Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 65: Discovering Buddhism: Everyday Practices for Presence, Peace, and Connection

Transcript

65: Discovering Buddhism: Everyday Practices for Presence, Peace, and Connection · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: hey, superstars, welcome back polly here and sam, what's up?
• 0:31
  Polly Mertens: Beautiful humans, oh my best beautiful friend.
• 0:35
  Polly Mertens: What are we talking about today?
• 0:38
  Samantha Pruitt: well, we're talking about some things, but how I perceive the conversation is what you and I both are getting up to right now in the world, and it is we're practicing the art of living, which is who we are in learning, exploring, understanding and becoming more knowing in our own interbeing about certain subjects that have to do with who we are in the world, how we live our life, and really understanding not just ourselves but humanity.
• 1:17
  Samantha Pruitt: But we have to start with ourselves first.
• 1:19
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're both on this really kind of deep, inquisitive path Different paths, but yet they're very, you know, related.
• 1:34
  Polly Mertens: And I would say, you know, one of the things we said before we went on air is about how it's just, we don't know Like it's not like.
• 1:37
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I've got this direct map to New York and every little, you know, every little turn, left turn and right turn is identified and I'm just following it.
• 1:45
  Polly Mertens: It's more like there's this thing I've heard about called New York and I want to go there and you know, let's just get in the car and see where we go, right, and it's or or there's this thing called the United States that I want to see and let's get about seeing it and who knows what left or right.
• 2:02
  Polly Mertens: And I think one of the things I've been getting from a guy who does some channeling is he says follow your excitement, like that's the ticket.
• 2:10
  Polly Mertens: I was like, hey, I can take that advice.
• 2:12
  Polly Mertens: That's usually actually how I live Follow your excitement and what excites you.
• 2:16
  Polly Mertens: And he says like, even, just like, 10% more than the other thing, like if you've got two things that are like either they're both or they're both super exciting, well, which one's?
• 2:25
  Polly Mertens: 10% more, like that's the thing for you, right?
• 2:27
  Polly Mertens: And so one of the things that I most want to talk about, you know, I love how you opened up with the practicing the art of living, which is like mic drop right there, like that phrase when you've texted that to me and when you've described that to me that originates from buddhism.
• 2:41
  Polly Mertens: Right, is that?
• 2:42
  Polly Mertens: That's like the study of buddhism is like the art of living, and you've talked about how like life is art and we're creating our art, and I had this quote that I sent you this morning.
• 2:53
  Polly Mertens: That was like you know, some people paint with a paintbrush or sculpt with a you know clay or they, you know, create music with a guitar.
• 3:00
  Polly Mertens: And then there's some people that I would say you, you and I, we don't have the art of a hobby, if you will, that creates.
• 3:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, we've got this podcast, which is word art.
• 3:10
  Polly Mertens: Right, right.
• 3:11
  Polly Mertens: And this particular person that was on this article was like he's a doctor, you know, and like that's his art, right, and so yours is.
• 3:18
  Polly Mertens: You know the things that you're up to in the world, and mine and's all crafty and crazy.
• 3:22
  Polly Mertens: So, if we step back at the 10,000 foot view of our life, there's this beautiful tapestry that our life weaves, and the people in it and the colors of it, and the places we've seen, and the music scapes, and the faces and the moments and all of that, and that's creating our, our art, our life, if you will, and especially the ones that we touch right like through, like through this podcast.
• 3:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, everybody gets the opportunity to make art and however you decide you're going to perceive your own life is by choice.
• 3:56
  Samantha Pruitt: I think, first of all, let's just start with that.
• 4:00
  Samantha Pruitt: It's by choice how we decide to wake up every day and perceive our life.
• 4:04
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so mind blowing the simplicity of that statement, because many of us feel like, well, this is just what it is, and somebody else is scripting it and I'm like an actor in the play and I'm going to be, you know, doing the roles and da, da, dah, dah, dah, no, just just no.
• 4:26
  Samantha Pruitt: So if I decide that my life is art, I'm also talking about the last 55 years and let me tell you a lot of it was a mess, it was chaos, you know, explosions of color and broken glass and all that, but that's okay.
• 4:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't mean that everything was beautiful and and it's like Picasso and this is a masterpiece.
• 4:49
  Samantha Pruitt: That's not what I'm saying.
• 4:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm saying that it's all been part of the artwork.
• 4:56
  Samantha Pruitt: I am the creator.
• 5:06
  Polly Mertens: Hmm, well said, and I do want to give a nod, because I think one of the things you maybe lose track of and sometimes I do too is not everyone plays the game the way that we do, right, I think there's a lot in our society through conditioning, through old patterns, through fears, through the way society tells us to be or whatnot, and if you tune into that channel what's not the channel we listen to it can look a little bit more gray and white, you know, a little more vanilla, not so many bright colors or magic moments, and sometimes it doesn't even feel like the painting you want to be drawing or you want to be creating.
• 5:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, many times, I mean and I totally can relate to that too as part of my journey, for sure, for sure, so many years were black and white Grayscapes, like literally.
• 5:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I feel like I lost years of my life not even remembering some of the things that were happening because they were so not great, right.
• 6:02
  Samantha Pruitt: But then at the same time, like in hindsight, and through them and generally through the darkness and out the other side, there was always this deep kind of knowing that it was okay and it was all part of it.
• 6:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:19
  Polly Mertens: Well, and some people just come out, you know, kicking in and and feeling that path earlier than some others of us, I think, you know.
• 6:27
  Polly Mertens: I mean, there's some painters that, like, they come out and they just paint, or they're supposed to be a doctor and they just doctor, you know, and but they love it, not like a having to, a getting to a joyfully expression.
