I've done it for short periods of time. I've done it for weeks at a time, but not for fifteen months. But what appealed to me about that Definitely not the lack of sex and pork. I like both of those things. It was, he said, that's something you only have to do once in your life and it opens doors. And creates opportunities that are difficult if not impossible to achieve otherwise. So of course that's very tantalizing. But fifteen months is a really, really long time to opt out of everything else. Um and I'm not saying it has to be fifteen months, for some people

As you know, setting aside even ten days to do a silent retreat is hard. Uh and I know there are things that they can do on an ongoing basis, like morning meditation and so on, but for for those who are really drawn to this extended deeper work. How do you think about and that that's why Gosananda brought it up for me,'cause he'd spent so much time outside of his country and then went back and was really on the f on the ground doing work with locals. How how do you think about that or suggest someone think about it? Uh first my answer is yes.

Because all of the things that you say are true that Yes, there, you know most cultures Um encourage at some point human beings, most wise cultures, human beings, to step out of their ordinary roles and their ordinary routine, whether you go to the mountains or the ocean,

You know, or or a temple or a change. Um Uh how you're living. So that you can open up to the mystery. Um and so that you also can open up to love'cause what I saw with my teachers in Gosanando as well, and Ajan Cha another is um

that they were able to love no matter what. It was really Uh because they They inhabited Consciousness in a very different way than um just the small sense of self. There was something

Um much a possibility. that we could live with forgiveness and love. and be really effective in the world at the same time. Um so they're not separate. And that's sort of what your question is, how do we live in the world

Um and at the same time You know, what trainings and how do we connect with something deeper. And part of it is just intuitive, you you know Tim.

Um Uh if you have newborn, you know, or young children and so forth, it's not the time to go on a long retreat. Your kids are your practice. And in fact. You can't get A Zen Master

Who's gonna be more demanding than you know, an infant with colic. Right. Where you or you know, or a teenage you know, certain teenage'cause where You but with the young ones. You know, your Zen Master might say, You've got to get up early in the morning and you know, once in a while you might roll over.

The kid is crying and sick, you have to get up. Um Your family needs tending and you know, if you're even vaguely Um A responsible and caring

Yeah. that becomes your practice. And if you think, well If only I could be in the great Zen temple of Kyoto or in Ashram in India or down in the Amazon with Tim, you know. Taking ayahuasca or whatever that's plant medicine they give, you know.

Your kid. is can be like ayahuasca on steroids. Okay, you wanna you wanna face yourself and your own limitations and your own you know, you wanna look at the the small sense of self and find out how to live with it. with a freer and bigger spirit here. We've just hired someone to live with you and train you full time. So it's really You know. Um and that's an important thing, but but what makes it work

is that um You have that intention. Not just to soldier through it. But to say let this be a place where I awaken Um

graciousness and inner sense of freedom and peace as things come and go. where I awaken the possibility of presence Um In Hm.

Pleasure and pain and joy and sorrow and gain and loss and all that changes. That I find a I An inviolable or uh A timeless

um becoming the loving witness of it all. becoming the loving awareness that says, Yeah, now I'm having a family experience Um and this is the place. To find freedom.

'Cause freedom is not in the Himalayas or in the Amazon. The only place it's found is in your own heart exactly where you are. And that's what goes to non details and what But I just are

That's really what they wanted. To communicate. Now that being said If you have an opportunity and you're drawn to it. Like somebody you might do know, Jack Dorsey?

I do. I do know Jack, yeah. So Jack just did his first ten day Um meditation retreat. Good for him. And he tweeted about I wouldn't say it otherwise, but he tweeted about it. And it was, you know, one of the top

Transformative experiences of his life. And it's not to say ten day retreats are the be all and end all, they are they're very powerful and compelling. Um But you even if you have a company Or even if you have a family.

There might be a period of a week or some days where you can In fact. Get away. um and step out of those roles. And turn inward.

And that can be tremendously valuable. So I think both are important. You just have to listen when the when the time is right. So There are so many things that this this brings up. The f the first though is just uh uh housekeeping for people who may not recognize the name Jack.

Dorsey. Uh that's Jack. At Jack, I believe it is, on Twitter of uh you might a then wonder how did he get that User handle well. Uh he is he is one of the people behind Twitter. So you he is of Twitter and Square Fame among many others. Uh fascinating, fascinating guy. Uh so people can check him out. The

Uh The comment on the infant being the full time trainer working with you twenty four seven reminded me also, since you mentioned Ram Das earlier, of a a quote of his that I like and I'm gonna paraphrase I'm sure, but if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family. Which I think is a fantastic one. And uh that's part of the reason uh and and you know some of the backstory, but uh we all have Yeah. I would imagine. We all have tough things that happen to us, experience trauma traumatic experiences

have a lot of triggers related to family members typically. And uh for me the forced break Takes uh a number of different forms, but

that includes a trip every six months, an extended trip of two to four weeks with my parents uh and my brother when he can make it. Uh so that's Only after being introduced to meditation something that I would even consider as a practice and uh the the last point I'll I'll mention just out of my personal experience is that a

There's a piece of paper I I have in my wallet and I've had in my wallet for a u few years now. It's getting a bit worn down. uh it's a piece of construction paper And an ex girlfriend gave it to me who who knew me very well and it says the task that hinders your task is your task. Beautiful. And uh that's a good reminder for me. I wanted to ask you Two questions that

uh are personally important uh but but also may apply to other people. The first is the question that I believe you mentioned, Ajan Cha, perhaps others have indicated is the question. Versus the the experiences or movies of these say out of body experiences and so on, to whom do they happen, right? To whom do they happen? Is this a ko on like what is the sound of one hand clapping where there isn't really an answer you're you're expected to arrive at is it is the value in contemplating the question more than any answer?

Um Yes, both. Um no. Um because and no. Because um Um, it is it it's a profound contemplation for us. One of the great, you know questions of human incarnation. Who are we? How do we get into how do you get into this body with the

Wiggly things. on the end of your limbs you know, and those little fits of claws that you have left, you know, as nails and a vestigial tail and a hole at one end into which you stuff dead plants and animals and glug them down through the tube. I mean the whole incarnation thing is really pretty wild. So who are we? And then what are what how do we make meaning of it? What this is a that this is a lifetime question and that way that it's a co on. But in another way it also actually does have an answer. Um and the answer of course has to be found by each person.

The answer to point toward it. Um It's very clear that you're not Just your you know salad and vegetables and hamburger body and you're not just your emotions, I hope'cause they're always changing and your thoughts. Good God, I hope you're not your thoughts. Um so you start to realize all right

What is there? then um W what is this self? Who am I? In neuroscience, you know. Uh there was a Time magazine issue on modern neuroscience where it said neuroscientists have searched throughout the brain of over

many decades now and come to the clu conclusion that they cannot find the self located anywhere. in the m neural mechanisms of the brain and that it simply does not exist. Um But what does exist Is the sense of self that's built out of

a sense of uh identification with our thoughts and body and so forth. It's all wise and appropriate. We should be But we also know that it's not The End of the story. And you know it from

Walking in the high mountains or listening to an extraordinary piece of music or making love or taking some ex some sacred medicine, you know, or sitting at the bedside of someone when they die, that mysterious moment when Spirit leaves the body. Or when a child is born.

We have these moments where we open to mystery. And realize that who we are. is not just our personal history or our body and emotions. That we become

The consciousness itself. The witnessing awareness that we are the loving awareness that was born into this body. And that becomes actually uh a direct knowing, a direct experience. So there is a

A way in which we also can come home to ourselves. And it brings a tremendous sense of uh Freedom and well being.

Um As all the movies of Ever Changing Life happen to us. So that's why I said yes yes and no and both. Um and I'm just a little aside, thinking about you going back to your Family is a practicing Twice a year as you're doing.

I just wanna remind you and the listeners that Um Buddha and Jesus both had a hard time when they went back to their family. So you know, don't think that you know, there's something Wrong with you. That's why they call it nuclear family, I think. Anyway. The uh

Yeah. Th there's another I guess it's a word more than a question that I I'd love to ask you to define and that is compassion or compassionate. When you use that word Or those words. What what do you mean exactly?

It to mean for people. Um I would like to just Distinguish. Compassion. From empathy.

Um and I'll use a simple illustration. If you're on the playground and you see a kid being bullied And you feel, Oh, that must feel terrible. That hurts. Right. That's an empathy.

And empathy can be useful it also can be you can get overwhelmed by empathy if you don't know what to do with it, but There's some way in which You start to feel resonate in you because we are not limited to these bodies. We are actually uh

And interconnected, um Yeah. System. Oh consciousness and I'll talk about that a little bit more.

Um Uh In a minute. Um but we all know whether it's mirror neurons from neuroscience or the field of presence as as North you know.

