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I Was Attacked By A Bear with Amma Thanasanti · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: The five four and one, our folks, welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm very excited to have us my guest today.
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Speaker 1: Ama Tanasanti, Ama welcome.
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Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I appreciate being here.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, you are welcome. Excuse me. I'm a first encounter
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Speaker 1: of the dharma in nineteen seventy nine and was a
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Speaker 1: Buddhist nun for twenty six years in the ajan Chah
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Speaker 1: forest tradition. She's been teaching intensive meditation retreats internationally since
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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, combining the precision and rigor of the
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Speaker 1: forest tradition with compassion, pure awareness practices, and passion for wholeness.
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Speaker 1: Her teaching emphasize is deep listening, authenticity, inquiry, and presence
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Speaker 1: while supporting people from diverse communities and cultivating belonging and
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Speaker 1: connect through awakening truth. Alma integrates meditation with trauma informed approaches,
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Speaker 1: encouraging people to pause to inquire into the present moment
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Speaker 1: and falls to personal growth and healing. All right, i'ma
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Speaker 1: just a little bit about you before we get going,
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Speaker 1: and share with our listeners where you're from originally and
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Speaker 1: where you are currently.
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Speaker 2: I was born in southern California in Los Angeles and
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Speaker 2: escaped as soon as I was old enough, and right
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Speaker 2: now I'm living in where I am speaking from, Ajihik, Mexico.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So how does this start? How does all this
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Speaker 1: start for you?
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Speaker 2: Well? Good question. I think my introduction to the DAMA
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Speaker 2: started in nineteen seventy nine when I wandered into a
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Speaker 2: class on religions of India taught at the University of
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Speaker 2: California at Santa Cruz by a remarkable human being by
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Speaker 2: the name of Jack Angler. And Jack was a visiting
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Speaker 2: lecturer and had been a practitioner himself and was both
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Speaker 2: a clinical psychologist as well as somebody who was deeply
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Speaker 2: involved in the DAMMA. And so from the very beginning
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Speaker 2: I had a real passion for the DAMA, and my
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Speaker 2: love and respect for Jack really instilled in me a
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Speaker 2: quality of like what's possible when a person is integrating
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Speaker 2: both classical DUMA and psychological depth.
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Speaker 1: To find the dama for our listeners.
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Speaker 2: Thank you. You know, I come steeped in the Buddhist world,
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Speaker 2: and so I forget that not everybody on the old
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Speaker 2: planet knows what the dumba is. The dumma on in
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Speaker 2: a broadway, means the truth and in a universal way,
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Speaker 2: it's just the laws of nature. In a Buddhist perspective,
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Speaker 2: it's the teachings of the Buddha, his what he spoke about.
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Speaker 2: It's the teachings that we can practice. And so the
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Speaker 2: Dama has many different levels to it, meanings to it.
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Speaker 1: So you're sitting in this class by this visiting lecture
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Speaker 1: and something ignite in you totally. But what specifically was it?
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Speaker 2: So what was it? It was the possibility of being free,
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Speaker 2: and the freedom had different dimensions to it. First of all,
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Speaker 2: what I was hearing made sense in a way that
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Speaker 2: I had never heard of. Framework made sense in that
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Speaker 2: kind of way before. So it had a framework that
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Speaker 2: explained why suffering is, how we can move through it,
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Speaker 2: and that there are choices that you can make that
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Speaker 2: can actually take you out of suffering and practices that
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Speaker 2: you can do to support that. So there was a
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Speaker 2: framework of teachings that made sense. That made me feel
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Speaker 2: excited that there was possibility that I didn't know about before.
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Speaker 2: But what was more exciting even than that was his presence.
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Speaker 2: So Jack Engler is an exceptionally articulate man who had
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Speaker 2: practiced as a meditation practitioner for a long time and
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Speaker 2: had understood from his heart what some of these teachings meant.
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Speaker 2: So in addition to having precision and exquisite clarity, he
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Speaker 2: had a heart that was deeply attuned and compassionate. And
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Speaker 2: so I would ask questions. We would all ask questions,
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Speaker 2: and he would respond to the human being underneath the question.
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Speaker 2: And it was like, even if the theory didn't make sense,
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Speaker 2: like I wanted to be like.