• 6:39
  Polly Mertens: And you know, some of us we try this or we try that, or we follow someone else's.
• 6:45
  Polly Mertens: Well, maybe this will work for you and it's like, oh, no, no, that's not, that's not what I want, right, and so all of it's great and it gets us to where we are.
• 6:52
  Polly Mertens: And you know, one of the things you and I see ourself is like, if you're, if all of our listeners are a sound bowl, you know we're like ding, you know like.
• 6:58
  Polly Mertens: So this is another episode, yet again, of like ding.
• 7:01
  Polly Mertens: We want to ding your sound bowl and reawaken you to the inner vibration that you are.
• 7:06
  Polly Mertens: You're the inner artist, the sculptor, the painter, however you want to describe it, practicing the art of living, and what I think would be beautiful is if you share with people.
• 7:16
  Polly Mertens: Let's talk about this journey that you've been on, that most recently led you to a walking meditation, which you aren't likely to do.
• 7:24
  Polly Mertens: I've never known you to do a single moment of meditation, let alone a whole day.
• 7:27
  Polly Mertens: So what the heck got you there Totally?
• 7:30
  Polly Mertens: Where were you Paint the picture so like what is this place and who is this person that you went to see?
• 7:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, I've got to go back a few years.
• 7:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, or I get to what just transpired this weekend.
• 7:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Let's do that.
• 7:45
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't really ever see or witness or have any understanding for my mother, but she in a religious context, except for she was raised in England.
• 7:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Both of my parents were.
• 7:58
  Samantha Pruitt: They were children of the war.
• 7:59
  Samantha Pruitt: All kinds of crazy things were going on, and when they were growing up, my mom in particular was sent to Catholic schools and so she had a very bad experience over the course of that time and so was really anti-religion At the time.
• 8:14
  Samantha Pruitt: They immigrated to America and I was born on American soil.
• 8:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Religion was not at all part of my upbringing and if anything, there was a real negative attitude and connotation around religious organizations and so forth.
• 8:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So never experienced any of that.
• 8:31
  Samantha Pruitt: But she had also, over the course of my lifetime, collected these little Buddhas and so I, when she passed away, I received four of them.
• 8:43
  Samantha Pruitt: One is a big garden one that I have that's kind of crumbling and falling apart, but it's still really beautiful, and then these three little ones.
• 8:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So I have one right now actually on my desk.
• 8:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, you do A wooden one, I have a jade one, and then I have a little stone one, and so it's ludicrous to me now why I never had conversations with her about why in the hell do you have these?
• 9:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Because I never saw her practicing Buddhism or anything.
• 9:10
  Samantha Pruitt: But I was having a conversation with my brother.
• 9:12
  Samantha Pruitt: It was like how fascinating that we didn't know this piece of our mother.
• 9:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyway, so long story short, I always after I inherited these and they became part of in my home skating, been around my life.
• 9:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I had some curiosities.
• 9:25
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I had some adult friends who I just love.
• 9:30
  Samantha Pruitt: They're just amazing humans in the world.
• 9:32
  Samantha Pruitt: They're just beautiful, amazing humans doing really magnificent work with their life and they practice Buddhism.
• 9:38
  Samantha Pruitt: And so I had some curiosities.
• 9:40
  Samantha Pruitt: I would have some conversations.
• 9:42
  Samantha Pruitt: There's lots of different types of Buddhism to practice and I found out a little bit and then I read some books about the different types.
• 9:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So I was really just more like a curiosity, a learning I'm a constant learner A little osmosis?
• 9:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I want to know about things in the world, and especially if there's some thread of it where, where it keeps reoccurring, almost like it comes into my stream, the universe drops things into my space where it's like okay, now I've heard about this three or four or five times.
• 10:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, you've sparked my curiosity, universe, you've got my attention.
• 10:18
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, especially when it comes through people, or from people that you admire and you respect or you love and you know have for you're like.
• 10:25
  Polly Mertens: Well, if that person is wonderful and I love them and they, you know, are attracted to you know whatever a musician, a piece of art or whatever it's like, tell me more about that, right totally.
• 10:38
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like a friend turning you on to a good book, like you said, a piece of music, a good movie.
• 10:42
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, it's the same kind of thing Like oh, we share a value system and it resonates, so maybe I'd be interested in this as well.
• 10:51
  Samantha Pruitt: So, anyway, I started checking things out and then I was listening to a podcast one day recently and I heard this woman being interviewed and she's a Buddhist nun.
• 11:03
  Samantha Pruitt: She's called Sister D, and so I bought her book.
• 11:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So I have this book.
• 11:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Interviewed and she's a Buddhist nun, she's called Sister D, and so I bought her book.
• 11:06
  Samantha Pruitt: So I have this book.
• 11:08
  Polly Mertens: Flowers in the Dark.
• 11:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And she is a author, very talented author, and that interview, by the way, is on the 10% Happier podcast, Dan Harris, 10% Happier.
• 11:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Her name is Sister D and so that interview is on there if anybody wants to listen to it.
• 11:29
  Samantha Pruitt: I was listening to her while I was out doing my long walk run hike one day and, oh my gosh, just her energy coming through.
• 11:38
  Samantha Pruitt: The broadcast was so beautiful and she was, in particular, talking about this new book and trauma.
• 11:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So this is a book for healing trauma.
• 11:46
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's basically she's a doctor, an MD and the integration of all of her knowledge of the human body and brain and how we function as humans, and then her Buddhist practices integrated into some ways for people to heal their trauma, and it's in this book.
