#531: Henry Shukman — Zen, Tools for Awakening, Ayahuasca vs. Meditation, Intro to Koans, and Using Wounds as the Doorway

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Sure. Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. My guest today is Henry Schokman. S-H-U-K-M-A-N. You can find him on Instagram at Mountain Cloud Zen Center. Henry teaches mindfulness and awakening practices to a wide range of students from all traditions and walks of life. Henry is an appointed teacher in the Sambo Zen lineage and is the guiding teacher

of Mountain Cloud Zen Center. He was introduced to me by my very close friend Kevin Rose. That is how this came to be he has an MA from Cambridge. and an M. Lett from Saint Andrews, and has written several award winning books of poetry and fiction. His essays have been published in the New York Times, Outside and Tricycle, and his poems have been published in The New Republic Guardian Sunday Times that's in the UK and London Review of Books. Henry has taught meditation at Google, Harvard Business School, UBS, Eslin Institute, Colorado College. United World College and many other venues. He has written of his own journey. In his latest book, One Blade of Grass, subtitle Finding.

The Old Road of the Heart, a Zen memoir. And that book was gifted to me by the aforementioned Kevin Rose, affectionately known as Kev Kev, on this podcast very often. The website is mountaincloud.org. You can find Both Henry and Mountain Cloud Zen Center on Instagram at Mountain Cloud Zen Center Facebook Facebook.com slash M T N Cloud Zen and you can find Henry on LinkedIn, LinkedIn.com slash IN slash Henry Hyphen Shuman S H U K M A N. Henry, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me. Rena, truly honored and humbled to be with you.

I'm excited to dig in and as I mentioned before we start recording, I think we will run out of time before we run out of material, but we must start somewhere. So I wanted to start in perhaps an odd place. And That is to go into mythology for a moment. And specifically to talk about if I'm getting the pronunciation right.

Typhon, the mythological beast who lived under the volcano Etna, and I've read that at one point you felt like this mythological beast, and I would love for you to explain why. That is the case. Okay, well that's going right back to early years. Great place to start actually. Basically I had Raging.

Severe Eczema. That's a skin. Affliction. Many people might

know of it and think of it as just a rash or something now and then but It can be quite a little bit. Severe. And I had it chronically for I guess like more or less the first it's hard to say two to three decades of my life starting from the age of six months.

And When I was a kid I was Often in hospital for stretches and stuff, it was it was at that sort of level. And Tiphon

I remember hearing about him in class at school, you know, in Greek mythology. lived under Mount Etna, the volcano. And He kind of Could survive the sulphurous.

Raging heat down there. And I lived quite a lot of my early life in A kind of sulphurous raging heat. That came out through my skin.

I mean I don't wanna overdramatize it, but from living it from the inside. It was very difficult. Being slowly on fire or something. Eczema is When it's bad, it itches

To an unimaginable degree. It's really quite debilitating and The doctors in the UK in the nineteen seventies when I was growing up They didn't really have a lot of great sort of tools. They had One tool that was really

Effective, which was heavy steroids. But they didn't like to use them. The thing that really made the big difference for me was actually Meditation. Early mid twenties.

And it made a dramatic difference. Quite quickly. Over it. Forever. Things really shifted.

Once I started. Meditating and I'm not suggesting that all eczema sufferers will find the same thing'cause it's a complicated Multi faceted. Affliction.

And they're on Clear cut. Factors actually, it really is rather tricky, I think, for a lot of people to To handle it. But for me that

Peace of Essentially. Getting a method. For Calming the nervous system.

Which I had not. Realised needed calming, by the way. The thing is, again, if you grow up with this kind of thing. I think anybody with a chronic Ailment of some kind.

I mean I suppose it depends when you first get it, but Especially for kids, you just think this is normal. You don't know that there's something Dysfunctional going on. It's just this is how the world is.

In my case I started to Actually taste. A different kind of way of being alive. It was a really big deal. It was it was wondrous to me. I was just gonna hop in to also paint a picture for folks because

You had this Itching, weeping, bleeding, and so forth. And the severity of it. Is remarkable in when I've read it. At least that is.

Having a district nurse coming to you daily, laying you in a towel, bathing you in antiseptic solution, wrapping you in coal tar bandages. And so on. I mean this was a Non trivial. Condition and When you say that you

weren't even aware that the nervous system needed calming. Do you think the eczema was in response to something that that was a psychosomatic and not in a Not in a way that diminishes it. But literally psycho hyphen somatic response to Something?

That you can identify? Do you have any? Thoughts on what generated that experience? Well, yes I do, actually. I th I mean of course in a certain sense this is kind of Private personal mythology of another kind. But what I know happened was that

When I was six months old. My parents were living for a semester in Helsinki and Actually Both my parents were professors.

Both in Russian. And they had a My dad actually, I think, had a fellowship in Helsinki University for for a semester. And we all went over there. That was my older brother. Myself just six months old.

Mom and Dad. And This may sound a little fanciful, but it's actually real and true, but because this was actually back in the nineteen sixties. When the cold war was really hot you know, hot. It's really happening. At that time.

Basically anybody Who could speak Russian? In Britain. Was likely to be in some way or other approached and used by

Uh intelligence. Community. And that was true of my mum and my dad. They were both recruited early on actually while they were studying Russian still. To uh

Am I five or am I six? And they didn't do anything. You know, massively sort of it wasn't kinda James Bond's stuff, you know, it was just like Could you Tell us about this scientist who's just been sent to the gulag or

Can you read this report? And occasionally they'd get Involved in the Little minor operations or whatever. This all came to light much later, by the way. After the fifty years of the official secrets act had

Expired when a lot came to light about Things that have been going on in the world of espionage. In the UK. With the Soviet Union. But

While they were in Helsinki, My dad Was requested that he would go to Leningrad, which is just Not so far away across the Gulf of Finland.

And my mom I don't know the exact circumstances, but For whatever reason she went to And that was how she weaned me. So she left this baby that had been seemingly well.

Went to Russia. For whatever they were doing there. Came back. A week later, or ten days later, or five days later, I've heard different versions of the story. And when they got back I was covered in eczema.

And so I imagine that I went through something pretty difficult. Well My mother was suddenly gone. And at the same time.

is weaned of the breast and put on Formula. And by probably somebody I didn't know. And It must have been very, very difficult for me.

I think in some way that If I can call it trauma, which I guess I can. That trauma. Very, very important for my whole life, actually. And even for

The Pass. Two and beyond awakening. I'm very interested these days in how trauma and awakening relate to each other. I think I'm not the only one. People are starting to look into that.

There's something about Deep wounding. There can be a pathway. It's a deep, deep love. It's a very beautiful thing when

The wound becomes the doorway. I think there's always that potential with a wound, but We tend to a creed protection over a wound.

And sort of Stay away from a wound and you know, avoid it and live as if it weren't there. So unpicking the defenses. And actually Finding

Some kind of way. Usually it needs support, actually. Some sort of supported way. To go into our wounds. And what we find there in the place that we're most terrified of Can be just It caused pain.

But also great, great love. Honestly, in certain ways. I'm jumping Crazily ahead, Tim, in terms of a trajectory. But to me there's something just Amazing at how Deep, deep wound and deep, deep awakening. They've got things in common.

That I find mind blowing and really, really beautiful. And I think there's a blessing in going into our wounds and Maybe to a lot of people this sounds crazy, but I really think Often the thing that we fear most, the thing that

Seems most what we don't want. Can turn out to be The Great opening. For us.

What type of meditation did you start with? What was your first entree to meditation which helped you to calm your nervous system and begin to resolve The Exama. That was T M Transcendental Meditation.

In the sort of late eighties, but then in London. That was the most sort of conspicuous game in town. If you wanted to meditate. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. They still had this kind of cachet in England'cause the Beatles had done it. For sure.

They went out to Rishikesh or whatever it was and hung out with Maharishi. Mahesh. Yogi. And so there was this sort of Endorsement.

That somehow T M. wasn't sort of too weird. Uh it's kinda weird, but not so weird. And actually the Tagline was

Life tool for the busy. That's great. I've never heard that. Ha ha ha. So they kind of

Undercut any worry that you might be sort of checking out from life and going into some weird cult. This was gonna help your career. That's how all the best cards get you. I also I still practice TM at points, so I'm not Casting aspersions are mostly just poking fun. Let me come back to a term you used because I want to keep track of definitions for people who are new to all of what we're talking about. I'm gonna be new to a lot of what we're talking about. You mentioned

The Term awakening. What does that mean? here. How should we define it for people listening? I could give a really dry definition, or I could give an account, or I could do both. Let's do both.

In whichever order you like. Okay, let's do dry first. I think this will be quite short. The sort of working definition for me and I think many others in this field. But be

To awaken. Is to see that The sense of self The the me that I have taken myself to be For as long as I can remember.

Has been a kind of genie. It's been a kind of mirage. Yeah. Constructed itself And then believed in itself.

Now this is not in any way to sort of diminish. I wanna this later. You know, really the whole world of sort of Healing the self. Is dear to my heart and very, very important.

I don't go along with people who just say To trash the self, say Forget itself is just a delusion. You hear that in spiritual circles. Self is just a delusion. And it may sound like I'm saying that right now. In one level it is.

And in another level we must take it seriously. That's how I take it. So to awaken is actually to see The the sense of self, the sense of me has not been What I've taken it to be. All along.

Instead It can actually be seen through So the We realise It's never been here.

The way we've thought. From the start. It's never really been here quite the way we took it to be. That's one side of awakening. The other crucial component here. Is that when that happens, when we see through

The sense of me as a separate being All the rest of the world is out there, I'm in here. When that is gone. We discover That we belong

In an utterly wonderful way. To and with everything. We find that there is actually another level of our experience and it's right here now. It's not some Weird other state we go to. right intrinsic to our ordinary experience. It's just that we don't see it.