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Speaker 1: That, you know, Okay, you got to hang on. So
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Speaker 1: give me an example. Break that down. What do you
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Speaker 1: mean by I know what you mean? But what does
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Speaker 1: that feel like? What was specifically? What are we hearing here?
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Speaker 2: Okay? So I'm seventeen. I had a million questions. Some
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Speaker 2: of my questions was like, how does this relate to
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Speaker 2: my stepmother? Like, you know, that's a really tough relationship.
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Speaker 2: How do I translate that into something that makes sense
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Speaker 2: to way I relate with her? So I asked him
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Speaker 2: to ask if I could ask my questions, and so
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Speaker 2: he was busy and I was busy, and the only
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Speaker 2: time he had available to me was at ten o'clock
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Speaker 2: at night. So I walked over to where he was
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Speaker 2: living at ten o'clock at night. Two hours later, I
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Speaker 2: left and he said, anytime you have more questions, come again.
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Speaker 2: So it was his availability, it was his support, it
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Speaker 2: was his encouragement, it was his presence, it was his
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Speaker 2: untangling the human realm in terms of how do you
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Speaker 2: apply these teachings in different, specific, challenging relationships. And it
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Speaker 2: was his very loving, generous presence with me all of
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Speaker 2: those things. It was like, I don't know what all
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Speaker 2: these teachings mean as direct experience, but that that that
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Speaker 2: I can say yes to, like one hundred percent, Like
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Speaker 2: I want to be like that. I want to be
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Speaker 2: somebody who is available and attuned and respond to human
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Speaker 2: beings on that kind of a level.
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Speaker 1: It's incredible when you we encounter that, when we meet that,
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Speaker 1: that that authenticity, that presence you feel it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a bullshit free zone for sure. Like
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Speaker 2: there's there's you can't fake that.
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Speaker 1: You know, you can't fake that, so how do things
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Speaker 1: unfold for you after that?
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Speaker 2: So that within a month of being in that class,
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Speaker 2: I had a vision of being a nun. And nine
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Speaker 2: years later I ended up going to the monastery that
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Speaker 2: I heard about and asking if I could join in community,
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Speaker 2: and I was welcomed and I stayed for twenty years.
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Speaker 2: And the tradition is a remarkable tradition in terms of
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Speaker 2: its capacity to bring forward teachings and practices that really
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Speaker 2: help clarify where we get tangled up, the choices that
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Speaker 2: we can make, and how we can learn to cultivate
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Speaker 2: our attention so that when we're experiencing something that's difficult,
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Speaker 2: we don't have to absorb into the difficulty. We can
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Speaker 2: move back and forth between the direct experience and the
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Speaker 2: knowing of that experience, And in that knowing there's quite
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Speaker 2: a lot of space, quite a lot of ease, and
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Speaker 2: quite a lot of freedom because the knowing doesn't have
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Speaker 2: a tangle in it, even if what we're experiencing is difficult.
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Speaker 1: I want to back up just a little bit, because
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Speaker 1: you jumped, like twenty years you said, when I asked
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Speaker 1: you how things unfolded, you said, well, nine years later
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Speaker 1: you joined you became a nun. How did you decide
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Speaker 1: to become a nun? I mean, that's such a huge decision.
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Speaker 1: Not You're not like just a I'm going to study this,
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Speaker 1: or I'm going to do my dissertation on this, or
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Speaker 1: maybe I'm going to take a you go to group
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Speaker 1: every week? No, how do you get to that point?