Scientists like Dan Siegel talk about extended Present. that we can feel empathy with one another when someone's sad, someone's angry. Um someone's hurting. Compassion.

is the next step. You you you see, you recognize, you feel And then you care. You you care about it and you want to, if you can, do something that helps. So that you see the kid being bullied and you realise

Um, I wanna tell the teacher or the you know, principal I want to just walk over there and and say something or intervene to help stop it. And so compassion It's called the quivering of the heart. Um

When it wants to move to alleviate the suffering. Of yourself,'cause you can have self compassion, it's very important. Or of those around you. And it's born into the earliest um studies of infants. Um

You know, at Yale and various places like that. show that and even very, very s very small children have this resonance and this kind of care. Um And so it's not shut down in us.

We we're a species that's interconnected and we care for one another and this is Your birthright this natural. natural compassion and through practice and meditation You can reawaken it, you can extend it. Um

And it can become Your way of M Living and moving. in the world. Um as a little aside and I'll just bookmark this one.

I'm just got back from a conference with our Dear friend Adam Gazali, our mutual friend, Richie Davidson, who's another of the Most famous. n neuroscientists, especially in this area. um and a number of other some contemplatives and neuroscientists and some

technologist from the Valley in V C Talking about how to build compassion. into our interface. Um with the technological world compassion tech. Um and from starting from the very simplest things of projects like

Can you build a fit bit for compassion? Where instead of your body where you can either No moments of care. Around you or in yourself. Or be prompted to care for yourself.

You know, or when you say to Siri or Alexa, you know, I'm feeling lonely or You know And so forth. um what kind of response do you get from them from the algorithms and all of that. Well because the the UK

England. Uh just uh appointed their first minister of loneliness for the country. And I you think it was a joke, but it's not. It's like an old Beatles song, All the Lonely People. There are ten million lonely people in England, they've estimated And this minister's got cut And it's you know.

it's for isolation and and loss of capacity and health and all kinds of reasons that loneliness makes things way worse. But there's some way In which compassion Is that which connects us. And it's a beautiful thing even if you walk down the street and you see someone

You know, who's struggling and so forth. Doesn't mean you have to fix the whole world. That's not your job that would be egotistical. But you can reach your hand out and mend the things that you can, you can tend the things that you can. And you can do it not because oh you pity them those poor people.

But because they're your family. You recognize that we are common humanity we're in this together. S

I'd like to build on that and preface it with a comment on the text. Uh collaborating with Adam. and discussing the potential of combining or utilizing technology to help people to

develop and and harness compassion. And some folks listening might be like, oh come on, that's so pie in the sky. But I'd like to point out that you've already collaborated successfully with Adam on software like Metatrain, uh M E D I T R A I N, which was one of the tools Adam has used in his N of one or N of two experiments in uh rejuvenating his mental capacity to I wanna say in in his twenties and Adam's Adam's one of those guys you can't tell if he's twenty eight or forty five he's just a a silver fox who always looks young. So I don't know how old he is, but he's not he's not twenty two. Uh but the the Meta Train was one of the tools that he utilized and uh I I don't remember the the name that he used for this run of experiments, you might know the the training that he did, Neuroman or something like that. was very, very successful. Uh

So you already have a track record of collaborating successfully with neuroscientists and technologists. The On the the compassion front, I'd love to use that as a segue to loving kindness and

by way of personal example I failed Well, failed is a strong word. I quit I stopped meditating after uh many, many attempts had uh a very absurdly high number of false starts over many years.

Uh and it's it be it really stuck after a number of experiments and experiences I had uh doing three or four day trainings with, say, transitable meditation and having the social accountability, being accountable to someone else is very helpful. But another turning point was Experimenting with

loving kindness meditation. And I think in part it succeeded because it took the focus off of me, me, me, I, I, I. And allowed me to Focus on others, but I'd like to read a brief Paragraph.

From a profile. of you in the New York New York Times. This is from two thousand fourteen. And feel free to correct anything that is incorrect, but I'll I'll give it a read first. And I quote, in the West, Cornfield says, quote, We encounter a lot of intense striving ambition and a lot of self-criticism, self-judgment, and self-hatred. End quote. Concerned, he initially turned to the Dalai Lama for advice, but self hatred was such a foreign concept to the Tibetan Buddhist that he wasn't able to offer any real insight. Over time, Cornfield and his colleagues began to believe that Americans needed particular meditation closely I'm sorry, practice closely linked to the concepts of self forgiveness and

And loving kindness. A training in the unconditional acceptance of imperfection. Without such a foundation, says Cornfield, meditation can easily become and this is the part that I underlined and start. Without this foundation, says Cornfield, meditation can easily become yet another form of striving. quote, another thing you do to make yourself better, end quote, instead of a path to tr true contentment. So could you please

Describe for folks. uh what loving kindness meditation practice looks like and elaborate in any way that you feel might be might be useful or helpful for folks. Yeah.

Um and um m that meeting which was some decades ago with the Dalai Lama. Um yeah, he didn't understand when we talked about self hatred. He couldn't use there's no word for it back and forth with his translator. What does this mean? Finally he looked up and he said, Mm, but this is a mistake. Why would anyone do this?

Then he asked how many of you uh there was a group of us who were teachers have experienced this and almost everyone raised their hand. So we see that when people begin in our culture and um In the West. To meditate.

Or to Turn it in. Turn inward really. that um it's very common Um

to encounter a lot of self criticism. Self judgment. Or even self hatred. Um And you know, they're all the causes from our th these are all kind of conditioning that we got from

I'm from our childhood our education and so forth. But what it means is that you're sitting there saying, I'm not doing it right. I'm no good. You turn meditation into one other one other thing that you don't do right'cause you can't control your mind. The truth is that you can't control your mind easily. That's not the point.

um there's a different way of approaching your mind. Which gives you tremendous capacities, but it's not, oh I have to stop my thinking or I don't want to have these feelings and I hate having all these judgments. I don't want to be so judgmental like stop well, I hate this judging mind. What is it's just more judgment. So instead as you become first able to become the loving witness

the the mindful loving awareness that says oh This is the judging mind. And it's been trying to protect me. Thank you for trying to protect me. I don't need you now, thank you. Um all of a sudden there's a distance from the

From the painful or destructive or Or Um self critical thoughts. Simply by

witnessing them with loving awareness and acknowledging them. This becomes the gateway to the practice of loving kindness and self Self compassion. Um And very often people can't do it for themselves. They feel

That's too much of a stretch. Like why would I wish myself Well, it feels egotistical. Um and so The way that this practice um

begins. For uh in skillfully For th for such folks. is instead

To think of someone that you really care about a lot. Um And to picture them, remember them, put them in your mind's eye. And feel the kind of well wishing you would want for them. You know, may they be

Protected and safe. From difficulty. May they be held in Loving kindness. May they be well or healthy, strong.

And you wish them that may they be happy. And you do this for a time a kind of inner well wishing. Um And also maybe you feel As you think of this person

That you care about. Do you let yourself also tune into the measure of sorrows they have. The struggles that every human being has. You know, and it tenderizes your heart as you think of them. Because you don't want them to suffer. You feel a kind of

rising of compassion and care. So may they hold themselves in compassion, may they be uh safe and protected and well. And you do that with one or two people that you care about for a time. And then you can imagine even as I'm

describing this and you follow in your own heart. You can imagine these Two

And saying just as you wish us protection and safety and happiness and well being. I know and compassion. They gaze at you and they say, You too. May you be

Safe and protected. May you be filled with Tender compassion for yourself and kindness. May you two be Healthy and

Well. And may you be happy. They want you to be happy. I think about and when I'm doing this I'm visualising some loved ones and I know that As I do it, I can feel they want that for me.

And then finally As you feel that from these Loved ones. You can put your hand on your body or your heart even if you like. And take it in and and then begin to realize

that you can wish this for yourself. May I Hold all of the joys and sorrows of my life. with tenderness and kindness. May I hold my struggles with compassion. May I be filled with uh loving kindness and loving awareness.

May I be safe and protected. May I be well. Strong or healed. And as you repeat these simple intentions that have been done for thousands of years. S it's as if your cell are listening and this is the

Research of people like Liz Blackburn and Alyssa Apple who who Liz Blackburn got the Nobel Prize for discovering the um telomerase and uh the telomeres at the end of the caps and the DNA. Um

It turns out that your cells listen. to your heart and the to your intention that consciousness affects your body. And little by little Even though the it can bring up its opposite, I hate myself, I've never been good enough, and you see all those and you say Thank you for trying to protect me.