• 12:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's really beautiful, highly, highly recommended, and I've been reading that and in the course of reading that, following the thread, I found out that there is a Buddhist monastery over the hill two hours from me the only one in California, by the way, and one of the very few in the United States of America practicing this type of Buddhism.
• 12:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, and she often stays there and I'm like, excuse me, I mean obviously I need to get in my car and drive over there.
• 12:43
  Samantha Pruitt: So in doing my research, I realized that you can't just show up in these places.
• 12:49
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it's like your house, you know.
• 12:52
  Samantha Pruitt: This is again.
• 12:53
  Samantha Pruitt: This is me learning, like how this all goes.
• 12:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and what I found is they do have some days that are open to the public.
• 13:02
  Samantha Pruitt: They call them mindful days and basically there's opportunities to come onto the property, be with the nuns, the monastics, the nuns and the brothers and basically the monks, and be with them in practice.
• 13:17
  Samantha Pruitt: So of course, I immediately signed up for a ticket to go there.
• 13:21
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it was free, but like to be on the property and to share the experience.
• 13:25
  Samantha Pruitt: And that was just this last weekend.
• 13:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it was super cool.
• 13:28
  Samantha Pruitt: I went by myself and I just like again, I just followed my inner, knowing, my inner curiosity, which, in a way, of course, that's what we call a calling, or that's what we call, you know, the law of attraction, or however people perceive how the universe and them communicate.
• 13:48
  Samantha Pruitt: You know everybody has ideas about that, that we believe that there's energy, right.
• 13:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So I really feel a pull to the understanding of these philosophies, this way of life, and when I learned the simplicity of it all and I slowly have unpacked how incredibly simple it actually is this practice, that it's not in fact a religion, it is a practice in the art of living I was like they're talking to me.
• 14:19
  Samantha Pruitt: I already know this to be true.
• 14:22
  Samantha Pruitt: And pretty much everything I have read and experienced so far I already knew to be true, like these are deep truths within me, so I think that vibration is stronger and stronger and stronger because it so resonates.
• 14:37
  Samantha Pruitt: There's no questioning.
• 14:38
  Samantha Pruitt: There's no, I don't understand.
• 14:41
  Samantha Pruitt: There's no resistance.
• 14:42
  Samantha Pruitt: That happens with a lot of religions and people in religions with belief systems.
• 14:49
  Polly Mertens: Well, yeah, it's like I find that there's a lot of people that you know like sinning.
• 14:55
  Polly Mertens: It's like, well, you wouldn't have sin if there weren't these expectations.
• 15:00
  Polly Mertens: Or like you know things that people felt against right, you know, whatever, call them moral or whatever, you know don't do this, don't do that, don't do this.
• 15:08
  Polly Mertens: And yet you see a lot of people doing those things right, and so they're not in alignment with those ways of being.
• 15:15
  Polly Mertens: It's like, well, maybe there's something else out there for you, you know, or do you want to look at this?
• 15:20
  Polly Mertens: Is there something that's causing you to behave in this way?
• 15:23
  Polly Mertens: But what I get, what you're saying, is like it's just a it's not a prescribed expectation like do and don't.
• 15:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like, hey, did you notice this about the world?
• 15:33
  Polly Mertens: Hey, did you notice like you're?
• 15:34
  Polly Mertens: You're, you're a being that has a life and a death, and I don't know, like, teach us some of the things that you've discovered, you know and Well, there are disciplines, so it isn't like a completely untethered way of being Well practicing.
• 15:48
  Polly Mertens: Obviously there's some discipline.
• 15:49
  Polly Mertens: If there's practice, it's like.
• 15:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, in fast summary, it's the discipline and practices around being a good human being.
• 15:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it's literally that simple, and I don't know anybody who doesn't want to be a good human being.
• 16:06
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean even people who are committing horrible crimes, atrocities to other humans and animals and so forth.
• 16:14
  Samantha Pruitt: I believe at their core they actually do not want to be that person.
• 16:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I agree.
• 16:21
  Polly Mertens: I think there's people that are healthy and unhealthy in their mindset.
• 16:25
  Polly Mertens: Things have traumatized them or they are seeking out patterns that are harmful to themselves and others, not because they necessarily want to.
• 16:35
  Polly Mertens: It's either a compulsion or a escape or a coping or something like that.
• 16:42
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, I love this, practices in the way of living and disciplines.
• 16:46
  Polly Mertens: You know, and and what that tells me is you know there's levels to this, right.
• 16:52
  Polly Mertens: There's like the more time you spend doing these things, the better you'll get at it.
• 16:58
  Polly Mertens: You're not expected to be just like, oh yeah, you just kind of the idea.
• 17:03
  Samantha Pruitt: It doesn't happen quickly, though, but, yes, totally, totally so.
• 17:07
  Samantha Pruitt: So this is, in particular, um the one I'm studying the type of buddhism I should say that I am studying and technically practicing, and apparently I've been practicing for a really long time and I've had no idea.
• 17:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Um it's zen Master, thich Nhat Hanh, which a lot of people are very familiar with and the practice is the Plum Village practice.
• 17:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Plum Village is in France.
• 17:30
  Samantha Pruitt: It's the main monastery when everybody left.
• 17:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I mean, that's where they went and started to, you know, practice under him.
• 17:39
  Samantha Pruitt: But there's a whole history to all religions, including Buddhism, and in fact it started on the Silk Road and it started in India, but then it quickly went to all the stands, so Iraq, iran and every single one of the stands they were practicing Buddhism and it was traveling along the Silk Road, not just there's three Silk Roads one is on the water and then one is over water and one is through land.