We rarely see it. Most of us. Seldom see it, but it's actually never hidden. It's just that we're totally conditioned away from seeing it.

It sounds very weird and it is very unusual in the sense we don't normally experience things like this. But it's actually present right now and always. There's another dimension, another aspect, another face. Of our experience of this very moment. In which

We are totally Part of everything. And so that's the flip side. So an awakening is sort of One thing vanishes that sense of self. And another thing appears.

Which is what that sense of self. was occluding. In some sense. There's this unbelievable

We are part of everything. Even to say we're part of everything is Not quite getting it. We discover in a moment of awakening we are Mm. Is that enough for now?

Do you want to respond to that, Nina? Well I'd like to encourage you to Perhaps illustrated. with a story and The question

Perhaps that I could ask in the meanwhile is Is it fair to say that the experience of awakening Or Waking up. Uh of course you you've done quite a lot with Sam Harris on the Waking Up app.

And with Sam. Who is also a close friend. And Is This experience of awakening.

A repeatable or repeated phenomena. In other words, you hear the term which I have Never really gravitated towards enlightenment gets used in different spiritual traditions or different practices and it it seems kind of like a zero to one one time event and

Lickety split there you are. Even though you still have to Carry water and File your taxes, and so on. Yeah. Typically. But Is this experience of awakening something that in practice recurs with some regularity.

Here's a metaphor that a great twentieth century Zen master called Yamada Koun. Used. He said it's like this, Imagine that we've been living in a room Made of opaque glass. In a moment of awakening

A hole is suddenly poked or drilled or smashed. Through part of one of those. The walls of the room. And we see

World. Outside. The box of glass, of of opaque glass that we've been dark glass that we've been living in. Suddenly we see. Oh my god, there's a world out there. This

Really so different. So that's one Instant of awakening. That would be

can be defined is a sudden moment of revelation. Can I tell a little story now that would this be appropriate to say what that's like? You're very you're very British, my friend. Yes. It would be entirely appropriate. Please continue. I love it. I love it. I wish I had your accent. My God, people would think uh give me a bonus twenty IQ points. I would love that. But please please continue. Yes. This would be a great perfect time for a story. We got two hours here, so the the IQ level will tank, I'm sure as we go. Hier's a story when I was naintin.

I'd actually gone away from the UK on a To work abroad, you know, during my gap year after school. Yeah. I went to Argentina and then I backpacked through Bolivia with a friend and while I was doing that I wrote my first book, actually.

And then in Peru. And toward the end of the journey. Having written my this book and you know, nineteen I'd I'd always wanted to be a writer, a poet, and I was so happy I'd actually finished this whole book. And I'd worked and earned some money and seen the world and I've been in a totally different

The rainy Academic library riddled world I'd grown up in. The books Books and rain, basically. That was all, you know. I mean very beautiful, you know. Books and rain and old stone walls. I mean it was marvelous and poetic and lovely and all the rest of it. To go to Bolivia.

thirteen thousand foot plateau. With People. Living it just Utterly different kinds of lives, you know, just so different.

And to be able to travel this was again back in the eighties, travelling in the backs of trucks everywhere, just Trundling through this Immense landscape and the ultra clear air and sky and with my best friend who's a photographer and I'm writing and he's taking photographs and we're gonna make a book together. And actually we did. A few years later it came out.

It was the opposite of the life I'd known, so constricted. And on that journey, actually Before going, I'd managed to persuade my doctor To actually give me a tube of steroid cream. 'Cause I didn't want to be Five thousand miles away with a raging eczema flare up.

He gave me that. And I hardly ever used it. Somehow in the new climate, in the Totally different. Dietary system, whatever. I don't know what and this feeling of being

And Out from under a heavy cloud and Not having realise that been living under such a heavy cloud all those years. Somehow. That was a first taste.

Actually for me the eczema might clear up. So I'm just painting the picture a little bit. Eczema gone. My skin was Normal. Can you imagine after all those years to see that

I had this beautiful Brownish instead of Part Jewish, Safaric, a bit. Brown, beautiful skin, smooth and And not a blemish on it, not an itch, and not a not a hurt. It was amazing.

To be Healed like that. And I was writing this book and There's a certain point towards the end of the trip where I hold up In a little hostel in a room. Fifty cents a night or something.

And just Drank Coca-Cola. Pints of coffee. Smoke Winston cigarettes. And wrote about

Eighty pages of this book. It was about this journey. Uh this very journey, you know, it's called Sons of the Moon and It's very exciting, you know, got published in London and New York and I'm still pretty young and it's very thrilling.

Having done the book Having healed the skin. Towards the end of the trip I was Alone. On a beach on the Pacific Ocean.

Late one afternoon. And the beach was deserted. And I was just watching this desert Coast of the Alm I was gonna say featureless, that's not quite right, but just kinda bare.

Baron Stark. Coastline. And there's this sun. Getting close to the horizon. Nobody around.

A little boat. Anchored offshore. And I'm just gazing. But the path of light The the sun.

was laying on the water. There was probably only Like a hand's width above the horizon or something like that. That beautiful scintillating path of light that leads out to the horizon that But you get.

On the ocean. And I noticed that this boat Had disappeared. I knew it was there, but it disappeared. And then suddenly I saw it. It was

Just a silhouette. Inside the path of light. And it was there was a sort of black silhouette. And then it disappeared again in the sparkling light. And it just struck me as

Extraordinarily beautiful. I don't know why but that Image of a boat. Being there and then not being there. And being there again.

Kind of like a stain on the retina when you've looked at su a bright light. That was what it was like to me, sort of in reverse. It came, it went, it came, it went. It was Overwhelmingly beautiful. I don't know what more to say than that.

But Welled up in me and filled my heart, actually with a Suddenly.

Something Utterly Unprecedented for me, unexpected, unknown. Weird. Happened to me.

Which was the The scene I was looking at Wasn't outside me. And I wasn't outside it. We became one.

It's a glib way to put it, actually. When I say it now. We became one. It doesn't convey what it was really like. It was

Utter beauty. It was like being swallowed up by beauty and becoming Home. Coming home in a way that I didn't know I hadn't been home, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I'll just finish the experience. It was like Becoming part

Of the world. Instead of being An isolated Entity. Stalking the earth upright on the earth.

Separate from it, moving through it as a sort of Bubble almost like It's got this membrane around it called skin. And that skin. Separates the entity.

From the world. Instead It's like the skin was gone, the separation was gone, there was just one Reality. One kind of dream.

One kind of movie. And That's what I was. And It was like finding

I belonged to a degree. That was inconceivable. I didn't just belong, I was actually part.

Of everything. That's what Happened. And in the midst of that I don't know if I'm going too fast, too deep, too weird, but I'll just carry on.

Tagline of my podcast. Please continue. Okay. Basically, in the midst of it, there was a sort of moment also where it was mind blown because

All space had disappeared. There was no distance anywhere. It was like I felt I remember like my nose was pressing against the end of time. My nose was touching the furthest reaches of the universe. Because it was all just here. Was one reality without space, without time.

It was just Utterly mind blowing. I'm describing a moment of awakening. So How long did it last? I don't really know.

But not very long. Somewhere between Five seconds and five minutes, I'm guessing. Then there was kind of like Knowing I was a human being on a beach again.

Taking a step. And how extraordinary. It was, just to take a step. How marvelous to be able to do such a thing. As sort of be a body and take a step. Everything seemed sort of new. It was just It was like a new world. And it was so so beautiful. My heart was just

It felt like a flame. Was burning in my heart. I know it sounds a little bit bit like the old eczema trouble, but actually it was a beautiful, beautiful thing. It was just a flame of love. Burning in my heart. I knew that I had found

The answer. But I hadn't even been asking a question. I'd had no interest at all. In spirituality. Definitely not religionized.

Very atheist. Or just totally atheist. I was Kinda still am actually, but that's another matter. Interest in Whatever that experience might have been.

It wasn't in my Worldview. At all. And I think because I had no Preconceptions at all about

Whatever that kind of experience might have been. None at all. I was able to just Go with it. Like a complete

Angie new. I just totally naive. I I just was what's this? Whoa and what's this? As it sort of got deeper and weirder. I just Went with it.

And it was so beautiful that I sort of trusted it. And then Kind of in a sense. I was back. In a known world.

It was also so different because it was just so So so beautiful. And It was like everything was Feather light and paper thin. As one of my teachers likes to say. I weighed nothing. I was sort of see through and

The world was see through. I mean it existed, it would look like it normally did, but it Had become weightless and so beautiful and So that was a moment of awakening. But the real moment itself Was only

Short. But there's long, long afterglow. That lasted weeks. And uh my heart was so alive and I Yeah, as I sort of walking through streets of town, seeing kids on the street, I just wanted to help.

Wherever I could and I felt human suffering in a in a new way, a different way. And yeah, like I said, I I felt that I had found The answer to life. Which I hadn't been looking for.

And wasn't interested in but now it was like I knew I could die and my life had been fulfilled. It wouldn't matter what else happened to me. If I could pause for a moment. I have a a number of questions. And I'm gonna act as a Stand in for some of the audience here. With one. Yeah, please.

Were you entirely sober for that experience or was it enhanced in any way? Stone Cold Sober. Okay. Anything stronger than sort of a beer, virtually. You have not.

Then I hadn't. I have some foul questions. And it was Meaningless. It was so shallow compared to

So it didn't come close to what I was. Yeah. Interesting. All right, we'll have more follow ups on that theme. But the next question is In retrospect now as someone who Studies. I suppose the phenomenon of

This experience. of awakening, this type of awakening. What do you think were the ingredients In That

encapsulated period of time that led to that. Spontaneous. Actualization or realization. A feeling. As you did.