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Speaker 2: So in my situation, after being a week in that class,
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Speaker 2: I had unmistakable clarity that spiritual life was going to
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Speaker 2: be the center part of my world. And within a
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Speaker 2: month I had a vision of being a nun. And
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Speaker 2: for every year I went on ten day retreats, and
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Speaker 2: I had a daily practice, and I went on a
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Speaker 2: three month retreat Wow. And then I went to Southeast
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Speaker 2: Asia in order to meet some of the meditation masters
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Speaker 2: that i'd heard about in the class with Jack. And
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Speaker 2: on the way there or I was there, I was
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Speaker 2: attacked by a bear. And the experience was life changing,
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Speaker 2: partly because I lived, and partly because when I came
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Speaker 2: through that, like, one of the things that just became
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Speaker 2: really clear to me, was it in my mind? Obviously
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Speaker 2: I have no idea what was going on in the
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Speaker 2: bear's mind, but in my mind, the one thing that
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Speaker 2: I could point to that made it possible for what
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Speaker 2: happened on my side was because of the meditation practice
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Speaker 2: that I had done. So even though I went to
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Speaker 2: Asia with a very clear intention to explore whether it
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Speaker 2: becoming a monastic was the right choice for me, this
9:46
Speaker 2: was a kick in the butt. And part of the
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Speaker 2: reason why was because it was incredible that I survived it,
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Speaker 2: but I did survive it, and having survived it, there
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Speaker 2: was like before bear and after bear, and after Bear,
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Speaker 2: there was no mistake that the only reason why I
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Speaker 2: was alive was because of the meditation practice and training
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Speaker 2: that I had done up until that point. So I
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Speaker 2: was filled with faith. And when I went to a
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Speaker 2: forest monastery in Thailand and saw the power of the
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Speaker 2: practice and had faith in what the Buddha said, which
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Speaker 2: was that if you're really sincere and genuine about cultivating
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Speaker 2: a life of freedom, monastic life is a really powerful
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Speaker 2: way of doing that.
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Speaker 1: What does it mean to be a monastic, as you said,
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Speaker 1: to become a nun, what does that mean?
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Speaker 2: So in the tradition that I was ordained into, it
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Speaker 2: means there's different levels of ordination, different levels of precepts.
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Speaker 2: As an eight precepts As an Anagerica, we keep eight precepts.
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Speaker 2: We don't eat food after noon, we shave our head,
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Speaker 2: and we wear white robes. As a Ceilidurra, we had
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Speaker 2: officially ten precepts, but we were keeping more observances that
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Speaker 2: ended up being more like one hundred and thirty two.
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Speaker 2: We didn't handle money, we didn't cook, we didn't drive,
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Speaker 2: we didn't have a bank account, we didn't have We
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Speaker 2: wore only robes. And so our life was a life
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Speaker 2: of simplicity, of renunciation of service.
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Speaker 1: And this was in Southeast Asia.
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Speaker 2: No, it was in England.
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Speaker 1: This was in England. And you did that for how long?
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Speaker 2: I was a nun in the monastery there and then
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Speaker 2: I left and I was an independent monastic for twenty
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Speaker 2: six years.
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Speaker 1: And did you hold down a quote unquote normal job.
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Speaker 2: No. So as a monastic, we are our life is
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Speaker 2: to live the dama with the precepts that we have,
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Speaker 2: to practice meditation and to be in service. And the
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Speaker 2: monastery is supporting us with basics of food and shelter
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Speaker 2: and medicine and clothing robes, and so we are part
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Speaker 2: of the community and the community supports us in those ways.
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Speaker 2: So the normal job thing is not part of the picture.
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Speaker 1: So I mean, obviously now you're things have shifted for you.
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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm no longer a monastic. I returned to life
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Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen.
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Speaker 1: I do what what what precipitated that change, that shift?
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Speaker 2: So you know, when I ordained, partly because of the
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Speaker 2: circumstances right before, I was rather motivated, and so the
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Speaker 2: conviction that I had when I went into monastic life
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Speaker 2: was to stay until I knew with conviction that it
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Speaker 2: no longer served me. And so I had had doubt
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Speaker 2: because they were challenging things that we were navigating. But
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Speaker 2: doubt is not the same as conviction, and so I
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Speaker 2: stayed until I knew with conviction that living the life
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Speaker 2: of a monastic was no longer in my best interest.
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Speaker 2: And I came to that conclusion when I realized that
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Speaker 2: my aspiration for awakening was on parallel with my aspiration
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Speaker 2: for wholeness, and that I didn't feel monastic life was
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Speaker 2: able to support me in my aspiration for wholeness to
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Speaker 2: the degree that I felt I needed to explore and
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Speaker 2: realize that. So you leave, So I left the Yes,
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Speaker 2: I left. Firstly, I left the Ajuancha tradition of formal
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Speaker 2: affiliations with the Auguanchat tradition, and I lived as an
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Speaker 2: independent monastic, and then I had a Bukunia ordination, a
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Speaker 2: higher ordination, and I remained for until twenty seventeen, and
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Speaker 2: then I returned to civilian life.
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Speaker 1: How do you integrate, how do you make that transition?