I appreciate that. May I be well, may I be safe, may I be held in love. And little by little like water on a stone. It starts to soften. the places that are holding

Your lack of self forgiveness, your lack of Um care. Um and loving kinda starts to grow in you. And it's a very beautiful practice. There's lots of places you can find it on my in my work and

Teachers like Sharon Salzburg and Pildren and Tara Brock and And and so forth. Are there any uh particular do you have any uh guided loving kindness meditations or audio that you can recommend people listen to?

I do, um and uh I don't know. They could go on my website, jackcornfield.com. I think they will be on there. I do know for sure I have a whole series of great programs with Sounds True. Sounds true.com. That include um meditations on the mind vast as the sky, meditations on compassion and loving kindness.

Um and I did a book. One of the books I've done is called um A lamp in the darkness. And it contains Uh I think eight or nine different

um guided practices that you can get either with it on the CD, but no you can get it as a download, basically. Um And Sounds true also has that and has a compassion practice and a Grounding practice in a um and a vast sky like mind practice and so forth. So you so you can look all look for all of those.

Wonderful. Mm-hmm. couple of years ago invited to be part of the first White House Buddhist Leadership gathering. Um there were a hundred and twenty

Buddhist leaders from around the country from different communities. I don't think that's gonna happen again very soon, but there it was. Um And uh one could hope. And um

most of the communities did beautiful things. They were involved in uh soup kitchens and tending the homeless in projects You know um to support healing um for

Whether it was malaria, are there other diseases um in different other parts of the world and so forth, all kinds of great Stuff. And Certainly meditation. A and when I got to talk, which was kind of a summary talk

towards Uh toward the end of it. Um I mentioned that in the in the in this historical record Whether it's true or not.

describe the Budd meeting with kings and princes and ministers and so forth. And probably if the Buddha were were around now, he would go to the White House if he were invited. He certainly would have met with Obama and who knows now. Um Uh And he had advice about wise society.

um which he would give to leaders and he'd say Yeah. Uh you can train your People. to meet uh one another with respect, to listen with respect to differences.

And to Come together peacefully, listening to one another. And then then your pro society will prosper and not decline. And if your society

Um tends the vulnerable among them the the young people, the old people, those who are sick, it will prosper and not decline. And if your society tends the environment around it. in a healthy way. It will prosper. Not decline.

So these are these are principles of compassion and wise society. that you could read perhaps in a number of great traditions from the Iroquois nation or from the Taoist Sages. But here is the beautiful piece. Yes, these are these are good things meeting in harmony and

discussing in harmony and being respectful for one another and so forth. Um There are practices. that you can teach and learn that develop this capacity.

So that in our elementary schools now you know, through organizations like Castle, which is a consortium For social and emotional learning that's worked in you know, ten thousand schools. Um

Kids learn social and emotional learning. They learn compassion. Um And it changes their lives, they're better academically. Um

And all these kids carry the you know the troubles of our times. They hear the news, they see the trouble even in their own family. Um To teach you how to steward your own heart. Um from when you're young. And and then these capacities are now being corporated as we know mindfulness based stress reduction in clinics and hospitals and businesses and you know, there's the mindfulness teachers

the for the the when the Seattle Seahawks won the championship or the the the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers when they were championship teams, they had a They had a meditation coach, a mindfulness coach, George Mumford, a good friend. And that these capacities can be learn wherever we are.

and they transform our life. It's not just by accident or that you have this beautiful experience on the mountains or Making love. But you can make that alive. For you through these trainings every day.

Every part of your life. Jack, there was a question I was planning on asking at some point anyway, and I think this is a good segue, which is How can you get a busy person hooked on mindfulness practice? You know, what would be a first step or how to start? And since we're talking about loving kindness, I would like to give a bit of a hard sell for loving kindness meditation as one option because I recall

Perhaps it was two years ago I was really beating myself up and for people who don't know this about me. Uh I've spent the majority of my life being uh the the my own worst enemy in terms of inner dialogue, me extremely brutal and hypercritical and loathsome of myself. Uh in in so many different respects.

And I was going through a particularly intense and difficult time with that inner critic, uh just ruthlessly uh beating myself up. And at at that point Another friend of mine, uh Chain Mang Tan, who created the search inside yourself classic Google. He was a very early on

engineer. which became w the most oversubscribed class for employees at Google. uh recommended that I take a look at Loving Kindness Meditation. And and I didn't have any particularly sophisticated approach to it, but I decided with nothing to lose uh and that I was having so much trouble during that period sitting still uh and trying to focus on, say, the breath or anything like that. that at night this was happened to coincide with book deadline, probably uh not

pure coincidence that my beating myself up was exacerbated during that time. That was a few years ago. And I began at night. Uh in my case in uh when I would take a a shower at night or sit in a sauna, I ha I I very often go to hotels to write, which is something Maya Angelou and a a few others convinced me might be a good idea. That I would

Consider two people, just like you had mentioned, two people I really cared for and wish them well. That's all I did. And uh Chade had said to me, Meng is usually what I would call him, that at one point a woman in one of his classes had done this for Um one day at work, every hour on the hour, she would just look out of her office and wish someone well that she could see in her mind's eye for sixty seconds or so. And she says she said it was her best day of work in seven years. And I found that unbelievable, so I decided to try it myself. And that week of just spending maybe two to four minutes At night.

ended up being one of the most blissful Weeks. uh in memory. certainly at that point, uh in several years. It it was really profound. And I couldn't pick out any other variable that had changed. Uh so for me, I just want to for people who are listening and saying, ah, you know what, I'm type A driven, super hyper competitor. This doesn't apply to me, that

It very well. Taking a little bit of the harmful edge off, you don't automatically remove your competitive edge uh and In fact, I would argue just as you mentioned that the bulls and so on used to have

Or still do, but used to have a uh Mindfulness coach. for competitive advantage that that it can be another tool in your toolkit and doesn't Take you out of the way. the game, so to speak. It just makes you more aware of the games that you're playing. So

Uh that's a long sort of infomercial sales pitch that I wanted to just make sure I got in. Uh because I discounted a lot of these practices for a very long time because I thought it would uh at best be a waste of time and at worst

Uh What Take away some of my skills or tendencies that allowed me to get to where I am. Um

So that that that is more of a confessional than a question, but I would love to hear your thoughts, any additional thoughts on on loving kindness meditation, but also any additional thoughts on how if you wanted to get a a busy uh maybe even impatient person hooked on mindfulness practice, what first steps or approaches you might suggest? Um So um a lot of different

questions sort of woven into what you said. Um And the first is that there's a kind of misunderstanding in our culture that love is a weakness. And it's not. There is a way in which

Um It's the force. That can Probably the only force that can meet the level of aggression or violence and uh other such things that are happening in um you know in the world

Um It's the power that lets mothers lift cars off their children. Or it'll let somebody like Dr. Martin Luther King Stand um You know, after his church was bombed and children were killed.

And say we will meet your physical violence. with soul force we will not harm you but we will love you so deeply Не ви волнали трансформи осіл, бо ви вол трансформі. In the process. And so the notion that love is somehow a weakness

Um I think we do everything out of love. We wanna be loved, even in our you know, ambition and our desire for For success. Underneath it. Um

is you know, we wanna be well, we wanna be find our happy. And that's part of part of love. So it's it's actually a power. And my Colleague and friend, um Wes S Niskar went to interview Gary Snyder.

couple of years ago. Gary is a Pew Litzer prize winning. Oh it. um an environmentalist for fifty years been writing about bioregionalism and one of our great Kind of.

Elders in this. um environmental movement. He said, Gary, what do you have to say to us now? The oceans are rising, the world climate is changing. You know, hotter and hotter the species extinction. Gary looked back and he said.

Don't feel guilty. If you're gonna save it. Don't save it out of guilt or anger or fear. Those are the very things That are actually making the world worse. Save it'cause you love it.

Because it's part of you, because it may and that's the that is the Is the power. Um Whether you're starting a company But also it's not just that you, you know, some vision, okay, now I'm gonna become this wealthy, you know, playboy or whatever, you know, zillionaire.