I've wondered that Myself at times I could say. The most immediate probably was the fact that I was really closely studying what I was looking at. And asking questions. As a writer, you mean?

Yeah, but I mean, I had been doing that as a writer, exactly. But actually in the very moment I was staring at this phenomenon. Light on the water.

This boat sort of appearing and disappear in the night. I was asking myself I know the physics of this, basically. There's water. Which is transparent.

There's air. Which is transparent. There's the surface where these two things are meeting. And there's light landing on that surface. That's what's going on.

Why does it look the way it looks? Was kind of my question. Because The surface I noticed that it was so dazzlingly bright. But

It was really composed of these bright scales that were shifting over the surface and Where a scale was, it was super bright. But when the scale slid off, it was actually super dark. So it was this mix of black and white. And I was just looking at it very closely. And I think one ingredient

Well Scrutiny. I was really studying what I was looking at. And this was as you've mentioned. It was on the back of

Several months of considering To the best of my ability, deeply, what I was seeing as I'd been travelling. And you know, also when working,'cause it was also novel. So that was another factor. I suspect also this is maybe a little bit weirder, but the

Eczema. Years of eczema. Of having to somehow Sit with, or lie with, or be with Quite intense discomfort.

That wasn't gonna go away. I suspect that it had done something to my consciousness. As a kind of training. Of some kind. I mean it w it wasn't one I'd wish on anybody. And I certainly didn't

Appreciate it, yeah. For this, but I think it probably had somehow taught me Very, very unwillingly. Some kind of tolerance. And

I suspect that I could only find that tolerance. When I sort of shifted gear. In my mind, in some way. Times with the eczema.

Especially sort of lying in bed itching at night, when I would really go into a different state of mind that was Very alert, very present, very attentive. And blissful. And peaceful. And I'd feel like I was in a kind of

Cocoon. And I could have stayed there forever. Was there something you did? Consciously, was there a method to achieving that state? Or did it just Manifest itself.

Unexpectedly. Unfortunately it was the latter. I wished I could. I remember wanting to learn how to make it happen and I didn't know how to make it happen. It would just randomly happen. I kinda learned How to let it prolong itself. Which was

I found there was a way of Being with it. Without Holding on to it. If I could put it like that.

I noticed that if I wanted it to stay It would go away. But I could just Be with it. And no

Wish it would stay. And it would stay. That was the only level. Of Proficiency, so to speak, I got with it.

But I couldn't make it happen. I Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by All Form from the creators of Helix Sleep. All Form makes premium customizable sofas and chairs shipped right to your door at a fraction of the cost of traditional stores. So I'm sitting in my living room right now and it's entirely all form furniture I've got. Two chairs, I've got an Ottoman and I have an L sectional.

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I started getting interested in this form of practice called Jana practice. This is really getting into the wee, so I won't take long in it. Some people might have heard of this. Many probably won't. It's a particular form of practice from early Buddhism known as Dhana or Jana. How do you say funny J H A N A, that's the parley. And Dhana in Sanskrit is D H Y A N A.

And actually that is the word that became China. In Chinese or Chan. Which then became Zen. In Japanese. So

Zen is connected. In some way to this kind of practice. But the Jana practice is this Regarded as quite esoteric and sort of Tricky difficult sort of advanced practice. The first time I got trained.

To do it. There's eight different states, by the way. I just went into the first one fairly easily. Oh I couldn't believe it. It was exactly that state I'd been in as a kid. I don't know what the I don't know.

Actually all fits together, but I had been doing something. In the midst of eczema. That had some kind of correlation. Very vaguely or

In a sort of abstruse connection. With meditation. I had somehow. And I don't know whether it's a Could it be that that in some way precipitated that experience later? I don't know. I don't really know.

Could it be that years of Living with great discomfort and somehow having to find ways to just endure it. Or not and just sort of be tormented by it. Could that have been some kind of preparation? Or was it simply the Having lived like that a long time and sudden being well. It was sort of mind blowing to be well and

In this moment of Solitude. In the midst of the sort of mighty forces of the ocean, the sun, the sky Sand and alone. I remember actually before it happened, I thought

I could be any man in any century. Because that all there was was the C This boat that was a kind of timeless type of boat shape. It wasn't some modern speedboat or cruiser or anything, it was just a simple boat. Could have been

The year twelve hundred. And I had a pair of shorts on. I could have been Any century. Any person. And I perhaps in that moment there was a bit of a loss of Identity that

Pave the way. Maybe. What happened after that? In the Twelve months. What was your was there anything notable that happened after that?

Oh my God, yeah, totally.'Cause about I had a sort of blessed few weeks. Transfigured world after it. And then I went home. My parents had split up when I was young.

And I'd had a very sort of Difficult. relationship with my dad feel feeling very sort of abandoned and Just heartbroken. Uh his leaving.

Then there there was a difficult remarriage. It was very complicated. Emotional Domestic arrangement that We all had to live in the From when I was about seven onwards.

And It had never been resolved, it had never really been spoken about. It was this awful English middle class sort of reticence to talk about feelings and Yeah. Seized by possessed by and

Us kids, my brother and sister and I, you know, we we were Caught in this very difficult. Parental tangle. But somehow. The absence of speaking about it.

Led to Any sort of Understanding that This was a difficult situation. Again it's the sort of kid thing where

I don't know that this isn't normal. This is the way the world is, I've got to learn to live with it. It's me that's at fault if I don't like it. Kind of thing. That I think many children uh assum would Feel that way.

So I Have had this Awakening. I'm wide open. My heart is just so full. Of love and Of wonder and

I come home. And I walk through the door of my dad's house. Within half an hour. I had a kind of breakdown. I felt

Overwhelmed by The unhappiness of my childhood. In a way that I've never actually felt it. During my childhood. I'd had defenses against it. And when I came home.

I had no defenses. I was wide open. All the unhappiness that I actually experienced during it just kind of Tumbled. On top of me. And I kind of collapsed. I

I went into a A very sort of closed down and miserable state of mind. Actually for several years. I kind of got through it. I Somehow. Sort of limped along.

Very unhappily, with the help of Alcohol and Not very good hash. And

Not even good hash. Junior varsity hash on top of it all. Okay. Books and bad hash. Exactly.

Oh, and some good friends. I mean I although even my friendships have been sort of I mean they're very good friends, but somehow I was so broken that I couldn't even really connect with my old friends. I've It was a miserable time. It was transcendental meditation that

Help me out of all of it. I'm not sure whether that's enough on that misery. Well let's I mean I'm a somewhat connoisseur of depressive episodes and anxiety and so forth, but let me Ask you On that.

Topic. How often Would you say Do What you would consider awakenings.

Overlap with what others might call a psychotic episode. Or are they easily distinguished? Or would a psychiatrist with a D S M.

desk reference categorize it as as a psychotic episode. And part of the reason I ask is that I've seen people in Multiple practices sometimes Breathwork. Could be Kundalini, could be any number of things. Silent retreats.

extended fasts. I've seen people have what some or what they might consider breakthroughs I've observed people certainly you see this with psychedelics as well who have had What many would consider breakdowns. And to become untethered for some period of time. How do you think about

Distinguishing. Those if you do. First of all. I'm not Well versed in Kundalini.

And I know that there are powerful experiences that happen in that I've seen somebody go through something like that during a retreat. I was part of And it was much more about energy.

And not so much about Discovery. I would wanna be quite careful. In our taxonomy. And not just put them all under one heading awakening experiences.

There are different kinds of breakthrough experiences. Actually There are different kinds of awakening experiences even within Zen. But fundamentally. I don't think

They overlap. The way that It could be highly problematic and even In a sense. Could be

Get muddled up with psychosis. It's really more If the context isn't A very supportive one. But you know, the fundamental thing discovered in Real Awakening

Is that we're part of everything. And that's a blessed, most blessed thing to discover. And Yeah, it can be very destabilising. For me.

It wasn't destabilising. What happened was I went home and had to face the trauma. I'd never faced. Right. Because I was now open enough to.

In the hands if I'd had a great therapist at the time. It would have been a golden opportunity. Because I was open at last. My defences were gone.

I don't actually think The the misery that followed was because of the awakening. I think it was because I had all this Unprocessed misery.

That I had never known how to let myself feel. And suddenly In that context, I had no choice but to feel it. And actually in a way. It took years, but I've come to see that

That experience Of the breakdown, so to speak. Was As important in its way. As the awakening.

Because My whole thing now. It's a path of awakening and healing. Both. And

I think one of the hazards of modern Western embrace of Eastern spirituality, which has been fantastic. I mean How amazing that we're even Sitting here having a conversation about something called awakening. And we kind of have enough common ground to have a sense of what that might be.

That it's in the Zeitgeist now. But please continue. One of the hazards have been this sort of over enthusiasm about enlightenment and awakening that Can leave behind the The healing side that has to go on as well.

And On the other hand, there's We had all this deep Freudian therapy and all kinds of therapy now. It's fantastic that we do. But it doesn't really know about awakening and often is very suspicious of it. Things Freud thought it was sort of

Oceanic and infantile regression. Many therapists when they write about Enlightenment and Awakening They try to Bring it into their world view and it doesn't fit in their worldview. 'Cause it's a totally different

Register of experience. Wait now, my whole thing now is like Let's get clear, there are these different dimensions of experience that human beings can go through. And they're not all on the same sort of level. They're all in our heart. They're all sort of What we're capable of

What we can experience. They sort of shouldn't tread on each other's toes, is kind of how I feel about it. Now, for example Deep, profound, non dual awakening. It's a fantastic thing. Somatic.