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Speaker 2: Well, that's a really beautiful question. And initially I was
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Speaker 2: really excited and also like bemused, because I was in
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Speaker 2: my fifties and all of a sudden, I was dealing
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Speaker 2: with things that most people figure out when they're a teenager,
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Speaker 2: you know, opening a bank account, getting a driver's license,
14:57
Speaker 2: figuring out what color you want to wear, what your
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Speaker 2: style is, what your name is, like, all of these
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Speaker 2: basic basic things I was trying to sort out in
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Speaker 2: my fifties. Because I'd spent so many years living as
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Speaker 2: a nun, I didn't know the answer, you know. So
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Speaker 2: initially there was a tremendous amount of like bubble and
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Speaker 2: pop and excitement about what this uncovery emergence discovery was
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Speaker 2: going to be like. And then three months after or
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Speaker 2: four months after I returned to civilian life, we were
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Speaker 2: in the Santa Rosa fires, which was at that point
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Speaker 2: the biggest fire that California had ever seen, and my
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Speaker 2: health tanked, and so I was really really unwell and
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Speaker 2: really struggling because I was trying to figure out a
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Speaker 2: whole bunch of things as well as trying to figure
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Speaker 2: out why I was so sick and get better.
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Speaker 1: If I may ask, why were you so sick?
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Speaker 2: Well, I think what happened was that we all evacuated
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Speaker 2: and there was like three inches of ash that was
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Speaker 2: over everything, and the ash there were five thousand buildings
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Speaker 2: that burned, and half of them were businesses, so you
16:12
Speaker 2: can only imagine what was in that ash. And they
16:15
Speaker 2: were cleaning up and they took leaf blowers and I
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Speaker 2: got a face full of the ash, and my health
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Speaker 2: just went south. And I think I had underlying conditions
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Speaker 2: that got activated because of the toxicity, and it took
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Speaker 2: a long time to figure out what was what.
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Speaker 1: There's this idea out there, you know, I mean, I
16:43
Speaker 1: feel we need people like you who were called to
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Speaker 1: what to represent to be to help help us be
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Speaker 1: present and honor that and live that. And there's and
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Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong here, But there's often a
17:09
Speaker 1: kind of challenge to that, right like, okay, well, you're
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Speaker 1: living this life on this mountain. What happens when you live?
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Speaker 1: Why can't you do that in the city. Is it
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Speaker 1: possible to do that in a civilian as a civilian,
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Speaker 1: You know, there's a kind of this dichotomy.
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Speaker 2: So there is a dichotomy, and part of it is
17:32
Speaker 2: because people don't really understand what practices and what meditation
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Speaker 2: is and what monastic life is. So people have an
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Speaker 2: assumption that when you're living in a monastery, everything is
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Speaker 2: roses and there's no conflict, and that everything is offered
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Speaker 2: to you and you don't have to work, and that's
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Speaker 2: not true. You know, when you're living in a monastery,
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Speaker 2: you're living in community. And anytime you're living in a community,
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Speaker 2: there are people, and people are peoplish, whether they arenastics
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Speaker 2: or whether they're not monastics, and you have to deal
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Speaker 2: with peoplishness in terms of what gets stirred up and
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Speaker 2: activated inside of you. And you know, as a monastic,
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Speaker 2: we also worked, and so like I remember, I was
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Speaker 2: the work none and we had a visiting well, we
18:17
Speaker 2: had an anagerica. And at the end of his time
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Speaker 2: of being two years as a novice, he said that
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Speaker 2: the hardest day of his time working was when he
18:27
Speaker 2: was helping the nuns work, and I was the work
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Speaker 2: none making sure that he did all these things. So
18:33
Speaker 2: hard work was a lot of what we did. So
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Speaker 2: the difference is that in a monastery, you have the
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Speaker 2: support to keep the precepts, You have the support with
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Speaker 2: basic requisites, and you have support incredible support for doing
18:48
Speaker 2: retreats and having times of solitude, as well as oftentimes
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Speaker 2: extraordinary opportunity to hear excellent teachings. But life is life,
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Speaker 2: no matter what your hairstyle, no matter what color you're wearing,
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Speaker 2: no matter how much money you have, there's still what
19:08
Speaker 2: goes on in terms of what arises in your mind
19:11
Speaker 2: and how you relate to that. And so that basic
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Speaker 2: experience of being human is something that everybody has in common,
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Speaker 2: no matter what their lifestyle is. The difference is is
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Speaker 2: that as a monastic, we are trained to learn how
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Speaker 2: to cultivate our attention in a way where we can
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Speaker 2: have choices about what we follow as opposed to what
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Speaker 2: we enact in a way that might be different for
19:35
Speaker 2: people who are not exposed to meditation practices. And we
19:40
Speaker 2: are also living with ethical guidelines that encourage us to
19:43
Speaker 2: live with integrity and harmlessness and honesty, and in some
19:48
Speaker 2: living situations, in worldly situations, that's not so present. In fact,
19:53
Speaker 2: the opposite is encouraged. So there are some differences, but
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Speaker 2: the basic challenge of being human is similar in whatever
20:00
Speaker 2: situation you find yourself in. So I'm no longer a monastic,
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Speaker 2: but I continue practicing, and I continue seeing the choices
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Speaker 2: that I have and seeing the patterns that get activated,
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Speaker 2: and seeing the ways in which I can work with
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Speaker 2: them or let them just roll out.