Um that what does your life mean for you? And what do you really want? And when you listen there is something in you and it's part of your birthright. Um

To both be able to Give your gifts. but also to love and be loved in return. And it's turns out that it's a power. So then what you talk about is

That um It doesn't take much to begin the training. And you're, you know, two minutes or four minutes in the evening or this woman at her work. taking once an hour, you know, thirty seconds or a minute. To look

And Somebody there. and offer a a well wishing can transform everything. Um for people who want the

practical support because it is hard to do on your own. If you go to soundstrue dot com and look up um, the programs that I have First there's a forty day program called Mindfulness Daily. which is fifteen minutes a day or t twelve minutes a day, depending on the segment, that both gives instructions in mindfulness, loving awareness, and loving kindness practice

Um And It's twelve or fifteen minutes a day. And by the end of those forty days you really have learned the inner skills. And then it builds up. There's then a deeper training called power of awareness. And for those who are interested, we're about to open an online teacher training for people interested in mindful

Um yeah in in Passing along mindfulness and loving kindness to others. Jack, just to interject for one second, for people listening, I will also link to all of these resources in the show notes, which you can find at Tim.blog forward slash. podcast. So you don't necessarily have to remember all these things. You can go to the URL and uh we will have direct links to these resources. Uh sorry to interrupt Jack, just wanted to mention that for people listening. And with it then there is also of the programs there there's one called Guided Meditations that's you know, a download of like ten bucks or something. And it has a loving kindness practice, a compassion practice, a forgiveness practice Um, I think it may even have a joy practice.

Uh and and so forth. So you can and it's really helpful to have guided meditations at first,'cause otherwise your attention We have a very short Mm. attention span in modern society. Albert Einstein, at least according to scientific American Uh said.

If you can drive safely while kissing a girl. You're simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves and we are in this kind of multitasking world with our devices and and we've forgotten how to tend our own hearts. We've forgotten how in some ways to really be present for one another. And more importantly for our own life. And so getting guided meditations

um is tremendously helpful. And doing these little mini practices that you talk about one minute, two minutes, several Times a day. Um Can transform you.

No Oh, I was just gonna mention to people also if you look at behavioral change, if you look at BJ Fogg, uh formerly of the Persuasion Laboratory at Stanford. you you look at diet, uh dietary change, any of these things, uh Do doing less than you think you're capable of doing.

is a really good long term strategy. I mean in terms of starting off rigging the game so that you can win in the beginning. So that your pass fail mark in your mind is a really, really low hurdle. So I just wanted to reiterate Guided Guided Meditation. Don't white knuckle in the beginning. Like make it as easy as possible. And the the same principle from the from the ancient You know, text say

that you start in the easiest way. For some people kindness for themselves seems impossible, but then you pick a child you care about or someone else. Or even when you do go to yourself, you think of yourself when you were an innocent child. um and wish yourself well. The game is to do where Whatever naturally opens

the the gateway Whatever's the easiest for some people it's their dog. You come home and you know, the the most nonjudgmental being in their life wags its tail and loves you and it doesn't care, you know, what's going on in your head. Um so you take the avenue that most naturally opens. your heart and then you do this just a little at a time, as you said, and it doesn't take long.

But the other thing that's important is that sometimes as you do it It can actually display or show you the hypercritical nature of your mind, the shame that you carry. Um

The you know, the self judgment or self loathing. And so Then you then you say well what do you do then? Or it brings it brings up its opposite. Is that the place

that you just breathe and hold all that stuff with kindness,'cause this is our humanity. And we all have some of that. And the point isn't to get rid of it or judge yourself for having it or try to fix it. It's almost as if you put your hand on your heart and you say, You know This is like mindful self compassion of deep training.

This is part of the measure of struggles that I've been given like every human being. These things have tried to protect me and now Um I can hold them with tenderness.

And say, All right, you know, thank you, but I don't need your help anymore. I can be kind to myself. And in and and in that way you're not trying to Fix yourself or perfect yourself. Um If anything, you're trying to perfect your love.

Uh credit. for help that you gave me and also tactical advice that you gave me during the ten day silent retreat. W you gave me a lot, but I wanted to I wanna highlight one that's related to what you just said. I was going through a a very, very difficult time, particularly uh days seven, eight, nine and You

You gave me the advice that you just mentioned. And there's there's Underscore for people and that is When you're, for instance, trying to do loving kindness meditation and instead you get the opposite, or you get this self ridicule.

Uh who are you to Try to meditate in this self-indulgent way. This is ridiculous. Or this voice starts to pop up that is angry or hateful, whatever it might be. the process of not simply dismissing it Or

fighting against it. But recognizing it as a coping strategy that helped you in the past in some way, that you developed because In my case, you know, the rage was a fuel that if I had

Th without which I w probably would never have left Long Island where I had friends who later overdosed on opiates and so on. So it it it was a gift in a way. And a tool, and as you said, you can thank that Response. Or that part of yourself and then put it

And I remember you recommended even Visualizing and Please correct me if I'm wrong or elaborate, but visualize taking that part of you that is a coping strategy, thanking it and then putting it, say, on a shelf. Uh where you can use it later if need be, along with, say, other icons or figures who uh

whether it's Buddha or other that that you recognize as wise, and then continuing with the meditation. So that thanking that part of yourself for the function that it once served, even if it is not serving you now. was such a key insight. uh for me that then helped me to Um manage my internal states or

Or observe and appreciate my internal states for the next several days, uh, where I really felt like I was lost at that point. So that was a really direct tool that that helped me tremendously. Yeah, thank you. Um, for bringing it up'cause it's so important for people.

When we come to that hypercritical shame. Yeah. Um we're vo we feel very vulnerable and we've been identified with it. And because you needed it, I needed these things for survival.

So and if you try to get rid of this stuff You just end up in a fruitless battle against yourself and it's just more judgment. So what you described as saying Thank you for helping me survive. I appreciate it. Let me put it on the shelf or the altar. I'll put it in the lap of the Buddha or whoever, you know, the goddess of infinite compassion, you hold it for me. If I need it, I'll pull it back. Um

And that sense That this isn't who you are. Um it doesn't describe who you are, it isn't who you are. It was it was a strategy because we're vulnerable beings and you were tender as a child, you know, and you had to make sure you could survive.

Thank you for that. And now I have a different capacity. Um And let me just talk about that capacity a little bit, because the capacity for presence Um

And the great heart of compassion that's said to be your birthright, um is a really mysterious thing. Um talk about identity. Um and when my um Youngest brother's wife Esther. was dying of uh

Cancer. Um And she is just a beautiful being and I spent quite a bit of time with her and with my brother. Um I had gone home.

She was close to dying, I've gone home to sleep. And I want to get up early and hurry back'cause it was very close. And I uh Got my car. I had to stop at the drugstore to pick up a prescription.

Um hurriedly running, you know dashing through the aisles and so forth. And I'm at the checkout counter. And all of a sudden my whole body relaxed. And I thought oh. Esther died.

I got out to the car. And I I said, How's it going? He said, Oh, Esther died uh a few minutes ago. I said I know.

You know, I'll be there shortly. Um We've all had these experiences. If I ask in a room how many have had this particular kind where you knew someone died when they died. You know. A quarter of the hands will go up.

Why is this? It's because who we are is not this body. We are We are the consciousness itself. And so with all these practices

What they allow us to do is to step out of what's called the small sense of self or the body of fear And reconnect with the with a field of connection, of interdependents, of compassion. Um

And to take our history and to honor it. But not be bound by it. One of my favorite stories Um Is it Ramdas again, that's wonderful. spiritual teacher in the early years when he came back from

Being with his guru. Um In India. Uh he was sitting up there And teaching

um you know devotional practices and meditation practices and he had a beard and white robes and a And and deeds and he's sort of in the guru outfit. Um and a woman in the front row raised her hand and said, Ramdas, Ramdas, aren't you Jewish? What's with this Hindu stuff? And Ramda said, Well yes, I am actually I was bar Mitzwood as as I was too. Um

And there are many things I love about the Jewish Mm. uh spiritual tradition, the generosity of it, the The Kabbalah, all the great you know, teachings on the

many stages and states of consciousness, the Hasidic masters who are like Zen masters. And then he paused and looked at me and said, But remember I'm only Jewish on my parents side. And there is something both witty which he was, but also profound about it. Because we are not just

are parental history or or the historical circumstances of this place and body that we were born into. And something in us knows this. So that when you look at the there's a wonderful book that came out. last year or the year before called the Book of Joy. Which was a conversation between the Dalai Lama

An Archbishop Tutu. And both of them have marvelous laughs. I think people go to Here the Dalai Lama by the tens of thousands. Not just for the Tibetan teachings, some of which are actually hard to understand.

Um, or even the fact that he's this Nobel Prize winning, you know World figure. I think people go to hear him laugh. That somebody who's carried so much suffering from the loss of his

country where he can't return and the burning of temples and texts and all of those things. And he and Tutu had a week together when they were asked and to c and this created this book How can you be joyful? How can you laugh? like this when you live through apartheid and the death of so many people around you And Dalai Lama, I mean they they banter back and forth and Like brothers and the almost says, So much has been taken from me.

You know, they've taken our sacred text, they've taken our ability to make prayers in public, they've Taken, you know um so much of our culture. Why should I let them take my happiness?

And then Tutu starts to laugh and giggle and say, You know, I've been through so much. Um but I am not going to let myself live in that place. I'm gonna let myself live in that which affirms life. And in a in a kind of profound Uh joy. um that we made it, that we're still alive, that we can contribute, that we can be here in this beautiful earth.