Release of trauma through deep somatic therapy. That's a fantastic thing. Working with I don't know too much about it but I've done actually uh We can get on to it. Which was you know, so I've got a little bit of a sense of Plant medicine for healing.

That's fantastic. And there's different levels of experience. There's different levels of healing. I would say Awakening. Is a kind of most profound healing. But it's not on the same level. As the trauma that I needed to heal.

From my childhood. It was a more universal kind of Discovery of what a human being is. Any human being. What human consciousness, what human awareness is. It was a discovery about that.

But what this life is that It's not really on the same level. As the psychological healing I also needed It happened to open that up.

Mm. And it took me a few years to find ways to Do the healing or begin. The long healing that was needed on that level. But on the level of awakening I was still

Somehow. Fully healed. In the awakening experience. Weird things about it is that

God, I'm still worried that I'm going off the deep end. Yeah. Deep end. We're just getting warmed up. We're still in the kiddie pool. We're gonna we're gonna go to some very strange places. So before we do Uh I want to mention a few things. And to to maybe provide a bit of a a teaser.

For folks also. So there're certain terms that I still have an aversion to, rightly or wrongly, like enlightenment. Awakening I can get on board with. Sure. A number of reasons. So we won't dwell on that right now, but I do find It could be helpful to add a bit of color.

in a few areas for folks who are listening. So Uh and and hopefully I'm not stealing thunder here. I just want to mention a few things. And then if I could ask one very crass question, which would is a total non sequitur, but I I have to ask because I'm too curious and I have to scratch that itch. So the first thing I want to mention to folks Is that

And we can certainly talk more about this, but part of the reason That you're teaching and lineage appeals to me, and I've spoken to Kevin about this, is because awakening does not equal checking out, right? You're not You're not requiring the people Join a monastic order of ascetics and

Give up all engagement with the world. And we'll we'll probably come back to this, but One of your If not your primary teacher, we can talk about this, but Yamaha Roshi is CEO of a company with two thousand employees, wrote the biggest check. in its history, or maybe we can get more context there, while leading Mitsubishi securities. And so for people who don't know, Mitsubishi is like one of the K to like one of the

Gigantic. monster conglomerates in Japan. It's it's hard to overstate how big a deal that is. He also continues his own Zen training and trains around seventy five Zen teachers worldwide, right? So you can be Of this world. While still Developing.

These tools or utilizing these tools in the toolkit. So that's I just wanted to underscore that just so it doesn't seem as though we're kind of frolicking in a bath of esoteric sciences that don't apply. to people who still want to engage with the world. I also wanna paint a picture because there's no way we're gonna get to it all, but I wanna paint a picture of your bizarre

And incredible life story. As a young man you worked as a professional trombonist. Playing in Calypso and Salsa bands. All over the place. Hitchhiked across the Sahara as a young man, and I don't think we're gonna get to the Egyptian doctor. I wanted to ask you about that, but we might not have time. This is the part where I have a crass question. It might be because I don't speak the Queen's English, but You roamed the countryside as young teen sleeping out.

And we're mentored by an old school tramp. That is the term I'm I'm very interested in. Trying to live like an ancient Chinese Chan poet. There are a lot of loose ends here, but I found old school tramp to be very intriguing. Could you just explain that portion of everything I just threw out there, please? Oh my God. Well the term tramp in the UK

Yeah. It used to refer to these guys who just wandered the highways and byways. Ah, okay, got it. It was not some out of work geisha. Okay, got it. Exactly. These days they talk about the tramp stamp. I don't know if you know it's a tattoo, you know? Do you know that term? I I'm familiar with tramp step. I I don't know much about Enlightenment, but I do know the term tramp step. Shows you where where we're gonna have to meet in the middle.

So yeah, I had this friend. I mean he was he would come to our valley every summer. And put up in this ruined mill. And He kinda mentored me and a couple of friends of mine how to Live on the land.

When we were fourteen, fifteen. We got into that. Would be young poets. And we knew these Those Chinese poets. We were into them. They they were

Seventh, eighth century Wu We Doofu Lipo. Great, great poets who did a lot of wondering. At least we got that impression. They would wander around the gorges and Write poems and drink rice wine.

And they were actually a great inspiration for the beats as well. You know, Kerouac and Ginsburg and so on. Gary Snyder. They gone into these posts, they gone into Zen. 'Cause those poets used to do Zen as well.

They would meditate, they would go to monasteries, go to hermitages. Right. Sanager used a cant in one of his Books as a epigraph.

Let me Zoom out for a minute. And I want to hear the story of how you got to Zen. And you noted, for instance, that at one point TM was All the rage, the sort of hippist game in town.

What was it? Life Life Tool for Busy People. And they had they had a great sort of celebrity outreach program, right? They have the Beatles. E even today, of course, they've got you know Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, they've many, many celebrities engaged. Who practice TM and there was a period of time where that was all the rage. And then you have sort of this Yoga Nanda period, right? Steve Jobs, et cetera.

Was Zen just sort of the zeitgeist for a period of time and you became engaged while it was sort of in the slipstream? of the Zeitgeist. So I'd like to hear that story and in the process of telling that story, I would love for you to Best you can define What characterizes The practice of Zen Buddhism because

I have found it very confusing and part of me thinks that's Kinda the point. And I'll give you an example. I was at a retreat at Spirit Rock in Northern California. This is many years ago. And I heard a story from one of the teachers And she described how she was having a lot of trouble figuring out certain aspects of Zen Buddhism. And at one point she was having breakfast with her teacher and they were eating in silence and then suddenly he shoute

You know it's not logical, okay? And And that was It was a teaching moment for her and she took a lot from that. And when I sort of think of Koans and these various things, it seems like almost the point is to bludgeon your rational mind into submission so that you can experience reality past the constructs of concepts and labels and so on. But that's my best guess. Honestly, I don't

know what Zen Buddhism or Zen Practice is. So that is a huge mouthful. I just kinda fabrod a lot of word salad into the microphone. But the story of how you found Zen and then what in fact Zen is would be very helpful. The story of how I found Zen is I was doing another book that my publisher that commissioned me to write. It was about New Mexico. It was about the English writer D. H. Lawrence in New Mexico. And I was twenty eight at the time, and while I was out here

I Made friends with A dear friend of mine, Natalie Goldberg. He's a writer who writes as Zen based writing. Writing down the bones, is that exactly. Yeah, great book. Yeah.

Yeah. Nathan and I We hit it off. Actually, She rented me a room in her house in Santa Fe and It was great entree to l to living out here that she offered me.

But along the way, one evening she was reading me a bit of This great Famous Zen writer, teacher, poet. Dogan.

From thirteenth century Japan. She was reading a bit of Doga. I didn't understand a word of it. It was just kind of weird nonsense about mountains walking. Yeah, just Sort of didn't even want to think about it. I just

I couldn't understand it, wasn't interested. Conversation moved on. And I found myself thinking about it. And the next day I was still thinking about it, and the day after I was still thinking about it. And then

I remember vividly I was washing a mug up at the sink in her kitchen. And I suddenly got this thought. Maybe. Dogan was speaking from what I had experienced on that beach. Years ago.

Nine years earlier. I gotta say, ever since that beach moment had happened One of the things that made me so miserable, one of the ways I made myself very miserable was by thinking But oh my God, I discovered this freedom, this beauty, this wonder, this love, this total fulfillment. And look at me now, depressed and miserable and anxious and

Eczema has come back, actually, by the way. Why haven't I managed to Keep hold of that incredible discovery. Why haven't I managed to live from it? Why haven't I taken a step to sort of

Somehow revisiting it, whatever the hell it had been. And so Doing my T M for four or five years, absolutely religiously, every day, twice a day, you know. It was my lifeline.

And it had really been helping. It hadn't really occurred to me that the meditation thing I was doing with them Could have anything to do with that moment on the beach. It just hadn't Occurred to me. But suddenly I hear this bit of Dogen.

That makes no sense. Somehow it came to me. From the perspective of that moment. It would make sense. I can't exactly explain how I knew it.

I just knew it. And I said to Natalie. What's this then all about? You know, I wanna know more. And she said, Well

You don't really know about Zen. You just do it. And I said, Well I w I wanna do it. There and then she phoned up a friend of hers who was a Zen practitioner in town and And the next day I went and met with him and he taught me how to do Zazen or Zen meditation. Which was

Beautifully. Simple. We sat And it's this beautiful little Zenda, they're still here in Santa Fe, actually. Beautiful little Zenda.

Black cushion on a black mat. Facing the wall. And all you do is breathe. Maybe in a way, that's part of the challenge. There's not a lot to it. With T M you had this mantra that you

You use and it's sort of It's a lifeline through the practice. And you kinda know you got some sense of this mantra's doing you some good, kinda thing. But with Zen, you just sit there. In a posture that

Prescribed and sort of set up. But actually it's very The posture's got a beautiful Intrinsic

Peace liveliness in it. That I felt the first time This guy set me up in it. I feel like I Hm. This feels

Weirdly good. Somehow an aliveness A different quality of awareness. Just switched on. And I felt

Like I was right in that room. In a more vivid way. Then Normal. And then all I had to do was watch the breath.

And count it. In sets of ten. I mean. Simple. And

It's not like I had some Marvelous enlightenment experience right then. But I did have a sense. In that first sit. That this was a way

Of contacting life. This was a way of being Alive. But brought you in. Intimate contact with being

Alive. And that wasn't something I'd ever felt in TM. I'd felt many other marvelous things. But not This is a sort of If you wanna know what life is

This can help you. That was the feeling I got from Zen. Can you remind me of how long? That first session was. It wasn't long. It might have been fifteen or twenty minutes. I can't remember.