• 18:10
  Samantha Pruitt: And as those humans were moving across these passages towards China, buddhism was traveling with them.
• 18:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So the origins are not in China, it's just so much.
• 18:23
  Samantha Pruitt: It just blows your mind when you start thinking about these really incredibly beautiful humans of all types around the globe.
• 18:30
  Samantha Pruitt: This resonated with deep in their core, who they wanted to be as humans in the world.
• 18:37
  Samantha Pruitt: And now we think of these countries, as you know, poisoned and dangerous, and there is war and conflict and there's atrocities happening, Like like I said.
• 18:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, of course, that way of living is all gone.
• 18:54
  Polly Mertens: And I think when you, you know, it's interesting.
• 18:56
  Polly Mertens: I have a friend in Pakistan and she's Muslim and she's like one of the most gentle, loving, caring people.
• 19:05
  Polly Mertens: I know and I and I'm like you know what I've heard of Muslim.
• 19:09
  Polly Mertens: You know Muslim religion.
• 19:11
  Polly Mertens: I don't know enough about it because obviously she's amazing.
• 19:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, and I'm just like there's there's more to the story.
• 19:17
  Polly Mertens: You know like unfolding, you know, like study this, but with Buddhism I haven't known anybody.
• 19:24
  Polly Mertens: I haven't heard any bad things about Buddhism, likeism, like I don't know of any warring buddhists or um no aggressive, let's just put it under aggressive.
• 19:30
  Polly Mertens: You know, I don't know any aggressive, it's more and it's not passive, I mean, it's quite active.
• 19:36
  Polly Mertens: the practices are um intentional they're not just like passive, like lazy, intentional oh, no, deep intention, and especially I mean one of the hardest things I think they teach is about Intentional.
• 19:49
  Polly Mertens: They're not just like passive, like lazy Intentional.
• 19:50
  Polly Mertens: Oh, no, deep intention, and especially I mean one of the hardest things I think they teach is about presence.
• 19:53
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, like just freaking being present.
• 19:54
  Samantha Pruitt: They use the term mindfulness right Mindfulness.
• 19:55
  Samantha Pruitt: I can read that real quick Mindfulness, the natural capacity to be present and direct our attention to be present and direct our attention.
• 20:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Mindfulness of something, of our breath, of our steps, of our feelings, of our motivations and so on.
• 20:15
  Samantha Pruitt: So being mindfulness, practicing mindfulness which is, you know, their biggest underscore is like just have awareness.
• 20:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Be freaking awake, walk through life awake.
• 20:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Know what's happening you and I talk about this every freaking week.
• 20:30
  Samantha Pruitt: Know what's happening in your body.
• 20:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Know what's happening in your crazy mind and thoughts that are just running rampant trying to run the damn show.
• 20:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, if you don't have awareness, they run the show.
• 20:41
  Polly Mertens: You know, all of this stuff that we live by really already and I think some of the practice and I don't know it and I'd love to hear more about your experience being around it is, um, you know, it's a little bit of the slowing down because some of the fast pace, the speed of life, the distractibility right slowing down they and the prescription is simplicity at its utmost core.
• 21:09
  Samantha Pruitt: So, being on this monastery and I you also know, listen I've lived tiny, tiny.
• 21:14
  Samantha Pruitt: I love the simple life like.
• 21:15
  Samantha Pruitt: It also resonates deep inside of me and has for a really long time you know, like if we're out, you know, in a backpack, and all we have is all of our belongings in your backpack.
• 21:25
  Samantha Pruitt: I couldn't be more thrilled that I just have my.
• 21:27
  Samantha Pruitt: All of my possessions are in this you know 30 pound bag or whatever, or in this small living space, or you know.
• 21:33
  Samantha Pruitt: That kind of lifestyle is so beautiful and that's how the monks and nuns live.
• 21:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Of course.
• 21:39
  Samantha Pruitt: That's how the monks and nuns live, of course, because all of the extra stuff needs to be stripped away so they can make their practice their priority.
• 21:58
  Samantha Pruitt: That isn't realistic for most of us, where we're just bombarded with obligation and the economic status of our well-being and jobs and families and responsibilities and so forth.
• 22:09
  Samantha Pruitt: But in particular in this type of buddhism, basically what they're asking of us lay people is to practice, and what we mean is like study the practice and learn about it and then for an hour a day and then spend the next seven hours practicing the thing.
• 22:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Whatever that is, you know, whether it's one of the disciplines or one of the philosophies or one of the teachings there's so many that you can.
• 22:36
  Samantha Pruitt: You know whatever really interests you and, like I said, the learning and the understanding and the exploring is ways to live as a really a great human.
• 22:50
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it's really that simple.
• 22:52
  Samantha Pruitt: This book I'm really look at this one.
• 22:54
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm reading the eight realizations of great beings.
• 22:58
  Samantha Pruitt: What?
• 22:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, that's just like what is that.
• 23:03
  Samantha Pruitt: This is so good Is that from her too, or something.
• 23:06
  Samantha Pruitt: No, no, no, I should put that up.
• 23:09
  Polly Mertens: Brother Hi, it says okay, got it.
• 23:13
  Samantha Pruitt: The eight realizations of great beings.
• 23:15
  Samantha Pruitt: This is like the core foundational Eight things to understand To be a good person.
• 23:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Literally, it's so simple, I mean, there's nothing crazy going on here at all.
• 23:33
  Samantha Pruitt: This is all stuff we all know.
• 23:34
  Polly Mertens: By the way, do you have them, or do you know a couple of them that you could uh share with us, or I could look them up?