And this shift of consciousness. is what's needed for the world. Um because we look honestly Um No amount of

Technology alone is gonna save us. nanotechnology and space technology and biotechnology and worldwide web internet computer or supercomputer technology is gonna stop Continuing warfare. And racism. And uh tribalism and environmental destruction.

Those are happening based on consciousness of the human heart. And so we are now, you know, these we've made these enormous developments outwardly where you have the great library of Alexandria and your smartphone in your pocket. Along with a million, you know, cat

U tubes or whatever. But there it is. It's all in there. And then um What we need is um collectively To develop a transformation.

Inwardly of co of of of our inner life. that is parallel to this enormous outer transformation. Um And that's that you know, one of the the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff some years ago said we are a nation of nuclear giants. an ethical infants. You know. Or you know, how old I don't know how old humanity is, but it's time, you know.

Um it's time to grow up. So so that this this work that we're talking about is both individual But as you learn to meet your own life. With greater understanding and compassion. Um it empowers you to move through the world in a different way.

And to help others. Do the same. And then you get that kind of joy of Tutu and the Dai Lama that you're somehow part of an awakening that humanity Now needs more than ever.

Jack, I'd love to Ask you And of these interviews are always s driven by some self interest. I always have some issue or challenge or problem that I'm trying to figure out. So I reach out to someone like you to help me do it, but I record the conversation. Uh Yeah.

As as we chatted about before we hit record and you know this already, but the the last several years have been very, very important for me in terms of addressing certain traumas in the last eight weeks in particular. have been transformative in a lot of beautiful ways. And the periods The

D The duration of periods. Uh have become longer.

But There are still times when the wheels fly off. the car and this last week has been one such example. Uh and I tend to when I make a mistake or feel like I'm backsliding or relapsing to compound the problem by beating myself up, which then I start to be Then I beat myself up about beating myself up and you know where that goes. So let me paint a picture. So I I found out recently

uh that my Japanese host father and I've been in touch with this family since I was fifteen. I'm very, very close to them, forty now. And I found out that he just was admitted Uh because the host mother sent me an email. to the hospital with liver cancer. Yeah.

And this they're they don't have the details yet. I just sent a follow up email. They don't know what the prognosis is exactly, but Uh in n needless to say, the worst case scenarios are are certainly being conjured in my mind, or the potential of those. And uh then uh simultaneously have been contending with

And I believe you have some experience with this. Uh contending with a what should be a very simple construction project of a cabin. Up in the mountains. Uh And it is it has been delayed and delayed and delayed and there have been cost overruns and cost overruns and cost overruns and promises made, promises broken, expectations set, expectations missed. And

a f a friend of mine called with a whole new slew of problems yesterday related to this place and I lost my shit for lack of a better term. I mean there there are many other things going on simultaneously, but I got really pissed and I was like you know what This extending the olive branch being understanding Can't Gambit is not working with these people. Like I I need to I need to I need to take out the baseball bat and like pull old Tim off the shelf, who is just this like juggernaut head through brick walls and be like, listen, fuckface, like if you don't do A, B, C, D, and E here well, these are gonna be the consequences. And then I'm like, well wait. I'm supposed to be compassionate, but how do I not be a pushover?

And it turns into this big dramatic play inside my head and then I wait then This is gonna end soon. I'm not gonna keep going. But what I then often do is self medicate with caffeine. And I think it's a way of feeling productive without actually being productive and it also

creates so much volume on the noise, I think I use it to tune out. A lot of feelings. Uh So when Someone.

relapses or has this kind of experience What do you suggest to them? I mean is there uh is there particular Pattern interrupt or approach that you've found helpful for regaining footing? Oh, so there's a number of things to say.

Um Yeah, first of all. Um you could call it relapsing or you could just call it like yeah, this is being human. most beloved poet in Japan was a Zen master named Ryokan. And there's a two line verse that

Of his that I Particularly It's a fine fitting for this where he wrote. Last year a foolish monk.

This year. No change. You know? And you can sort of feel the humor and the tenderness in it. Um and and there's a way in which you see your personality. The point, you know, you have a body, you have this particular body you're born with, and you can transform it in certain ways. within the limits of the body that you were given. Um A and similarly you have a personality. And anybody who has a number of kids realizes that you don't come in tabla rasa that you actually

This kid is born and has this kind of temperament. So we have a personality. And just like you don't want to look too closely to the b at the body sometimes. You don't want to look back closely at the personality either. Um you know, it has its foibles and its fears and, you know, all of that.

Um and so you start to kinda look at it and say, Oh well, there's a really good example of how neurotic I can get. Thank you. Thank you for s reminding me. You know, and then you get a little sort of like the keeper of the zoo, a little more tender with those those kind of creatures. Uh so that's that's it's bringing in the non judgment. You know

uh or the loving kindness for the way that you actually are. And not your ideal. Um or bringing compassion, you could say, Yeah, this is a tough one and this triggered. I got triggered. So what? Um now the the other thing is that I had the same experience where we had a a big remodel of our house when I was Some years ago.

um um raising my daughter and and in my first marriage. And we were supposed to go and Teach and travel in Europe in this guy. Good contractor, but you know, everything of course gets more expensive when you have to do this. And it

kept getting slowed down. I said, You were gonna get this done so we could make these decisions before we went to Europe. And it's not happening. You've gotta hurry up. I do that like three or four different times and it doesn't happen. Finally I go in. I get Test.

And I say, Listen. You know, you said this in our contract it was gonna be done by the and if you don't fucking get this done by the time of I'm gonna paw your ass in court and sue you'cause I I need this done. And I'm not gonna pay you the goddamn money. He looked at me and he said, Oh, you really want this done, don't you? I said yes.

Next day there's a huge crew, it starts to get done and I realize, Okay, what I've been sort of talking meditation speak. Yeah, nice get it done. He was a fucking contractor. And I just had to teach I had to speak contractor ease. Get the goddamn job done, or I'll haul your ass and Oh, okay, I get I get it. Yeah, I'll I'll send the team over. And that's all it took.

So there's something playful about that as well. It's not that you can't I I've seen the Dai Lama get angry at people. It's not that you can't use that power. And that understanding

Um you know, when it's necessary to get to be very strong or forceful. Um uh and you don't have to judge yourself unless you hurt people. And then of course that's the misuse of it. Um But it's just it's part of being human.

Um Is there something you say to yourself When I think I don't know. You are Uh certainly in person and any with any contact I've had of you

With you. Uh one of the most Compassionate people I've ever met. And I I I've I don't use that word very much, but you're your presence of listening and being with someone is really

Incredible. Uh And I I don't know how much of that is in in intrinsic versus trained, but For better or for worse, you're coming out of the womb, I've been very uh impatient since day one. So I worry about Uh I can get my it seems like my default is the yell is is speaking contractor ease to

uh more than just the The wayward contractor who's uh who's putting up work. Is there some when I feel that the sensations of anger beginning to bubble up. Is there something that you would suggest as self talk or

Just a temporary pumping of the brakes to make it an informed decision versus just a lashing out. Well, um I could give you an answer, but in a minute I'm gonna guide you in a little Practice so that you can find the find the better answer. First I just wanna say

That um that anger You know, yes it's your habit or maybe your temperament. That's energy. And there's nothing wrong with energy, you know, it's it's the power to let you do all the kind of things you've you've done in your life that are tremendously, you know

creative or resourceful or daring or whatever kinds of things. So you are a respect, I'm getting filled with energy. And and you you know, it might be then you want to Lash out. But first you want to respect that energy. Wow, let me feel this in my body. Woo, anger. How big is it? Woo.

Okay. Then your question is then your question is what can I do to modulate it? I could give you, you know, okay, take some breaths, ground yourself. Look at that other person, bla blah blah blah. But instead As we're talking. Um let yourself

Um picture a circumstance recently. It might have been with your you know, the contractor is doing your cabin or something else. And you're s you know that Uprising of

Um The injustice of it. And how right you are. you know, and how you're gonna get this goddamn thing done. You know, and how you have to have to be hard and strong. You feel all that and feel the energy in your body.

First thing is just remember what it felt like. And now you're becoming the the kind of mindful loving witness of it and saying, Wow, this is a lot of energy. So can you feel that and remember that? Oh yeah. Now next. Okay. Now next step.

Um is that um The wisest you know, figure you can imagine. Maybe it's the Buddha or Or maybe it's I don't know, it doesn't

doesn't matter some great master or martial arts master. You know. Who's mastered themselves as well as their art comes to you. And let yourself imagine somebody's gonna teach you. How to

Manage this powerful energy. And see who appears. Somebody appears to you. Mm-hmm. Um And first. They look at you and they smile and they say, Yeah, this is really this is the big energy.