But it was enough. What characterized it that led you? to feel the way you did about it. Why did you feel that way? I think there may be something in the posture.

I think there may have been something in the way this guy taught it to me. He was a very experienced practitioner. It could be, honestly, the fact that I'd done four years or five years of meditation by then, so I was more Open and ripe. for another practice than I might otherwise have been. I think there was

Probably something of a setup from what had happened with this Piece of Dogan. That I'd been fascinated by. Because that had reawakened My curiosity about the beach.

that beach experience. What the hell happened then? Might this be a way. To revisit that. Might there even be a way Not just to revisit it.

But to go through it and beyond it, might there be a land A world of life. Beyond that experience. So it wasn't just the flash in the pan. And it sort of closes and you're done with it and you have to Limp along in your ordinary life.

May I just pivot to the Koan question because Actually it was a little bit later that I found my first Zen teacher that I really Connected with Yes, please. I have a lot of questions about coans, so please

Segue as you like. I'll start out and we'll see where I get to and then I would dine to hear your questions.'Cause basically you're not you're on track a bit with the way you describe them, but I can elaborate maybe a little bit more. So I got lucky. I did my first Zen retreat

Couple of years I think after that. Diligently daily in my Zen and I'd done some weekend retreats and introduction to Zen and stuff by then. And then I did a Week long retreat. Led by a a Korean Zen master.

He himself was Westerner but he'd been he was a Korean lineage and he'd been trained in he was a Deep guy and he was sort of throwing out coans through the retreat. And actually I was sitting with one of them, it was just the basic question, Who am I? Who am I? Which is a fundamental coan.

I had a glimpse of what it was pointing at. I was very lucky. I got a glimpse. Of how a coin can work then. It's like this. So if you take let's say you take the most

Famous kind that probably I would guess Even Even here probably most people heard. By the way, here's the correct wording.

You know the sound of two hands clapping. But what is the sound of one hand? That's the formulation. You could say it like this. You know the sound of two hands clapping.

But do you know the sound of one hand? That's more or less what the coin is trying to push us to say. But what the hell does this mean? You know the sound of one hand. It's a preposterous question. I get people they try to snap their fingers. They want this is one hand. No no no no No. So so the first thing to say about coins is they are not riddles to be solved.

And Our mind wants to make them that. It wants to problem solve them. This damn thing Makes no sense. I'm gonna make it make sense. There must be a way in which it makes sense. Good luck. I might say something like this.

There is a way. In which they make sense. But your mind will never know it. But part of you will. There's part of us.

that the Koan is speaking from and speaking to. And it's Basically A non dual. level of experience.

Non dual. Is where The sense of being separate from the world. Has gone. Self and world are one.

Yeah. Flavors and varieties. But fundamentally. It means the the duality Of me being in here.

And the world being out there. Has gone. So cans are actually Emissaries. Of

Whatever that was that I discovered. On that beach when I was nineteen years old. And thousands of millions of people have discovered. What's beautiful about coans is that they know That experience.

Is here all the time. They know it's precious. Beyond belief. They know that it is Somehow In some way.

What we humans Are built to discover. It's a thing that Can transform my life in an utterly wonderful way. Because they show us something about who we are.

We couldn't imagine. And it's it's so crazy. We're going around living our lives the way we do. All predicated on this basic assumption. Which is that I am me in here. And we don't really question it. We're too busy living out

That dictates the flow. From the assumption that I am what I think I am in here. It's a study. This radical thought. Well hold on.

If I'm gonna build my life on this assumption Th there is this me in here. And it wants these things and it doesn't want those things and My happiness depends on having X and not having Y

If I'm gonna build my life on that Shouldn't I At least take a look at the initial assumption. It's really I think is equivalent.

To Galileo. And Copernicus going from a Geocentric worldview, where We're totally convinced the world's flat, the sun, moon go round us. To Well actually wait a minute.

Maybe not. Lo and behold, we go around the sun. I think we're in the midst of a transformation. Actually I'm gonna be careful what I say. This is really this is going off the deep end. But perhaps Perhaps in this globalized Western culture that where there's

So much more interest in awakening these days than Twenty years ago, forty years ago, sixty years ago. Yeah, it's pretty niche fifty years ago. Now it's people are hearing about it. There is a reality that we can find about.

Who we really are, and there's a lot of neuroscience now backing it up. What we think we are is a construction. And actually the way we think the world is. Is also a construction. That follows from that.

You mentioned Ayahuasca earlier. We're not gonna go there yet. I would like to hear more about that. At some point. But when I think of your experience At nineteen on the beach.

That distinguishes you from a lot of people in the sense That you had this spontaneous experience of non duality. So you knew it was a possibility. going into your Zen training, going into these various practices. And

I'm wondering if or how common it is for people to get an appetizer or a taste of these non ordinary states. Although one I know that label is not perfect, but let's just for the for the time being call it a non ordinary state. Is it common that people have that experience relatively quickly in their practice because I could see it being very difficult for someone who has not had the firsthand experience that you had on the beach or something like it.

Years. With the hope that there is some payoff that they have never tasted. Or had a glimpse of the yeah. And conversely, and I'm not saying that I recommend psychedelics for all people. I don't. I think they are

very powerful tools that have some applications for some people, but where they do Perhaps representing an unusual tool in the toolkit is that With rare exception, you are guaranteed to see an effect. If that makes any sense. Right.

Plant or compound. If you want to induce the realization that You are not. Exactly what you believe yourself to be.

Or at the very least that there are invisible scripts and stories and filters that Assemble your current reality. That's a very reliable way to induce that type of Realization. So to summarize Is it common that people get some taste of what you are describing?

relatively Early in their practice. Or is it something they have to kinda cross their fingers and hope for? Long. Down the road.

Honestly, it's a bit of both. And here's a Couple of ways to to think about it. One is that yeah, if you add a coan into the mix, once somebody's really committed and settled in their daily sitting.

It can be a powerful Stimulant. Power fertilizer. Koans are weird. They can actually trigger Profound experiences.

Who knows when? They really can. So that's On the one side. On the other hand It's unreliable.

And it's certainly not reliable. The way that I think Safely administered. Plant medicine may be.

But here's the thing. Two things actually. One is the What then? is teaching us about is Ordinary consciousness.

Yeah. This is why I I knew that I knew my The term non ordinary consciousness is a tricky it's a tricky one. So please yeah. It's it's not imperfect phrasing, but please continue. I mean the wonder of this is that The most profound things we can discover through awakening are here right now. And the process of training with coats

Is to go like what I experienced on the beach. That was a beginning experience. A far deeper things happen to me. Working with comments. That was a gateway that got me onto a path.

It took me a long time to find the path. And a long time to go down the path. But man. It was a beginning. The things you can discover through these coins that these masters

And they're sharing with us. Through the coins. Hoping. They will. Join them in what they've discovered.

It's even more radical and crazy. But the point is it's here right now, we're making discoveries about our ordinary experience. And this is the wondrous thing about it, that you don't have to have some totally different life. Again, my master, Yaman U Rashi. It's not like He has to rein in his Zen mind when he's in a board meeting.

There's no need. The Boundless Reality. He's right there at the board table.

Able to do everything the board chair needs to do. That is the wonder. Whoever this uh I think it was Leyman Pang, the old master said. My miracle is that I Chop wood and draw water, whatever it was, I

draw water and carry wood. I can't remember. That's my miracle. He means that Pouring out the kettle for a cup of tea. If we're awake. Two.

Yeah. Boundless wonder. That's a miracle. It's not like it's a miracle in a way that We'll have to sort of

Swoon and put the cup down in case we drop it. No, we just Behave normally. We can have a normal conversation. I don't know if everybody would consider this a normal conversation because I'm saying such weird shit, but but kind of a normal conversation. We're having it. I'm you know, I'm sitting here and I know this

Boundless. Infinite Nothing. Whatever. They're so full of love. It's right here, right now.

It's clear. And it doesn't mean like Now I gotta do something. So I gotta switch off. The wonder.

The boundless love. It's not like that. That's where Cohen's can take us. I'm sure way further as well. I'm you know, I'm a beginner. But On the other hand, what about the people who they want this, they believe in it, and they sit with it and nothing happens. They're sitting with their car. Well, see, I think Personally.

What I'm now trying to teach people is Deep in the Zen tradition there's a There's a metaphor. goes way back to s fifth or sixth century China. Of a car track having two ruts.

And the idea is that one rut Is Awaken nature itself. That's always here. And awakened nature, by the way, is everything is one

Everything's infinite. And everything's empty. Those are the three my main things we can discover about it. To personal experience. That's awakened reality.

But the other r Is They call it the four foundations of mindfulness, which comes from Early Buddhism in India. And the four foundations of mindfulness.

Uh A gradual path. Of learning to be more present. Learning to sit with difficulty. Learning to sit with our wounds and pains.

And gradually release them and we may need help with that. And you might bring in therapy, you might bring in pharmaceuticals, you might bring in plant medicine or whatever, you might bring in all kinds of stuff to help with that. That's the beginnings of this is the beginnings of psychological health and well being really. Gradually

How practice can help with that. So there's two Ruts. For one. Track.

One r is awakening. And we could put the coans on that side. The other rut Is the gradual path of sort of healing. And

That takes us to deeper and deeper states of Absorption. We start to get more well being With less. It's generally a path of

Growth. We can be happier. With less and less Unless you Until

In deep states of absorption. Which is growing out of the mindfulness. We're basically happy with Basically nothing extra. We're completely fulfilled just

Sitting. And breathing. I've Read you describe awakening as quote, more of a loss than a gain.