• 23:41
  Samantha Pruitt: okay, I can read them.
• 23:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Are you ready?
• 23:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Samantha Pruitt: The first realization.
• 23:48
  Samantha Pruitt: It's called the four foundational insights.
• 23:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh yes.
• 23:52
  Samantha Pruitt: So, basically, it's insights about knowing the self.
• 23:56
  Samantha Pruitt: The second realization, the nature of desire Know thyself the nature of desire.
• 24:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Third realization basic and simple.
• 24:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So it's a way of living, keeping your life very simple, your needs simple, your lifestyle basic, and really it's so you don't have distractions, right?
• 24:19
  Samantha Pruitt: The fourth realization good energy.
• 24:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Ooh, that's probably going to be your favorite polly love it love it.
• 24:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, the fifth realization.
• 24:29
  Samantha Pruitt: This is what you're deep into right now deep listening and vast learning oh okay.
• 24:38
  Polly Mertens: deep listening and vast learning, ah, okay, okay.
• 24:41
  Polly Mertens: The Best learning, ah, okay, okay.
• 24:42
  Samantha Pruitt: The sixth realization love, generosity and forgiveness.
• 24:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, the seventh realization be free where you are.
• 24:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow.
• 24:54
  Samantha Pruitt: And then the eighth realization befriend all living things.
• 25:01
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean what Dude.
• 25:07
  Polly Mertens: Say them again Know thyself.
• 25:08
  Polly Mertens: Was that the first one?
• 25:09
  Polly Mertens: Know thyself.
• 25:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, it's called the four foundational insights, but it's basically you, understanding, your.
• 25:18
  Samantha Pruitt: It's called interbeing.
• 25:20
  Samantha Pruitt: So interbeing is the term that's used and it's about us, you, me, each of us humans, whoever's listening, interbeing, understanding.
• 25:29
  Samantha Pruitt: We are simply one cell in the body of all.
• 25:33
  Polly Mertens: Got it.
• 25:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we are all part of everything yeah, aren't we though?
• 25:41
  Polly Mertens: yeah, all right.
• 25:43
  Polly Mertens: I don't know if I teach that in the bible in the crowd.
• 25:45
  Polly Mertens: I don't know.
• 25:46
  Polly Mertens: Maybe I haven't, I haven't read it, but that sure is a.
• 25:49
  Polly Mertens: I mean, if nothing else you know, the more we learn about metaphysics, the more we know that's.
• 25:54
  Polly Mertens: They're pointing to that Exactly.
• 25:57
  Polly Mertens: Science is pointing back to this.
• 25:58
  Polly Mertens: It's called real science.
• 25:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 26:01
  Samantha Pruitt: All right, and that's the next one the nature of desire.
• 26:04
  Polly Mertens: Nature of desire.
• 26:05
  Polly Mertens: Interesting way of saying that.
• 26:08
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like the things that our nature as a human species and things that drive us and motivate us, and and how to understand that.
• 26:20
  Polly Mertens: Not let our desires manage us I'm just going to say, when you said earlier, like it stuck out at me, mindful of your motivations, like that phrase, mindful of your motivations, if nothing else, I have a feeling the root of so much suffering and just anything that's not workable.
• 26:41
  Polly Mertens: In your life there is a motivation that you're unaware of or haven't yet tapped into, or is running you instead of you being mindful of it.
• 26:51
  Polly Mertens: You know something?
• 26:52
  Polly Mertens: Like that and I'm saying you, but like me too.
• 26:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So yeah, and they talk about all things you know, um, money, food, sex, uh any, and all things that people feel and what can become dysfunctional very easily.
• 27:08
  Samantha Pruitt: You know that start to take over and rule their motivation.
• 27:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, the third is basic and simple.
• 27:14
  Samantha Pruitt: So basically it's a way of of living and understanding what your true needs are.
• 27:19
  Samantha Pruitt: The fourth is good energy.
• 27:20
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so cute because we did this walking meditation, I'll tell you.
• 27:26
  Samantha Pruitt: But then they kept saying after you know they would sort of prompt us before and after things, but in between everything was silence.
• 27:33
  Samantha Pruitt: But make sure you smile and they'd all be.
• 27:36
  Samantha Pruitt: They're're so beautiful, these monks and nuns walking around in their robes, totally bald, smiling, everybody's smiling.
• 27:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I couldn't help but smile.
• 27:43
  Samantha Pruitt: It's very contagious, totally deep listening and vast learning oh gosh this is.
• 27:51
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm so into learning right now.
• 27:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh, love, generosity and forgiveness.
• 27:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Very good good words.
• 27:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I love those brief, be free where you are and then befriending all living things so good.
• 28:07
  Samantha Pruitt: So I end up at this monastery and I had no idea what to expect, and also this is a little bit how I live, but how I want to be consciously living more of is following these callings, these interests, these curiosities, that energy pull, not, I don't know what to expect, not a lot of planning.
• 28:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Just, you know, because I've lived most of my life not that way, out of necessity or survival or fear-based or anxiety and trying to like squelch all that.
• 28:47
  Samantha Pruitt: So, you know, using, um, my mind to control things or plan things or structure things to create more comfort in the unknown Certainty yeah.
• 28:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, certainty is a joke, because that never really worked out.
• 29:01
  Samantha Pruitt: But pretending that I had any clue what might be happening or that I had some control over it and the older I get, the less I give two shits about that.
• 29:10
  Samantha Pruitt: But also, I don't really want to be living that way every day because it's so confining.
• 29:16
  Samantha Pruitt: It's so restricting.