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Speaker 1: So what are you doing now with awakening Truth? When
20:24
Speaker 1: did you found that? Tell us about that.
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Speaker 2: That was founded in two thousand and nine, and it
20:31
Speaker 2: was a response to the fact that I was no
20:33
Speaker 2: longer living in a community and I needed to have
20:36
Speaker 2: organizational support in order for basic things to happen, and
20:40
Speaker 2: it has morphed over the years. Initially I was a monastic,
20:43
Speaker 2: and then I was a bikuni, and then I shifted
20:47
Speaker 2: to having more trauma informed teachings, so that I included
20:52
Speaker 2: learning how to work with trauma and implementing them in
20:56
Speaker 2: classical meditation instructions, and then more recently, in the last
21:01
Speaker 2: few years, I created a program called the Integrated Meditation program,
21:07
Speaker 2: because what I found was that as brilliant and liberating
21:12
Speaker 2: as the teachings were, they didn't include understanding of trauma.
21:19
Speaker 2: They didn't understand attachment wounding and how that impacts our
21:24
Speaker 2: ability to meditate, and it didn't have any frame of
21:28
Speaker 2: reference or about what narcissistic wounding is. So the attachment
21:35
Speaker 2: repair that the Integrated Meditation Program makes possible shifts are
21:40
Speaker 2: fundamental patterns so that we have more internal sense of safety,
21:47
Speaker 2: and so that we can also access more comfort and
21:53
Speaker 2: feel a sense of being valued and loved for who
21:56
Speaker 2: we are rather than for what we do, and to
22:01
Speaker 2: encourage ourselves to express ourselves, to explore, to play, and
22:06
Speaker 2: to have fun. And when these qualities are present and
22:12
Speaker 2: our patterns shift in accordance with the presence of them,
22:18
Speaker 2: rather than they were often formed because of the absence
22:23
Speaker 2: of them. And these fundamental patterns have a huge impact
22:29
Speaker 2: on our health, our well being, our internal sense of
22:32
Speaker 2: who we are, our relationships, our outlook on the world.
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Speaker 2: It's global. So the Integrated Meditation Program is a six
22:42
Speaker 2: month immersive program designed to help people do this work.
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Speaker 1: What does it mean to incorporate the principles of being
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Speaker 1: trauma informed into meditation. What does that look like? Specifically,
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Speaker 1: give us an idea.
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Speaker 2: Okay, So in the classical teachings, they're the first instructions
23:07
Speaker 2: in the Sati Patana suta, which is one of the
23:09
Speaker 2: main sutos that tell you how to meditate is go
23:13
Speaker 2: to the root of a tree or to an empty
23:14
Speaker 2: hut or into an open field, sit down, close your eyes,
23:19
Speaker 2: and bring mindfulness present. That meditation instructions assumes you have
23:25
Speaker 2: enough safety to sit still, to close your eyes, and
23:31
Speaker 2: to bring your attention inward to what's happening in your body.
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Speaker 1: To add to be alone in a field, right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So it presumes a level of safety that people
23:44
Speaker 2: who are navigating trauma often do not have. And so
23:49
Speaker 2: you can go on a meditation retreat feeling or thinking
23:52
Speaker 2: or hoping that the meditation retreat is going to be
23:54
Speaker 2: something that's going to be liberating, and can come out
23:58
Speaker 2: where you're just very activated and you're in worse shape
24:00
Speaker 2: than you were when you went in, because the instructions
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Speaker 2: presume something that may not be there if you're navigating
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Speaker 2: certain kinds of trauma or certain kinds of attachment wounding.