A marvelous kind of loss, end quote. And then there's also set of expressions here that maybe you could explain. Mui Chimotsu Mujuso. I don't know if they're long vowels or not in Japanese for the Mujus. I think I can guess what the first three characters are, but I can't guess what the last two are. So by more of a loss than a gain, a marvelous kind of loss. What does that mean? Okay, so in my book actually I go into this sort of various experiences. That befell me on the Coan.

It was basically It's hard to talk about it. It's so amazing, but it's sort of the loss of everything. Somehow seeing

Has been A dream. And When we see that everything can actually fall away. Self and world fall away is the way Dogan.

Described it. He said body and mind full Away. And Various Zen masters have spoken about this this experience where Everything's just gone.

An instead Of it being A horrific. Ghostly. Void.

It's the opposite. Because Everything is coming from. Yeah. Emptiness. That

Goneness. It's generating everything. If we fall away uh sufficiently I don't think I've had a The great

Profound experiences or anything. I've just had experiences that were profound enough. For me. That changed my life. And this was the pivotal one.

It happened at a certain point, a certain time. During a retreat. Everything disappeared. And I then discovered.

And henceforth. It hasn't gone away, really. I can see everything's being born right now. It's coming out of nothing. And that is the ultimate Wonder.

So that's very interesting. There was durability to that. There's kind of a before and after. Yes. That's very interesting. And I never believed that could happen to me. I was I was such a troubled soul that I've done all this practice

I'd even had several kind of You know, mind blowing awakenings and And still I was a troubled soul. I didn't think I mean I suppose I still have a bit of a trouble, so but I'm a happy one. It's weird.

I never thought that I would be I could see my teachers, these amazing patient teachers who are guiding me. I can see s these these people They've sort of done it. Whatever it is that can be done.

They're the kind of person that could do it. Not me, no way. And then it just happened. This thing just happened. And

It was a fulcrum. In a lifetime and I believe that All of us can go through this. That's why I'm a teacher. 'Cause I want to share this.

So but here's the thing. I don't think we should sit around. In misery waiting for this Kind of thing to happen. So

This two rut track idea is really important to me, actually. And I've got this new programme called Original Love. The Zen Awakening is often called Seeing original nature. An original nature is what I'm saying. One and it's

Boundless and it's empty. That's the original nature. What it's like when we find it is it's like love. It's like love to find that we're part of everything. It's like love to find the

There's nothing. No thing is producing everything. Generating everything. Infinite generosity. That's like love. So

In this original love programme I got, we got There's awakening is in it. But so is mindfulness. So is Support. Deep kinds of support that we can open to.

That are so crucial. I've done a lot of dream work. Archetypal kind of work where Figures come and help us and Challenge us and I think that's really vital for our growth. And

And then the third zone in it is sort of It's got four zones actually, like. Mindfulness, support. Deep support. Third zone is absorption, becoming one with this moment through

Flow states, absorption states, samaddi as they call it. And then the fourth zone is awakening. So it it's not like Yeah it's awakening or bust. Yeah, that's a that's a wrong mindset. That shouldn't be the title of this podcast episode.

Yeah. Please. Awakening or bust not, you know. Not like Barat. Could have uh some sound bites spliced in. There was a term. that I mentioned that if you can translate it, I would love to hear what it is just with my fascination with Japan and having lived there for some time. So Muichimotsu Mu Juzol.

In what context is that used and what does it mean? By the way, you got a very nice accent. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I don't actually speak Japanese to my shame. It's not the easiest. It's time consuming. Yeah. I've been you know quite a number of times and

Spent most of the time s staring at the wall in my master's Zender. You know, Most uh effective way to learn Japanese. Just like my friend who spent a lot of time in Peru. He spent uh tons of time in Peru doing dietas and working with ayahuasca and so on. And I I I asked him, I said, You spent nine months in Peru? Why is your Spanish so terrible? And he said, Well, I was in the forest trying to talk to plants the whole time. I was like, Yeah, all right. That'll that'll explain it. So yeah, you were staring at a wall. Understream. Makes it hard to pronounce things correctly. Yeah. So so Moo she must have mooza. One of my teachers, Ruben. Abito Roshi.

Is a guy from the Philippines. Who's also in the same lineage who teaches In Dallas and he's uh also professor at SMU in Dallas. He actually used this phrase with me once when I was

In Dokusan with going through coans with him, you know. It it means Dokusang? Dokusan, yeah, thanks for asking. It's a one on one meeting between the Zen student and the Zen teacher. And actually that's a when you're working seriously with the Koans If you're getting into coan training, you can work with them in different ways.'Cause they can provide a really helpful frame when you're sitting, just to have a Koan.

In the background. It'll change your sitting. But if you're going seriously through a co and training At least in our lineage. There's a way to do that with a teacher. So you meet with a teacher and you you know, you work on a Koan and I won't go into too much detail, but anyway, we were meeting.

Ruben and I that style. And at some point he said. Yeah, yeah. Mu Ichimotsu, Mujozou. Which

Means. Not A single thing. An inexhaustible treasury. Hm.

In other words. What I was trying to describe. This Experience. Of everything.

Disappearing. Isn't it? A horror. Quite the reverse. It's an inexhaustible

Treasury. Everything is Being Given. Bye.

Nothing. Yeah, I don't wanna get too abstract because the point of it sounds so abstract. Until you experience it. When you experience it. It's just business changes your life.

Irrevocably. They can't know. There are certain things that require experience and words do a very poor job of in encapsulating or conveying. Right. I mean it's like if someone's never orgasmed and you're trying to explain it to a male and you're like, Yeah, it's kind of like a sneeze in your balls and he's like, What? Yeah, like it's just you kinda have to be there first and then the descriptions make sense. So Mu itimots is just for people who are curious, I'd actually love help from any native Japanese speakers on the Muju Zool. The Mu Ichimotsu, I'm pretty sure is

Yeah, moo like mo shine, like no heart, no mind. Yeah. Mu is a very common character in discussing Zen Buddhism. Or Kari. It's also can be used as a transitive verb, but then mu the same mu, and then juzo I'm I'm somebody who's a native speaker can let me know. I couldn't find this when I Googled it. Uh maybe Mu Juju is like maybe the ju boom enough like But Mu is the same Mu Ju, Zol is Like treasury, treasure. I'm pretty sure all the sa Sambow Zen also has the bowl, like the three treasures. That's right. That's right.

So taking us down a rabbit hole. Yeah. I'm afraid it might be a typo, actually. I'm thinking that we should Yeah, and maybe it should be Moo Joe. Zo. Inexhaust. Uh okay. Yeah, yeah, that'll make that'll make it a lot easier. Okay.

Sorry, my bad. No, no. Not only my bad Japanese and my bad Taipei. Yeah. No problem. Uh yeah, okay, that that would make that would make more sense. I was like, Yeah, I wonder how to actually translate that. I was trying to figure that out. Yeah. Damn, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No no no you're good. You're good. Moo Moo Jomanence. Mooj.

Joel is like every day conversation would be like Nietzsche Joel. like ordinary Nietzsche, Nietzschewa would be like everyday conversation. Pretty sure it's the same Joel. Yeah, Mo Joel. Okay, got it. So yes. Okay. Does that work? Yeah. Yeah. R Roger that. I think I I think I got it. Okay. Okay. Cool. I was interrupting.

to sort of white knuckle this kanji translation. That would also be a good good title for the podcast. Uh over the precipice of nonsense. I could I kinda I mean I don't know, that's sounds like maybe a great description of Koans, actually. Um yeah, because you go you but but but but as long as we know that you're going to this Vast liberation. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing that's so hard to get.

When you think of One hand, sound of one hand. What the hell is that talking about? The only answer is found in us. Sometimes I've explained it like this that I don't know whether you've heard this, but there's a sort of thing. Notion in fiction writing and storytelling.

That's If you want to know who the main character of a story is It's the one who changes. Or it's the one who has an opportunity to change and either takes it or doesn't take it. That's the main character. So

I've sometimes Try to explain cones this way. A Koan is a story. It doesn't look like it. Doesn't sound like it. But it is in fact a story.

And the main character in the story is you. So Cohen is inviting you. So Change. In a radical way.

You don't even know it's asking you to do And even if you did, you wouldn't know how to do that change. Because it's asking us. You see The sound of one hand

Only becomes a little bit more. Clear. When ourself. Our sense of self drops away. And then suddenly we find it.

And I can't explain how or why. But I know that it works and I can sort of Tell you that when it does its magic It's marvelous. You understand.

Why this phrase is put that way? You see it. And y you see that it's been telling you something. About your very life. That you hadn't been able to see before.

And that's why, you know, I was so thrilled when I found Cohen's because At last it was actually a system. That knew about What I'd been through on that beach. And could lead me through beyond it.

So I think our round two. We'll include A condensed I think master class might be too ambitious, but a detailed discussion of the system The systematization of

using cards, getting into checking questions. Whether partial realization is possible or not. And so on and so forth. So I think we'll do a very deep double click. on that when we speak again. I'd like to ask you When you reflect on your experience

or remember your experiences of Let's call it awakening using koans. And this is gonna be another one of my Notoriously. Convoluted compound questions, but

How similar or dissimilar are those experiences from, say, your experience on ayahuasca? Because It is possible that with a tool like ayahuasca to arrive at places where you feel Liberated from The

constraints the tight shoes of the rational mind. You absolutely can arrive in those places, including feeling at times the sort of beauty and infinite potential of The emptiness. Yeah.

The two questions are. How similar or dissimilar? How would you describe the similarities of differences and then Why? Did you decide to Consume.

Ayahuasca. And you can tackle those in either direction. Maybe I'll take the second first. Consistent with this sort of philosophy of the two rats There's the

Even though we may have had awakening, may even we've become Even perhaps somewhat consistently. access that awakening world, we can do it. Nevertheless, we're still a fallible, vulnerable, Failing, aging, mortal.