• 29:18
  Samantha Pruitt: It causes so much more stress, right, because things never really go as planned.
• 29:25
  Samantha Pruitt: You know I'm a list queen and I'm a schedule queen, but I find that as I age, I do want less of that and I want more free flow in my life.
• 29:33
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, to be able to be aware and have time and space and stuff like that life.
• 29:40
  Samantha Pruitt: You know to be able to be aware and have time and space and stuff like that.
• 29:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So I drive there by myself and I get to the gate, so I'm basically this is back in the East County of San Diego, and so I went through these neighborhoods and then I'm on these dirt roads and then I'm basically coming to this back kind of like wild country where there's all these mountains and stuff and there's a gate and the gates closed, closed, but there's no cars there or anything.
• 30:02
  Samantha Pruitt: And I mean I'm kind of on time, at least what it says, that the property opens.
• 30:07
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, a few minutes earlier, whatever, just how I like to do things.
• 30:10
  Samantha Pruitt: I was a little bit early and then another, and so I'm just kind of parked there like I don't really know what to do.
• 30:16
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, I guess I'll just wait and see if someone comes to open the gate, so I wait, and then another car comes and so I get out and I talk to these people behind me and I said, do you know what we're supposed to do?
• 30:27
  Samantha Pruitt: And they said, no, we don't know, we've never been here before.
• 30:31
  Samantha Pruitt: And they drove up all the way from LA or, I guess, down from LA, uh.
• 30:37
  Samantha Pruitt: And so we're like, well, we'll just wait and see if someone comes to open the gate, and then at eight o'clock the gate just opens.
• 30:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Nobody comes with, the gate just opens, and we're like, oh yeah, that's so cool, we're going there.
• 30:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, you know.
• 30:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So we drive slowly down this really you know horrible road.
• 30:51
  Samantha Pruitt: It's bumpy and it's like, you know, we're just going into the wilds here, basically, but it's a beautiful piece of property in the mountains.
• 30:57
  Samantha Pruitt: We're just going into the wild here, basically, but it's a beautiful piece of property in the mountains.
• 31:00
  Samantha Pruitt: They're just full of natural plant life and scrub and all that kind of stuff.
• 31:05
  Samantha Pruitt: And we're just kind of winding up.
• 31:06
  Samantha Pruitt: And you said, on this day it was like foggy.
• 31:08
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, it was so foggy and it was sprinkling, but the fog was so dense you could barely see.
• 31:14
  Samantha Pruitt: It was really magical and totally beautiful.
• 31:16
  Samantha Pruitt: And then just kind of a light drizzle, not anything too crazy, but just enough to get you, like your car, wet and things like that.
• 31:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, and as I am winding through the property, you know there's nobody around except for this car that's following me and for all I know, we're the only two people that are going to be here today, and I see one of the nuns literally on the road running.
• 31:37
  Samantha Pruitt: She's jogging along just getting her morning exercise.
• 31:42
  Polly Mertens: I'm sure she's not in her lulu lemons or something like that no, they're in full dress.
• 31:47
  Samantha Pruitt: They dress very conservatively and they have brown robes and hats and all the things.
• 31:51
  Samantha Pruitt: But she's just jogging along and I'm like she's a runner there's a run club here, totally.
• 32:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyway, went and parked Again, there's nobody in the entire place.
• 32:04
  Samantha Pruitt: This other car comes and parks and we just get out.
• 32:08
  Samantha Pruitt: We don't really even know where to go.
• 32:09
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, there really is very little signage and their signage is more like messaging and quotes and things that are just more beautiful and inspiring.
• 32:18
  Samantha Pruitt: So the other people are kind of messing around their car, figuring out if they should have an umbrella and jackets and whatever their thing is.
• 32:24
  Samantha Pruitt: And I just got out and started walking up the road because I figured well, park here, you walk up the road.
• 32:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Maybe on top of the hill is like a check-in office or something.
• 32:33
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyway, I walk up this hill and I see another person, a lay woman also, who's a little bit further up, and I don't know how she got in, cause I didn't see her before me, if she was staying there or whatever.
• 32:45
  Samantha Pruitt: But she's in lay person's clothes and she's just walking up the hill.
• 32:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So I just decided I'm going to follow her and there's an office and it says check in and there's a bookstore and there's.
• 32:55
  Samantha Pruitt: So there's a few like buildings starting to pop up.
• 32:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So I go that way, but she just keeps walking up the mountain like onto the dirt road and like into away and I'm like all right, I don't think we're supposed to go there, but she must know what she's doing anyway.
• 33:09
  Samantha Pruitt: There's not a human around.
• 33:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, nothing, everything's closed.
• 33:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't see, or, and I'm like what is going?
• 33:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Going on, not a soul.
• 33:19
  Polly Mertens: I love the unknowingness.
• 33:21
  Samantha Pruitt: You know it's not like wandering around and I didn't feel nervous or scared or uncomfortable or whatever.
• 33:28
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm just looking at the gardens and kind of just peaceful the whole thing.
• 33:32
  Samantha Pruitt: And so I basically kind of hung out in this really beautiful garden in the monks' hamlet so, where the men live in one area and the nuns live in a separate area, because you know they practice chastity and they don't none of this mixing of sexes and different things like that.
• 33:53
  Samantha Pruitt: But nobody ever came.
• 33:55
  Samantha Pruitt: So now it's like 830.
• 33:58
  Samantha Pruitt: This thing is going to be starting, supposedly, I mean, they let you on, but then there's like a schedule for the day that they sent us walking meditation.
• 34:06
  Samantha Pruitt: So then I just started to walk back down the hill and I totally was blown away because I come walking back down the hill and there's all these people walking up now.