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Speaker 1: How and when did you realize integrating trauma informed practices
24:24
Speaker 1: might be important or significant in this work.
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Speaker 2: So I was carrying a lot of trauma and I
24:30
Speaker 2: wasn't aware of it. And then finally I began to
24:33
Speaker 2: put the pieces together and started working with a therapist,
24:36
Speaker 2: a trauma therapist, and noticing big differences. And then I
24:41
Speaker 2: also learned about attachment theory and became very excited because
24:48
Speaker 2: in the people are peoplish kind of scenarios in the monastery.
24:53
Speaker 2: Understanding attachment theory began to help me understand some of
24:58
Speaker 2: the behaviors that I couldn't make sense out of before, Like,
25:01
Speaker 2: how is it possible when you have a community of
25:03
Speaker 2: people who are committed to harmlessness, who have precepts that
25:08
Speaker 2: support them in harmlessness, that have practices that encourage them
25:12
Speaker 2: to understand what's happening in their own mind? How come
25:15
Speaker 2: things can happen in a way that there can be
25:18
Speaker 2: profound harm that results? Like how is that possible? And
25:23
Speaker 2: So in my own experience of what I lived through
25:26
Speaker 2: and in my own dedication, it wasn't that I was slack.
25:30
Speaker 2: You know, I think I counted up like fifty thousand
25:33
Speaker 2: hours of meditation. You know, it wasn't like this was
25:38
Speaker 2: just a weekend hobby, you know, and I could see
25:41
Speaker 2: that there were patterns in myself that hadn't resolved. So
25:45
Speaker 2: part of it was inward. Instead of asking how can
25:48
Speaker 2: I do more meditation? I started asking what else do
25:51
Speaker 2: I need? And then I began to find frames of
25:56
Speaker 2: reference that made sense for me. I began to look
25:59
Speaker 2: and think, oh, my goodness, this makes so much sense.
26:02
Speaker 2: Why there's so many things going on in the community
26:05
Speaker 2: that don't make sense otherwise?
26:11
Speaker 1: When you're beginning these meditations and cognizant of trauma informed practices,
26:24
Speaker 1: what are some things you might.
26:26
Speaker 2: Say or do so something simple like before you close
26:33
Speaker 2: your eyes, look around the room, look behind your shoulders,
26:38
Speaker 2: look behind your back. Notice the absence of danger in
26:43
Speaker 2: your visual field. When you recognize there's no actual danger
26:48
Speaker 2: in your visual field, do you feel comfortable to close
26:53
Speaker 2: your eyes? If you feel comfortable, close your eyes. If
26:58
Speaker 2: you don't feel comfortable, don't close your eyes. So each teaching,
27:05
Speaker 2: working with the body, and working with the hard and
27:08
Speaker 2: working with the frames of reference have a trauma informed
27:12
Speaker 2: component to it, which means that if we're dealing with trauma,
27:16
Speaker 2: or if the clients that we're working with or the
27:18
Speaker 2: students that we have are dealing with trauma. We need
27:21
Speaker 2: to understand some things rather than just presume that because
27:26
Speaker 2: the classical teachings have been around for twenty five hundred years,
27:30
Speaker 2: then they are what this student needs right now. So
27:34
Speaker 2: the adaptation is to understand the context where the classical
27:39
Speaker 2: teachings need contextualization and the practices need adaptation to bridge
27:48
Speaker 2: where somebody is as opposed to what is presumed.
27:56
Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, Ama, who would
28:00
Speaker 1: you say this integrated method, this integrated program is for.
28:08
Speaker 2: So if you've been a meditator for more than three
28:10
Speaker 2: years of various different kinds of traditions, and if you
28:14
Speaker 2: notice that patterns that you have are still alive, that
28:17
Speaker 2: you still are consumed by experiences of shame, or feeling
28:22
Speaker 2: that you're responsible for other people's feelings, or feeling like
28:26
Speaker 2: you're alone even when you're around people, or feeling a
28:31
Speaker 2: sense of like there's something fundamentally wrong with you. These
28:36
Speaker 2: kinds of patterns that haven't shifted. These are the kinds
28:39
Speaker 2: of patterns that shift. In the integrated meditation program. People
28:43
Speaker 2: come out of it feeling more safe in themselves, less
28:48
Speaker 2: vulnerable to harm, feeling their relationships improved, feeling that their
28:53
Speaker 2: ability to understand themselves and their meditation practice deepens. So
29:00
Speaker 2: if any of this is interesting to you, then what
29:02
Speaker 2: I would encourage is that you check out the free
29:05
Speaker 2: introductory session and see ask your questions, learn more about
29:10
Speaker 2: the program, and see if it might be a match.