Suffering human being. What awakening shows us is that the suffering human being Is themselves Part of the infinite wonder. But

Nevertheless, you still got the suffering being that needs tending. So I was this was long ago actually. I was I guess I was in my mid thirties, I was in my Zen training. I was very unhappy. I'd been Working on a book.

A novel, actually, funny enough said in Peru that Was sort of revisiting, you know, that my early trip when I was nineteen and I'd written I thought a really promising start to it, and then I got totally stuck. And I just couldn't figure out how to keep going. Yeah, severe writer's block and I was quite depressed. I was

teaching down at a college in the south of New Mexico and is really not not happy for for various reasons. And I was Going out to breakfast with a couple of friends one morning. And I just ordered Wavos Rancheros and This friend of mine cooled me.

You lived in Santa Fe. And basically said Henry You gotta come and do this thing this evening. I did this trip with this Peruvian shaman like a couple of days ago. Ayahuasca, I became a Panther, it's the most amazing thing. You gotta come and do it. But you gotta fast. And he's doing another one tonight.

And I was literally sort of My huevos. arrived and I was cutting the first bite out. Hearing his voice on the phone. And

This Feeling came on. Oh fuck. I gotta do this. I know I gotta do this. I wanna eat these eggs. But I actually I wanna do this thing more. It's more important. Even though I don't really want to do it.

That night. That evening. That night. So I did not eat my eggs. And I went up in a state of you know the the Depressive, sort of dragging himself up and I went to the s studio where it was held and it was a proven shaman and Drink the vile tea.

The weirdness comes on. And I had a hellish time, basically. Hell. Punctuated by Moments of extraordinary peace. I shot up into the

Upper atmosphere and realise I was an asteroid or I you know I had uh weird shit happened. You know, it was it was and I vomited a ton. And it was scary and it was Overwhelming and When it was kinda over, I thought Well thank God that's over. I'm never doing that again.

But actually the next day I felt like I was sort of A teenager again. It felt like a whole layer of swaddling of Something, some kind had been taken away from me and I was alive in a In a younger, fresher way. It was it was marvelous. And

I'd been Working on the Just kind of In my mind I c it was like looking at a map that opened out in front of me, that sort of unfolded in front of me. The whole Map of the book was right there.

And I carried on working on it and It actually ended up happening and doing rather well, that book, and That was my first taste of ayahuasca. Later After years of Zen training and really being in a very different place I just had this friend who was a

Trained in in the Peruvian style and I was just curious. To try it again. And I did three Ayahuasca ceremonies like on Once a month for three months.

And it was totally different. I I didn't have a very Powerful time and But it was kinda nice, but I I really just basically I didn't need it to the same extent I had done before. I didn't have a lot to purge. I was

quite mellow, I I I actually helped Because I was in a totally different state. How did you help? You rinse rinsing out buckets, holding people's ponytails, what was in what fashion? A little bit of that. But actually also I sort of at a certain point in that tradition they talked about Grandmother.

You know, the plant is grandmother and you gotta let grandmother come in and do the work she needs to do. So I was doing that in all those three times. I was just Totally surrendered. And Grandmother didn't seem to have a whole lot to do.

Well this wish came up. If anybody else needs to purge, let them purge through me. And I don't mean it's just some crazy idea that came up in the midst of the trip, but I had a feeling that there was one person there who did sort of

I don't know why I'm even bringing this up. It was just I'm just trying to say I was in a totally different space when I did it. And so So okay, so now but going to the The more important matter you're bringing up is not gonna let that go so easily. So you did end up. Purging then, in this case.

Actually I think I did once. But what I felt was somebody else. Mm-hmm. For what it's worth that.

Experience. And to be clear, I'm not claiming that this can be proven. I'm not claiming that mechanism is understood if it is real. I'm not saying it isn't just a fabrication of the mind, but the subjective experience of purging for someone else or having someone else purge for you is quite common.

Yes. Oh wow, that's that's nice to have that affirmed, actually. Yeah. What that's worth.

Mm-hmm. Deep kinds of regular regularly scheduled programming. Like like awakening on ayahuasca. Normal programming. Yeah. So here's my take on it, which of course is based on my experience. I have known.

I mean a number of Zen students I've known. who have used plant medicine and found it profoundly helpful. Here and there they've reported to me An experience within A plant ceremony.

That sounds like A Zen awakening, what I was saying. Seeing the original nature. I don't think that That's commonly.

What people experience. In the way Zen defines it. All the way through. A psychedelic experience. I I really don't believe that. But I think there are moments within a psychedelic experience for some people that sometimes

That are like that. No, but here's the thing though, is how I'm just now thinking one Student had a really strong Experience of

You know, it's called the Japanese is Ken sho. For seeing original nature. And a really quite a strong one actually using Another form of DMT. Uh.

There's something. About Having it. With a completely clear ordinary mind. Versus having it.

When you know there's A powerful Psychotropic. Compound. In your bloodstream.

That will wear off. There's something about it. Yeah. Is just I've seen that the impact is different.

I'm not saying I know that it always would be. But that when somebody it's stone called sober and this happens. It's so undeniable. That you've really seen something real. And it's not induced by anything.

I'm convinced that you know this moment right now Has sort of different levels to it. Different levels of experience right here and now. And In these moments of awakening, that's what we're dropping into.

And they can go all the way down to nothing. And the love that's there. It's right here now. But If you

I mean I would I'd like to hear your take on this. Yeah, I think you've probably had a lot more psychedelic experience than I have, I'm sure. And I'm really so thrilled that psychedelic research is in full swing again. I think it's Absolutely. I mean I see it From my perspective I see it

Mostly is it just an incredible mental health tool. And I'm sure that's an insufficient way to look at it, but at least from that side I can see My God, this is gonna be fantastic in coming years and decades. Helping people with depression, anxiety, fear of death.

Love of death. You know, how amazing to be able to have love of death. That's what awakening can do. Deep love of life, deep love of death. I mean that doesn't mean longing for death, you know. It means just You know, somehow really happy.

Yeah. It's part of the whole picture. I can't explain why, but We can be. There's so much we could explore here. That psychedelics properly administered.

properly and respectfully used with certain Guide rails and guidelines. Can be really helpful. for certain conditions and certain people. And I think they're

Useful. For Exploring facets of The mind itself. And and reality.

Yeah. We could put that in quotation marks, since I think that reality as we experience it is largely a constructed hallucination to begin with, which there are many ways to kind of explore this. There's a book called Biocentrism that does a decent job of introducing thought exercises, although I disagree with some of the things in the book. It's an interesting read. What I would love to see And maybe it already exists, but would be to see for instance, and this is it would be very hard to do this non invasively, but if it were possible to compare The

Neurochemical Activity. Of someone Again, like who's gonna pay for this research and how on earth would you even Structure.

A study is kind of a fool's errand, probably, but let's just say hypothetically that you could compare someone Having the experience of Kinshaw. Or an awakening. With someone. Ninety minutes after drinking.

Ayahuasca who would subjectively report, right? The phenomenology. of the experience would include something akin to kinsho or awakening. It'd be so fascinating to compare those two. Because Whether

Let's just say catalyzed by A cup of tea. or catalyzed by diligent training. As Dennis McKenna would say, our who's an ethnopharmacologist. our experience of reality is mediated through neurotransmitters, by and large, right? So

So you can change your experience of consciousness, let's just say using holotropic breath work as one example. Yeah. Ultimately that would Catalyze and induce certain Electrochemical changes.

That would be a Then help. Confer a certain Experience. And I'd love to see

It would be fascinating. I'd love to see I think it's too optimistic, but it'd be so endlessly fascinating to see How? the sort of presentation of these experiences differ along those parameters. I also think that The container. and the cultural context and the assistance with

Constructing meaning out of Unusual experiences. is so important that It is difficult to, I would imagine, get to a point where you experience in your practice ken show without a lot of deliberate

Practice. At least as something that is repeatable. But you could, you know, find a rent a shaman on Craigslist and show up as like number seventeen in someone's basement and have, you know s some lady who's watched too many Lord of the Rings movies like smack you on the head with a feather and give you a

super big gulp of ayahuasca and like you're going to have A very intense unusual experience, but then what to do with it. And I think it can be very I know it can be extremely destabilizing for people. And to that extent, I think

The downside risk seems to be much lower. when you are practicing within The Traditional. Of

In this case, Zen Buddhism. And there's a lot to be said for that. Capping of downside on some level. We are You've got a whole lot of support. You've got a profound level of support. But I'm wary of equating

the whole of psychedelic experience with Kensha. I really am. No no I think they're very different. I'm not trying to equate the two. I think that if I'm just saying if someone were to I've never experienced Kensho in the Zen Buddhist sense. I there's no way for me to know. There's no way for me to confirm that. And uh a lot of very strange things. happen in psychedelic experiences that probably have nothing to do with what what you would conceptualize or think of as as Kensha. I certainly think they're very different things.

But they may be kind of edging at Aspects. Yeah. Similar spaces. I think.

Yes, I agree with that. I agree with that. And man, what a healing space it is, right? It can be. Yeah, I mean it it can be. I think it can be. with insufficient support and with the wrong preparation, at least in the case of psychedelics, they can be incredibly destabilizing. And I mean people do end up

In uh Very bad circumstances. If they have. Ayahuasca in particular, I think is a dicey. proposition for a lot of people. I mean you just don't know when you're gonna pull the Joker card. And it's always in the deck. Whereas with the practices that you're describing, perhaps it's a little

It's less likely. Although I I although I would have to imagine, I mean it certainly it happens at Fapasana retreats and other places where There are people who have really difficult kind of breakdown experiences. Have you seen that happen in the

Zen Buddhist practices also? I've only seen it once. And actually it wasn't a big deal. We just helped the case. Put him in a cage, kept him fed. He was fine a few weeks later. He was fine that Forty eight hours later he was fine. And it took him off the cushion, you know, actually. But but I wanna say one other thing, which is that It's to do with this ordinariness.