• 34:15
  Samantha Pruitt: So I just was an early bird, but there's over a hundred people, oh geez, walking up to where the first check-in, check-in it wasn't even a check-in.
• 34:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Nobody ever checked us in, nothing.
• 34:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Basically there was a circle that had formed, there was a couple monks and many nuns and basically they were going to facilitate the morning practice, which is a walking meditation and basically everyone's kind of standing around and very quiet and peaceful and 100 and something strangers.
• 34:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Here we are and there's the nuns and the monks and everyone's just in silence, just basically hanging out waiting, and it's like everybody else knew what was going to happen and I was like I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm totally in.
• 35:05
  Polly Mertens: It's so liberating to do stuff like that, by the way I was going to say what a beautiful, not intentional making you uncomfortable, but just like, yeah, like this is happening and they weren't in control of you, but they were, you know, in their own way, signaling to you this is okay, like yeah, and what I quickly figured out or summarized in my own brain because I make things up whether they're true or not, like we all do is that, oh, everybody seems to know what we're doing.
• 35:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I just don't, cause I'm new, but like whatever, I'm just going to follow suit.
• 35:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Like I'm so open to experience whatever is going to happen today, I'm just like totally have zero agenda or expectations, none.
• 35:50
  Samantha Pruitt: So one month starts and basically they start singing songs, which I don't know, any of these songs, but it's totally fine, I'm just listening and half of them seem to know and half of them.
• 36:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So people are singing and they're just kind of creating an energy, a space for everybody to be in the circle together.
• 36:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And it was really beautiful, totally beautiful.
• 36:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Now it starts raining and it's kind of drizzling and and then after that another monk speaks and he's going to be the one to lead the walking meditation.
• 36:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Again, I have no idea what to expect, but basically he instructs us.
• 36:23
  Samantha Pruitt: He was so hilarious, by the way, they're really funny.
• 36:27
  Samantha Pruitt: So a lot of how they deliver themselves to the world and to the public and just who they really are at their core is very humorous and lots of joy and lots of smiles and all that stuff, not, it didn't ever feel intense or intimidating or judgy or strict, like there was just this very giggly almost giggly.
• 36:51
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, he was hilarious.
• 36:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I can't remember half of what he said, but it was comical, like he was joyful living.
• 36:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, joyful living has laughter and smiles in it instead of you know strict and punishment and you're doing it wrong or judging and all that no no, none of that.
• 37:07
  Samantha Pruitt: So he took us on a walking meditation and basically 125 or something of us walked for an hour in silence, one footstep at a time, very slowly, and all we focused on was our own breath.
• 37:23
  Samantha Pruitt: That was it.
• 37:23
  Samantha Pruitt: And we walked out of that area up the road again it's quite steep, I mean, this is all mountainous area onto a dirt trail and up to the top of a mountain and I thought, are some of these people gonna make up the?
• 37:36
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it was all different ages and shapes and sizes, and you name it, you know and to the top of the mountain and then again no one is saying a word, nothing, Zero, complete silence, 100 people.
• 37:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, more than 100 people.
• 37:51
  Samantha Pruitt: It was just the most interesting experience.
• 37:54
  Samantha Pruitt: And then at the top, everybody stopped and there were some statues and some things going on up there.
• 38:02
  Samantha Pruitt: It's quite beautiful and the view and everything, and a lot of people observed the view and some people sat down and did some prayers or whatever they did.
• 38:10
  Samantha Pruitt: They were their process and then we turned around and walked back.
• 38:14
  Samantha Pruitt: That was it, the whole thing in silence, and it was at least an hour long, and we walked back to exactly where we started and then we got on with the rest of the day I was gonna say was there any sharing?
• 38:26
  Polly Mertens: or did he tell you what absolutely pay attention to?
• 38:29
  Polly Mertens: Or it's just like this is what we're doing, and do it and then breathe the instructions were focus on your breath, and he did give an instruction of like.
• 38:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Ideally, you would walk three steps with an in-breath and three steps with an out-breath, but it wasn't like a strict thing that this is how you had to do it or not.
• 38:49
  Samantha Pruitt: When we came back then, basically they explained the rest of the day.
• 38:53
  Samantha Pruitt: So there would be a dharma talk in the main hall, which was right there, and, and it was absolutely beautiful.
• 38:58
  Samantha Pruitt: I've got some pictures I'll show you Just frigging gorgeous.
• 39:01
  Samantha Pruitt: A Dharma talk is basically a sharing of the learnings, and anytime there's a Dharma talk, it's somebody is imparting their wisdom upon not only the brothers and the sisters, but the laymen that are in the environment also, or the practicing Buddhists that are there right, so it's just part of them learning more and exploring.
• 39:23
  Samantha Pruitt: So, and that was hilarious he basically talked about nutrition for the body and I thought this was going to be a very spiritual thing.
• 39:31
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, he didn't speak English.
• 39:33
  Samantha Pruitt: He spoke only Vietnamese, so the whole thing wasn't Vietnamese, but we had a translator and we had an earpiece that we wore that translated it into English as he spoke.
• 39:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm telling you the whole thing was just beautiful.
• 39:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, he was hilarious.
• 39:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, the monk that was up there, yeah, sitting so and just for an hour he spoke to us Dharma talk and it was funny and joyful and curious, and so I thought he was going to talk about, like, spiritual nutrition and things like that.
• 40:06
  Samantha Pruitt: No, he talked about food and how they're going to start farming and growing their own food and how he was the shopper of food for the entire community.
• 40:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, he was the shopper of food for the entire community.