Um and they appreciate you. So instead of saying, Oh, you're a doofus You know, they say, Oh yeah, you actually you actually carry some powerful energy and they acknowledge that. They bow to you. Yeah, Tim, you got it. All right. And then you say, Yeah, but how do I manage this when it takes me over? And so this send master or whoever comes, reaches under their robe.

And pulls out a a gift for you. Which is a clear symbol. of exactly what you need in that moment. To help you regulate it so that you can keep the energy

But do it in a way that doesn't cause harm to you or another. And this clear symbol you'll be able to see it's just what you need. So let yourself picture the gift that they put in your hand. And let yourself imagine, see, envision, picture. what it what it is.

And if you It can't see it clearly, hold it up to the sunlight. You'll be able to. And then let me know what you get. You want me to tell you what it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright.

So the person who came to mind for me, I went through a few Was the Creator of Judo. Fascinating guy named Gigo Rocano, really small small guy. Uh.

Yes, who could who could throw all the big guys and smile at the same time. Right. Exactly. Changed a lot also in Japanese government. Fascinating guy. The s the symbol I I don't know why this is, to be honest, but it's a Uh pyramid. The size with with with straight edges. About

W little too big to hold in your palm that is uh uh blue. It's like a a c sort of almost a a mixture of sca pure sky blue, like uh Blue bird blue. with uh a bit of Electric blue mixed in. And it's sort of a a smoky vapor that's floating around inside this

I guess glass pyramid. I d I have no idea why that's the case, but that's what came up. All right, so we'll stay with it and then there's one more little piece. So it gives you this This pyramid. Um

Uh free associate a little bit on Pure what it might possibly mean,'cause these symbols are like dream images and they have they come from a deep place in your psyche. And this pyramid has a message for you. This blue. Just guess what it might be.

I I think it's very, very stable. Uh it's an extremely stable structure. And Uh for me It also

I I could imagine it representing power also. It seems like a very powerful symbol in many different cultures, certainly. Yeah. Uh The blue the blue is a little easier for me. It's a very cooling, soothing color where uh certainly red is the the color I would associate with a fire with the

the uh high uh resonance anger energy would be more of a red fire element. Uh so the blue would be a a cooling or countering Balancing force for that. All right, so now what I want you to do is imagine

Taking this Blue Pyramid Gift. Which represents A kind of extreme stability. um and also a kind of power and cooling that's given to you by Gigaro Kano.

And taking this Into your body. So that there you are filled with this energy and anger, you know, you this huge wave of Um You let that be there.

And you take this pyramid in And you let that energy be inside this stable grounded Place of power and feel what it's like. To be inside this blue pyramid with this energy and feel how it feel feel how it affects it.

Just notice. As if there you're in that circumstance and now I'm remembering I am the blue pyramid. With uh And what do you you know, what does it feel like? Uh well I f the mo the most

Noticable thing. And uh I wonder, of course, how much of this is the the actual visualization versus the timeout that that I permit myself to have, but uh there's a there's Very often a tightness on the left side of my chest, right by the sternum. that I feel when I start getting uh Wound up.

And that is Absent. When uh After taking this gift and then visualizing it being incorporated.

So that's what you what you're practicing, you know, and and you know this very well in athletics that Yes, you practice things, but other times you also practice envisioning, whether it's playing piano or whether it's you know, some Some Olympic Training. That some of the times you just do it

um through visualization and it activates a lot of the same neural circuitry. So here you're starting to get the feeling Of what it's like to be in the middle of this upwelling of anger And so forth.

And then taking a couple of breaths. And feeling the blue pyramid and the connection with the earth and the stability of it. And the power then of of that presence. that cools you and allows the anger to be there, but not in the same

uncontrolled way. Now there's one more thing. And that is if you imagine again Gigoro Kano, I believe you said his name is. You got it. Um up to you after giving you this gift.

And he touches you kindly on the shoulder. And he has a few words of advice. of how to handle this powerful energy that comes up in you'cause he knows all about it. And what does he whisper into your ear? Yeah.

Well he whispers this this this came to mind immediately. Mm-hmm. He he says. Uh Zenyo Kozenio, which is Uh, you know, I ha I still have this actually. There are two

he has many famous quotes, but he he has what you might consider proverbs short aphorisms that I I've actually carried with me since I was fifteen, but they're packed away they're packed away somewhere. I have two of them. They're on cloth. Uh and The The first is Tomere but

Which means basically if you If you work hard you will achieve, you will reach your your target. It's not the best translation, but that's the idea. The other one is Zen Yoko Zenyo, which is Uh effectively. the most efficient use of energy, but it could also be the the best slash most benevolent use of energy.

And it's It's a principle of Judo, but it's something that he applied. to everything, uh, includ including education. So it would be That very short bite sized aphorism, which is Uh and I'm sure some scholars probably disagree with me, but roughly translated here.

At least as I take it is the maximum or most efficient use of energy. So take that in, take his c his intentions on Zenyo Kozenio. Um the benevolent and efficient use of it. Feel the pyramid and now

Um your assignment is that the next Um Five times. that this comes, which it will, maybe tomorrow or next week or so forth. Bring in the blue pyramids, stable

Powerful, cooling. So the energy's still there, and then you hear his voice say, Zen Yoco, Zenyo And you go, Oh yeah, I can use this, but I can use it in a benevolent way. Um and try it five times. And then then um

Text me. Let me know what happened. Because now we're closing the loop. If you do it. And see now you now you're responsible if you agree that you're gonna do it. It sort of goos it gooses the game a little bit. You go, Okay, now I I better do it'cause I have to let Jack know what happened. And let me know what happened.

Well I'll be able to I'll be able to use it this week because I'm flying out to the site of this cabin to meet with everybody and see what the hell's going on. So I'll I'll have at least five opportunities to do that. I mean the other thing that that's that's Great. And then that you can hear in this rather than by giving you a cookie cutter answer. is that we actually have The wisdom that we're seeking or that's available

We have it in ourselves. I mean you didn't have to Fly to you know, Kyoto and getting your time machine to go back and see Gigaro Kao. Um you know, or whoever it happens to be, the Dai Lama or whoever happens to come to you. um the Buddha or or some other great figure.

That actually The goddess of compassion. That we carry that wisdom in our own heart. And part of what these contemplative trainings do is is they give us access.

Just by taking a little pause. It didn't take you thirty seconds. Okay, he appears. What do I do? Ah, here's how my body would feel. What what perspective should I bring. Ah, here's efficient and benevolent use of energy. Okay, now I remember. So these answers are

For the for the questions of the psyche and the heart. Don't require Going somewhere. They ask us to quiet.

And begin to listen. And as you do then you discover your own in your own inherent wisdom And your own compassion as well,'cause The the benevolent use that he

Offers to you. Where does that live? It lives In Tim. It lives in you.

One of the One of the reasons I've I've wanted to have you on the podcast for so long is that For me you represent A very a wide spectrum of tools. You have developed a toolkit that it has enabled you

to work with everyone from the uh the the seekers of, say, the Buddhist um al along the lines of the Buddhist traditions to say adolescents who are cutters to war vets with PTSD, missing limbs, and so on, you've worked with a very Uh diverse set.

Uh uh students and uh patients maybe even uh And that leads me to my next question, which is After these experiences Abroad, why did you decide

To pursue to come back why did you decide to come back to the US, period, and then why did you decide to Uh go back to school. and study clinical psychology. So um after the first five years in Asia

Um There were certain there were a few other Westerners who would become monks. It was a handful. And some were gonna stay for the rest of their lives. I'd learned a lot.

And so that was kind of a choice. Am I just gonna stay? And I realized, no, I want a family. I want a lover. You know, I was a young man after all, and just the celibacy for those years was actually pretty hard. Um

I want um I wanna see if what I have learned really translates. Um Into the

Life back home. I don't want to just leave it. Um and so I was some wrestling, but it became very clear to me. That I that I I wasn't fit for the mm monastery for the rest of my life. I had other not only other desires, but also and longings Um but also we're real interest to say, does this work elsewhere?

Um so I came back and thought, Well what can I do? I got got a couple of jobs and Right away. And of course what what I knew how to do was be a student, but I was now a student of the mind and the heart. And I thought, Well, how do I learn more about what happened to me in the monastery? Oh, I'll study Western psychology.

And so that started me on that. Particular. Path. And I learned a lot of complimentary things. There's some very good drama work in the West that I've learned about that Really? enhances the compassion and loving kindness and

mindfulness things that I learned in In the temple. Um And uh you know Now I've done a lot of years of teaching Eastern Western psychology together.

these principles that I've learned are spreading so widely in Western psychology. I went to the largest therapy conference in In um The country. Um in December Down in Anaheim.