29:14
Speaker 1: We'll have that link here up at the show notes
29:18
Speaker 1: at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com on this episode
29:20
Speaker 1: of the show notes of this episode, you know it's
29:26
Speaker 1: I mean what you're doing, Ama, I love the way
29:32
Speaker 1: you've bridged, as you've been calling it, the classical practices
29:37
Speaker 1: of meditation and brought them to up to speed. If
29:43
Speaker 1: I can use that term up up of what's needed
29:45
Speaker 1: right now in our world and our culture to be
29:49
Speaker 1: able to meditate and gain what meditation affords us, how
30:03
Speaker 1: would you articulate that?
30:04
Speaker 2: So my first DOMA teacher, Jack Engler, really did a
30:08
Speaker 2: beautiful job. So he was renowned for saying you have
30:11
Speaker 2: to develop a self before you can let go of
30:13
Speaker 2: a self, and then twenty years later he changed it
30:19
Speaker 2: that it's not sequential, but you need to have an
30:22
Speaker 2: internal sense of cohesion and a sense of self alongside
30:28
Speaker 2: the practices of meditation. Which often are designed to let
30:33
Speaker 2: go of any identification with yourself as being solid or permanent.
30:38
Speaker 2: So psychological development and understanding who we are essentially go together.
30:47
Speaker 2: It's not that essential understanding is often enough to do
30:52
Speaker 2: the developmental work that for many of us didn't happen
30:56
Speaker 2: at the time that it could have or needed to
30:58
Speaker 2: or should have or what word you want to use.
31:01
Speaker 2: So I went into meditation thinking that all I needed
31:05
Speaker 2: was meditation and that if I meditated enough, it would
31:08
Speaker 2: resolve all the various different kinds of suffering that I had.
31:12
Speaker 2: But that's a very naive understanding. And after living in
31:17
Speaker 2: a dedicated practice environment for decades and realizing it wasn't
31:22
Speaker 2: doing that in myself and seeing how it wasn't happening
31:26
Speaker 2: in the community around me, I started rethinking. Rather than
31:30
Speaker 2: thinking that meditation was all that I needed, I began
31:33
Speaker 2: thinking what else can I bring? And then later what
31:36
Speaker 2: else can I develop and offer to support doing this
31:41
Speaker 2: work developmentally, both so that we have more sense of
31:44
Speaker 2: internal wholeness ourselves, but also so that we can get
31:49
Speaker 2: the fruits of meditation that meditation is designed for. Because
31:52
Speaker 2: one of the things that happens when we have this
31:55
Speaker 2: kind of wounding is that some of the deepest freedoms
31:59
Speaker 2: that are available in meditation we boch, we back away
32:02
Speaker 2: from because they activate something inside that feels like terrifying
32:09
Speaker 2: that we don't have the capacity to work with just
32:12
Speaker 2: with mindfulness. And so the real fruit, the real freedoms
32:17
Speaker 2: of meditation become unavailable when we haven't done some of
32:21
Speaker 2: the developmental work.
32:24
Speaker 1: I love it, Ama, How do people learn more about
32:28
Speaker 1: you and the program?
32:31
Speaker 2: So Awakeningtruth dot org is the website and it has
32:35
Speaker 2: on a page for the Integrated Meditation program. And I'm
32:39
Speaker 2: on social media on Facebook, on YouTube, on Instagram, and
32:43
Speaker 2: the links for all of that can be in the
32:45
Speaker 2: show notes. And a lot of my stuff is online,
32:50
Speaker 2: so wherever you are, you can find me.
32:53
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have all those again. We'll have all those
32:55
Speaker 1: linked up here at the page at the Trauma Tripps
32:58
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com. On's awesome. I'd love to have you back.
33:01
Speaker 1: I really appreciate being here.
33:04
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
33:04
Speaker 1: This fort alrec Take care