Somehow in Zen It's not quite right to sort of sit. Because I want to have a ken show experience. There's Sitting itself.

And just Being More and more. Embedded in this moment. So that it becomes more and more fulfilling.

And okay. Just as it is. That is perhaps the greatest reward. That we are learning. To

Come home to ourselves and To come to terms with ourselves? To just be ourselves. Not needing anything. Not even Kensha.

That's part of the training as well. Yeah. This practice. Isn't Just

For me to get something I want, namely a marvelous experience. There's something else going on as well. Also likewise that Uh master like

Yamaroshi and you know, we're all aspiring to that, all of us who are in training. To be Able to live What can we call it a fully awakened life? The heart is fully.

There's great freedom, there's great flexibility of sort of register. I can see through this moment. I can see it's transparent. I can see that it's concrete as well. I can See that I'm Getting a little tired. I can see that there's infinite joy.

I can see that there's infinite love. All this it can be present. In an ordinary moment and There's something About its impact on our ordinary life.

That somehow is just such a treasure. And yeah, and so It's not just about Special experience. It's Uh am I making any sense here?

You are making sense. So so can Ken show or bust You're forthcoming. How to book. I mean for real and ready for it. Nice. Nice. That was good. That was a good thing. So now is it.

A book, is it a program? Is it both? It seems to be both. Why why do either or when you can do both ends. It's a manuscript at this point, which I think I hope is getting nearly finished. It's been a marvelous journey writing it. But it's a program and a course as well. And I'm actually just so excited about it. It's thrilling to be able to teach this full spectrum. Of what meditation can be. 'Cause I think there's confusion. What's awakening, what's mindfulness, how do they

And if I'm awakened or if I've had an awakening experience, am I awakened? Why am I still so miserable? Why do I get anxious still? Actually we're multi dimensional and zones and being clear about it. So it's kind of a map. It's a

All parts are suffused with love. That's my main point that In any level of any zone of practice. Love is usually The thing somehow or other. Yeah.

Triggers the transformation that opens at things. Yeah. Where can people learn more about Original love or find the program. Yeah. Well at mountain cloud dot or g At henryshuman dot com.

Both of those. Anybody who read my Existing book. Would learn a lot actually about Many of the things that we're going to do.

We've been discussing in my One Blade of Grass. One blade of grass, subtitled Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen memoir, which I have on my bookshelf. In Austin. Courtesy of of our mutual friend Kevin Ross, in fact. And I recommend. I definitely recommend people check it out. Your stories are insane. I mean you have And I mean that in uh sort of uh Yankee compliment kind of way. Keeping in mind it's the same person who thought old fashioned tramp was was something uh much more sensual. But

One Blade of Grass. I definitely recommend people check out One Blade of Grass and also The program and your website just to go to the website, go to mountain cloud.org, go to henryshukman dot com and you will see an assortment of different resources and that's I suppose a a good repository kind of uh home base for a lot of the things that we're Disgusting. Henry, I think.

We Should do a round two at some point, if you're still open to it. You can sleep on it and decide if you're willing to put up with this type of stochastic memento nonlinear conversation a second time. But if you can put up with me again, I'd be thrilled to, you know Wonderful. Well I mean we've covered a good amount of ground. The great news is I don't have to do really any prep for the second conversation because I have seventy percent of my notes still remaining in front of me untouched. And is there anything else you'd like to share, like to

Add is closing comments, request you'd like to make of people listening, suggestion, anything at all that you'd like to add before we Wrap up for round one. I'd like to just Acknowledge my The

gratitude to my teachers and to say It can be tricky. having a spiritual teacher, a spiritual guide. It's fraught with difficulty. I was very distrustful.

For a long time myself. Found it very hard to accept a teacher. Until I finally found Somebody I could accept. But it is wonderful if you find people who are

really committed to Helping others in their practice. But have no power trip of their own. They just wanna share the teaching they've received. For those who want to

Partake of it. You know, there are people like that. It's shark infested waters, for sure. Spirituality. So be careful.

But you can find safe Deep teaches. I'm not putting myself forward, by the way. I'm a shallow Yeah, I I I think I'm reasonably uh God, I'm I s I think I'm safe. But I'm not deep enough.

I'm working on it. But you can find people who are. And It's a great gift if you do. So that's one thing I just want to say.

And actually I want to say huge thanks to you, Timothy. You took a chance on having this crazy British zen whatever fool. And it's very nice of you. My pleasure. I mean, Kevin was putting his his nuts on the table, so I I I took it very seriously. I was like, Well, look, it's it's it's very it's on record is Kevin's recommendation in our last recording of the Random Show, and I have great faith in Kevin and he's a huge fan of yours.

And has learned an incredible amount from you and has taken a lot from the practice over the last year. And I've I've had front row seats to seeing it. So for people who wonder what the experience might transmit to one's sort of waking reality outside of your personal experience that you've shared. I've seen it in Kevin and it's been very noticeable from the outside looking in, and he's certainly

been very excited for us to have a conversation and Vis a vis his excitement. I have been eager to have this conversation and I I've really enjoyed getting to know you a bit. And this will be Part one. of at least two. So we'll we'll figure out the scheduling at some point soon. I also need to get to New Mexico. I've been meaning to spend more time in New Mexico to to visit uh there are a number of different places I'd love to explore. Oh god, I I'd love to show you around to whatever extent you want to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like got Zen Buddhism, you got Meowwf, you've got Yeah. Yeah. Oh skiing, you've all sorts of things in in New Mexico. Can I just tell me I just while we're on the subject of Kevin.

I just wanna Say what a marvelous man he is. Incredibly generous, incredibly curious. And so supportive in so many ways. Just a treasure of a guy, uh I'm very

Very, very. Happy that I've got to know him. And he's very serious. And it's so serious about his then. He really gets it that It's got great possibilities and you can do it. You know, actually it's a you know, it's a great point because some native Japanese speaker can correct this, but there's an expression, I think it's hiasu samiyasi, which means It or he heats up quickly and cools off quickly. And what that means is that Kevin's life is a

Vast collection of Two week passions. And uh he is expert in a number of areas, but he gets very, very, very excited about something. And then two weeks later, I'm like, Oh, how's X going? He's like, Ah yeah, I'm over that. I'm not doing that anymore. So it is all the more remarkable that he is stuck with Zen practice. under your guidance for as long as he has with the diligence with which he's treated it. It's a very Clear. Kevin, don't kill me, but it it's it seems to me to be a very

Potent anomaly. And uh that really speaks volumes. So I'm really happy that he's engaged in the practice. Also. So Henry, thank you for taking the time once again. This has been great and I'm actually really happy that we covered what we covered and that there's so much left to cover because Why do I do these conversations other than to explore? I get a lot out of them myself. People can find you at Henry Shookman, that's S H U K M A N, Henry Shookman.com, Mountain Cloud.org. I'm sure they can find the social and so on on those

websites your memoir is one blade of grass. I highly recommend people check it out. They can also find the original love program and more info on the websites that I mentioned. We'll link to everything. in the show notes at Tim dot blog slash podcasts. So if you just search Zen on that page, this episode will pop right up. And

What fun. Thank you again for for taking the time. Oh man, much gratitude to you. Um I feel The connection I was hoping. I sort of feel it. It's it's very.

Very nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're uh You're serious without taking yourself too seriously, which is nice. And I really enjoy This new terrain. I've been interested in Zen for a very long time. I've known I've had very close mentors and friends in Japan.

who were dedicated Zen practitioners. But it's it's really something I have very, very little familiarity with. So I'm looking forward to digging deeper Really. Getting into the nitty gritty. Details of

co on use and also the sort of hierarchy and progression within The Zen practice and Zen communities and many, many more questions, but we'll get to that in round two. So thank you, Henry. And uh Many thanks to you.

Everybody listening. So until next time. Thanks. for tuning in. 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? 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. This episode is brought to you by You Need a Budget. What is You Need a Budget? You Need a Budget is a cult favorite budgeting app for a reason. The app and its simple four rule method will change the way you think about your money and help you gain total control so you can plan for the things you need and get the things you want without guilt or stress. To give you an idea, on the cult favorite side, to date they know of at least seven customers. who have customized their license plates to mark the occasion of purchasing a new car in cash. And these fans do this by including Y N A B You Need a Budget on their license plates. So people love this app.

You need a budget has helped millions of people transform their finances, save their marriages, and live life on their own terms. I even asked Pete Adney, who's been on the podcast, best known as Mr. Money Mustache, super popular episode, what he thought, and he's a big fan of the founder and what they're doing. You need a budget's simple four rule method will actually teach you how to manage your money. Learn a new way of thinking, new habits, and new behaviors that will help you get out of debt, break the paycheck to paycheck cycle, and build wealth faster. The You Need a Budget team is committed to your success. They offer free live classes every day of the week, video courses, boot camps, challenges, and active fan groups in every corner of the internet. If you want to learn, they can teach you. On average, new budgeters save more than$600 by month two and$6,000 in their first year. So try the app free for 34 days, no credit card required at youneedabudget.com slash Tim. Spelled as you would expect in proper English. Try. You need a budget free for 34 days, no credit card required at uneadabudget.com slash Tim. And just to explain 34 days. That's because most people reconcile at the end of the month or 38 period, so having a couple of days of cushion helps folks out. So 34 days with no credit card required at uneadabudget.com slash tip.

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