And gave a talk, and you know, here's a room full of three thousand or five thousand people. And I ask how many of you have um some experience of meditation or mindfulness practice. And the majority of the hands went up. And that would not have happened, you know.

twenty or thirty years ago. So Um the eastern psychology is now becoming more invisible woven into the understandings.

um of uh clinical psychology in the rest and it's beautiful. Now I I wanna say something else. You know, when you talk about working with a variety of population You know, um

Yes, people in prisons, yes, um that's or kids coming out of gangs. But also uh um CEOs and There's a uh A dialogue that Bill Ford and I did. He was the at that time the um chairman of Ford Voters.

Um he was actually the CEO perhaps. before that, but then he was he's the chairman of Ford Motors. And uh he talks about it too. It was d in um Two thousand and eight, I guess.

when the auto industry was just about to melt down Um and uh He called, we've had some contact, he's a meditator. And he said, You know, I'm gonna lose the the c my grandfather's company and maybe the whole industry on my watch and it's hard to sleep, what can I do?

And we did loving kindness practices and And um mindfulness practices together and so forth, and I gave him some practices that he could use Um and it turns out that at whatever level you're on

whether you're incarcerated or whether you're a CEO or whether you're A returning that. That these inner capacities that we have. To be present.

Without getting Lost to bring a um a an understanding attention to these energies, just as you were doing with anger in ourselves. um can are really, really liberating. And sometimes, you know

What's needed like for the vets or the The People coming back from the war is um also a kind of forgiveness practice in trauma work. Um and we'll come together and

You know, they'll say things like Um I can't tell you what I saw. Because in fact People don't want to hear the horrors of war. You they can't tell the story and if they do often they re traumatize themselves.

And the people around them. couldn't bear. Yeah. But there's something worse. Because I'll say

I can't tell you what I had to do. And so it's locked up in their hearts, you know, and then what do they have they can drink or they can, you know Um distract themselves or or or get in, you know, blind rages periodically. But if you get a room of returning combat vets

And hold it with um a proper space of understanding and compassion. Not only Can they tell their stories which they've never told

But they can listen to one another and say, Oh yeah, I've been there And all of a sudden they're not so alone anymore. and and that release of the weight on their heart. Um

Uh so there's a social dimension to trauma where we need to tell the story Um helps them release also what's carried in their nervous system and in their body and there's some some correlation between between those two together. that becomes very powerful.

Um and we need that. We need I I do a lot of teaching of forgiveness practice and self forgiveness. Those are also on those. those guided meditations that I teach. And for a lot of us self forgiveness like self compassion. becomes a very, very important

way to liberate ourselves from what we had to do to survive in the past. So that we're actually free in our life. How do you set the stage, for instance, with those With those vets.

What do you say to them or what what exercise might you do That opens the door for them to share these stories. So a couple of images, one with gang kids and then one with vets. Um What For for gang kids who come in or these kids who are trying to get out of gangs and might come with a mentor or something like that to some events we've had.

You get these guys and they're, you know. Yeah, they're Yeah. their hood's up and their hats are on backward and they're leaning back and saying, Like, come on, man, you're gonna teach us meditation, you're gonna teach us give us some poem stories or bit Listen, man, we're out on the street.

People got nine millimeters, you do you gotta give us something better than that. So we try to make a uh setting That honor is a Who they are.

from the very beginning we say, Well we can't talk yet about the real things that we came here to do. 'Cause there are too many people in this room who have not been acknowledged. Um And not been Respected.

So would you go out in the parking lot? And pick up a stone for every young person you know who's been killed. And we light one candle and put it in the center of a table. Say bring it back in and say their name. and put their stone by this candle.

The simplest possible ritual. And these guys and sometimes gals will come in. And their hands are full of stones. No young people should know that many dead people. And and they'll say this is for Tito and this is for R J and this is for home girl.

And pretty soon There's a mound of stones. And the names of People they've lost. Um

More Que into the the fabric of the air of that room. And their hoods are no longer over their heads. They're sitting up like okay, this is a place where we can talk about what's really going on. So there's something about making whether it's through

um as the simplest ritual Or making a container. In which people realize that this is a safe place. to talk about what we've never done before. With the vets, one of the things that Michael Mead, Luis Rodriguez, these guys from

Mosaic Multicultural Foundation that I've worked with for years and are really wonderful Um Michael who's a You know A great drummer and a storyteller and mythologist who's also been working in prisons and with vets and gang kids for years.

He'll say, Let me tell you An ancient story of returning warriors. And he has a handful of stories from Africa or Tibet or the Mayan tradition About warriors coming back. You know, with their hands covered with blood.

Um And you know, their eyes have filled with Um Yeah. The

Mars with the martial energy that they would That they can't stop the violence because it's taken them over. And here's A myth or a story. that tells about how ancient warriors were brought back into their community.

Um I'll tell you the myth if you want to hear one of them. Oh yes, please. So here we are. You know, and there's these There's these vets and already stories have started to pour out about

Um, I can't tell you what I saw. I can't tell you what I had to do. Um and Michael stood up and he said, Let me tell you an old Irish story of a um an Irish warrior named Cocoane, or I'm not sure how his name is pronounced, something like that. Um then he was the most the fierce and famous of all Irish warriors

And the Irish warriors were were madmen um because they would go out they'd paint their bodies and they'd go out naked and sometimes you just see them coming and you'd run the other way. But anyway, there was some marauding Um King King King and Army that had come. To threaten their area and so co

Kou Lane went out and almost single handedly chased them and defeated them. But then he was coming back. To his own Town. In a chariot.

Um Covered with blood. uh and um his eyes blazing Bearing down on his own town still possessed with the violence of war.

with the god Mars. Um And they were all terrified he would come and do violence there too. And so they're what can we do? What can we do? Um

And uh They went to ask the old wise woman in the village. And she said three things. And so the first thing they lined up all the women in the village Who bare their breasts.

And this slowed him down. Um as if it reminded him of his mother's milk or something. Um And because it was slowed down then the second thing they did Let's take a rope.

And tie it around him. And put him in a Huge cauldron of cold water which hissed off his body. And then they filled it three times with cold water. And finally his body cooled down.

And then the third thing they did is they took Yeah. Yeah still bound. And they lay him on a carpet in the court of the local king. Um

And they sang to him the stories and myths and songs of Of warriors. who had s protected the kingdom and then come back. And released the violence and the fears. That they carried.

And planted their crops again and love their Families. Um and resumed living in harmony with the community from which they came. And they told the ancient stories and sang the songs for three days and nights.

And when it was over Co Kulane's eyes opened, they let his they untied him. And he was back as a normal human being again. And after Michael told this story to vets who'd been t telling And terrible. accounts of things that happened.

Um in this room Um a hundred men stood up and we'd been working with a simple African chant, a song It was really an African chant of a prayer, you know. Um

Earth hold me for this living is hard. Um We all sang to the deaths. um together. For a long time.

As if we could sing them back into their bodies. From this as if they were la lying there in the the court of the king. Um So this is and you asked the question.

How do you how do you make a setting? That allows uh people to truly feel that they can tell their stories. Um and be held in compassion. Whether it's the grief of these gang kids.

that no one's really given them the place to give voice to. You know, or the that who says I can't tell you what I had to do. That's very Powerful.

And it it makes me also Think back to Conversations I've had with uh Sebastian Younger, who was uh A wartime.

Journalist. As as as uh co produced and shot a number of really harrowing uh documentary films including Restrepo.

uh and most recently wrote wrote a book called Tribe, uh, that touches on some similar topic area and Leads me to ask you Would be

useful for every man or woman to experience be b in fr and uh this is something that I've felt a a longing for and a lack of uh since my teenage years because I I I'm not Jewish, did not have a bot mitzvah bar mitzvah. I don't know if that serves that purpose in the in the Jewish tradition necessarily, but are there any Any rituals or rites of passage that you think we could use in let's just say the United States. Uh That would be helpful. Two

whether it's a specific population, specific group or Uh anyone. So um what you're talking about is a really big subject. It's a subject of initiation and Unfortunately bar mitzvahs at least when I was near Where's was a relatively lightweight and meaningless thing. You get up there and you

recite your, you know, Hebrew portion of the Bible and Now you're a man and they give you a bunch of presents and there wasn't a lot of meaning in it. But the pr the problem that you raise is that of the lack of initiation and what's true Is that it's been forgotten in our culture. Um one of the few places you get initiation uh

It's going into the military. That's an initiation. Um But a lot of these Gang kids, for example, they're trying to initiate themselves, which can't really happen. You need elders and you need it in a ritualized way. But don't go on the you know, if you're um i in the Maasai

Uh tradition in East Africa and the Maasai people. Um As everybody's heard. You know, a young man at a certain age of fourteen or something

We'll go out. And kill a lion. um to prove that they're now um tr an adult member of the society and that they're brave and that's part of their initiation. Um there were initiations for young women as well. Um and it's not just in Africa, the Mayans had initiations. And in Thailand when I lived there back

Starting in the nineteen sixties. At that point. Almost every young man and many young women When they reached The age of nineteen twenty.

they became a monk for three months or for a year. and lived in an austere way and it was part of their initiation. To learn both the inner life of themselves And also a kind of discipline. We don't have it.

And because of it, you know, kids are trying to initiate themselves on the streets by you know, shooting somebody or doing something You know, that shows that they're brave, but it's not a lion, it's another person. Or it's you know Um

Trying to get the attention of the others and say sh prove how How powerful or strong they are. So we desperately need these. And we need them built into our education and to our psychology.

Um and I can't give you a simple answer, but one of the people who has the most intelligence about this is a man, a colleague of mine named Michael Mead. Um and if you look on mosaic multicultural foundation His writings on initiation and what's possible here and the things he's led are very, very

Um Inspiring. Um so that's a place that I would look. That's a good starting point. Wonderful. I will definitely find that. Well, Jack, I think we could go for hours and hours and hours and I always love chatting with you and I'd love to perhaps even consider doing a part two sometime, but Uh given that we've already gone for two plus hours, uh I wanna ask just a f a few more questions.

And uh I'll actually start with just reading something very short, which is from your two thousand seventeen year end. Message. And uh this is I think this is Just to inject some more

Yeah. uh optimism. into our conversation, which we've already had plenty of, but uh This is this is just a small portion of your year and message. Martin Luther King Jr. describes our collective journey with hope.

quote, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice, end quote. And Pablo Naruto explains further You can cut all the flowers, but you cannot keep spring from coming. Renewal is happening. This is back to your voice. Take quiet time to listen to your heart, to meditate, and to rest amidst the great turnings. Feel the renewal of spring that can be born in you.

Align yourself with goodness. Let yourself blossom like a lotus or whatever unique flower you are, shining in the world, offering tiny seeds of love amidst it all. Blessings to you in two thousand eighteen. Jack. And I I I want this.

This note. lead into Uh and certainly you're welcome to comment on that. But which book you would recommend of yours people start with, or where they start with all of the many materials, recordings, readings that you produce, because y you're a

A fantastic writer and a prolific writer. Uh you have some of my favorite book titles I've ever heard, by the way, including After the Ecstasy, The Laundry, which maybe we could touch on, but where would you suggest people start uh of the many things that you've that you've written and shared with the world? Uh and and if you have any. comments on that year in message, you're welcome to share that as well. So For books if you want something simple, I have books like um

you know, an introduction to meditation that Sounds true publishes Or I have um um a little book called The Art of Forgiveness, Loving, Kindness and Peace, which is very simple stories and practices. Um If you want something that's richer

And Fuller then you could look at one of my bigger books like A Path with Heart or The Wise Heart, The Guide to the Mm-hmm. Principles of Buddhist psychology. Um and again I think lots of stuff online and soundstrews. particularly a good place to go along with my website.

Um Then and that forty day mindfulness, mindfulness daily, which is like it's like thirty bucks or something and you You know. um is a really wonderful way to start. Um

In terms of what I had written, uh about the trusting heart. One of the greatest Zentax. from a thousand years ago says to be awakened or enlightened. um is one with the trusting heart and mind.

And it doesn't mean that that we won't go through hard times. We always have, and we will again, and we are now in many ways. But that we also have born within us the capacity um to meet these difficulties with

Uh understanding. Um with courage, with compassion. And to transform them. And in that way, m one of my favorite recent books is um called The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker.

Um and he's a remarkable, you know, professor at Harvard, anthropologist, historian. Talk about Um the growing consciousness of humanity in spite of the kind of wars and conflict and environmental things, there are so many good things that have happened that he charts over the last few centuries of the development of

Um You know uh certain certain abilities for peacemaking, there's actually less war than there'd been um the you know respect for For women, um, the reduction in

uh you know, child labor, all kinds of things and and in that same regard. Um there's a wonderful book called Bury the Chains. Which is about the ending of slavery in the British Empire. Starting with this handful of men. Um, who met in a British

T shop or printing shop. And spent thirty years Um Riding around the country bringing X slaves who are well spoken to talk about the middle passage and the

You know, the horrors of slavery And so forth. And even though the British Empire's economic engine was built around slavery and sugar. By the end of their Work.

Um of thirty years. Uh the the British Parliament um outlined slavery in the British Empire. S you know, decades before it happened in the US.

And and the Quakers were a big part of this and the Quakers famously wouldn't take their hats off for the king. Um but when um what is his name, Thomas Clarkson. Who was the center of this group. trying to end slavery and going everywhere to do it.

When Thomas Clarkson died. the all the Quakers of the England England took their hats off. Because he'd he'd freed so many spirits and so many lives. So the possi we have these amazing possibilities as human beings, and we're just growing into them now. Culturally. Um and it's about time.

Um but it's it but they're the they are possible. And we Um each have a I have a contribution to make in it. Jack, I'm gonna ask you one more uh question before we wrap up with uh just uh letting people know where they can find you on social media and elsewhere on the website and so on. But last question is one I like to ask

And this is this is Uh metaphor but If you could have a short Message on a billboard. uh in other words, get a m uh get a message out to millions or billions of people. Could be a few words, one word, uh phrase, a quote of yours, a quote of someone else's.

Uh what might you put on that billboard? Um Well two things come to mind. Uh One is a question that when I've sit with

sat with people many times at the end of their life. that they that they then ask of themselves silently or out loud is Did I love well? Because in the end what matters really Um

W the billboard would have a question rather than a statement. Um And it would have a question something like, um Uh how could I love myself better? Or what

You know, so that it actually it's not that I'm gonna tell them. Something. They already know this, but I'm gonna remind Those who read that there is something that's asking to be awakened in them.

How could I love myself and this world better? And then You know, or what gets and you know, then you go, Well gets in the way of that and how could I love that too? How could I love myself in this world better? Hm.

Well Jack, I want to of course thank you for your time today, but uh beyond that, I want to thank you and this is this is very Um Very much from the Deep in my heart.

Thank you for helping me. to learn to love myself better and quite frankly To see something. in the first place that is worth loving. That's not uh where I've spent most of my life. So it's it's turned into

Uh if not my I hesitate to say my top priority because I'm I worry about sounding Self indulgent, but it's become one of the most important and fruitful uh tasks in my life is Asking that question. How could I love myself better, or how could I learn to love myself better. So thank you

very, very sincerely, uh, for that. And the the words don't do it justice, but uh I'll uh I'll I'll uh that's all that's the best I can do right now remotely is to is to put it into words. So thank you for that. Thank you, Tim. This was this was a pleasure to do. And what I feel and I know. Is it as you tend your own heart?

Um in a wise way. Then it makes you available. to bring the gifts the many gifts you have to the world. You personally and others. Um

But to do it in a way that's on the carrier wave of connection and love and it transforms everything. So thank you too. Well, Jack, I uh you know, I'm looking at a text thread of ours and I'm feeling the necklace around my neck, which is really a thread, a red thread that was used to close the one of the elements of the closing of the ten day silent retreat. And I shot you a text not too long ago asking what the three knots meant because I'd forgotten

Mm-hmm. And this is what you wrote back. First knot equals refuge in whatever you hold as most inspiring and sacred. Second Commitment to compassion for self and others. Third, following your highest intention. And the intention that I've set at the end of that ten day retreat was to learn to love myself

so I could love others more fully. Uh, but I realize that maybe what it is Is Learning to love myself so I can help others. learn to do the same. And you've been an integral piece of that. And uh I I

Just love that I have the opportunity to introduce you and your work. and these traditions to more people and uh I will certainly be linking to Uh where everyone can find you online. But are there any particular best places just to to reiterate where people can find you and I'll link to these in the show notes. Uh

Jackhornfield.com and also look up Jack Hornfield on Sounds True dot com for those programs that I talked about. And then Spirit Rock.org, which is our great meditation center in um the Bay San Francisco Bay area. Absolutely stunning, stunning, beautiful location. Worth visiting just to bathe in the scenery, but uh many more reasons to to visit as well. Uh

Well Jack, thank you again. And Thank you. Thank you, Tim. It's a pleasure. And to everybody listening. Uh You can find show notes, links to all the resources, books, and everything that we discussed at tim.blog forward slash podcast. And until next time.

Thank you so much for listening. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? And would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off. for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out. And just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

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