• 40:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, and what that meant to him and how he felt about that and how they fed themselves and how it became funny.
• 40:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Sometimes people wouldn't eat and sometimes they'd eat more than they should and they'd run out of food and sometimes they didn't like the food.
• 40:34
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it was just very like about real life, because they're real humans living there, having a real experience, but how they use their practice to handle these things and how this went.
• 40:44
  Samantha Pruitt: The whole thing was quite entertaining.
• 40:45
  Samantha Pruitt: And then, when that was done, we took a break and we then came back into the room because you know it's raining and people are outside kind of milling around and then going to the bathroom or whatever and they had rearranged the room for the actual like service, if you will if you think of it more as a um traditional service, and so then it felt like more of a traditional religious experience at that point, because the monks and the nuns were like in formation and they were in front.
• 41:19
  Samantha Pruitt: We were all seated on mats.
• 41:21
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, I can't believe I sat on the floor for hours and hours and hours.
• 41:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Nice, it was terribly uncomfortable many moments and I had to squirm around quite a bit because this body and these hips are not quite you know but, it was still really good for me to like okay, let let me see how this feels.
• 41:36
  Samantha Pruitt: But there was singing and really they were reading.
• 41:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So we all had a book and we could read.
• 41:43
  Samantha Pruitt: It was in different languages, including English, but they didn't read it, they sang it.
• 41:48
  Samantha Pruitt: So everything was not a chant, but it was literally like they were singing.
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: The words of the script if you will or however you want to perceive the blessings or the teachings or something.
• 42:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, it was amazing.
• 42:05
  Samantha Pruitt: And so then we went through what was called the 15 disciplines and basically it was like what we were speaking about earlier this is how we choose to live our life, and these are things we should be all practicing as a community.
• 42:19
  Samantha Pruitt: And it would say for laymen, it's this, and for the monks, or the monastics, which is, the nuns and the monks, it's this.
• 42:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So it would have to, like, you know, obviously we laymen are married, we have relationships're producing children, you know.
• 42:38
  Samantha Pruitt: So there were some instances where it would describe the disciplines but one way of life for the layman and one for the other.
• 42:44
  Samantha Pruitt: You know that kind of thing.
• 42:45
  Samantha Pruitt: It was fascinating, dude.
• 42:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It was fascinating.
• 42:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And then we had lunch, oh, which was a vegetarian, of course, and also it was totally in silence.
• 42:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow.
• 42:59
  Samantha Pruitt: And then everybody washed their dishes themselves, put them away, and then basically the day was over and I just went to the bookstore and bought this book and a lot of people just kind of hung out on the property.
• 43:10
  Samantha Pruitt: It was really awesome.
• 43:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 43:13
  Polly Mertens: So, as you were driving away or just walking back down the hill, what was coming to you?
• 43:19
  Polly Mertens: Were you pondering anything?
• 43:21
  Polly Mertens: Were you reflecting on anything, any things that you've discovered since then?
• 43:27
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean it's not any different than how it already was before or after is that I still have just this curiosity, and I think it was really incredibly enjoyable to be in such a beautiful place with these beautiful humans, I mean surrounded by people, so, and the people who were there to also visit like me, I mean there was every shade of color of skin, every different type of person, every age group, and you just felt that everybody was there with this intention of love for themselves and each other and just wanting to be really free.
• 44:13
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, that's really what it felt like and that's the environment that was created.
• 44:19
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, even when there's certain disciplines and certain practices, you know, the whole thing is a practice in the art of living.
• 44:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, this one thing, because it's in this book, and I highlighted it for a reason, because I just think it's so beautiful, but I continue to be really empowered by this, this curiosity I have, and then this study, particularly of buddhism, and then just deciding to see where this goes.
• 44:56
  Samantha Pruitt: I have no idea where this is going to go yeah.
• 44:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I have no expectations at all.
• 45:01
  Polly Mertens: It's just unpacking more of you, really.
• 45:04
  Polly Mertens: I mean exactly, it's just giving you a little bit of framework or a little bit of roadmap or some hints or some ideas or things you might try on, whether you know wherever you get your inspiration.
• 45:13
  Polly Mertens: You know you, we talk about my cards.
• 45:15
  Polly Mertens: You know my little tarot cards and stuff.
• 45:16
  Polly Mertens: It's like each card has little insights or whatever.
• 45:19
  Polly Mertens: Or you could have a poetry book, or you could listen, like I have a dear friend who's really getting into music right now, writing music and creating music, and it's like whatever that nurtured you.
• 45:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, exactly, it's creating time and space for the curiosity that you have about yourself and understanding yourself.
• 45:44
  Samantha Pruitt: Is there nothing more important, by the way?
• 45:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, what in the hell we think?
• 45:51
  Samantha Pruitt: All these things we run around and spend time, energy and money on?
• 45:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Are really important.
• 45:58
  Samantha Pruitt: What in the hell have we got ourselves terribly confused about?
• 46:02
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, it's just so nutso.
• 46:08
  Polly Mertens: You know, I think one of the things that I like about what you're sharing, that's coming to me as you talk and I just look at my life and the things that I've been curious about and have pursued or whatever is it's like our life has a certain percentage of it where it's us with us, and then it has a certain percentage where we're with us with other people one person, a whole bunch of people, new people, same people, whatever.
• 46:34
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think what I have discovered for myself and as you were talking, I was like these approaches, these insights, these callings that we have, these approaches, these insights, these callings that we have, help us when we're with ourself, know ourself, because we're all, if you ask me, seeking to be better versions or the real us with each other.
• 46:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, and it's like you know, I'm studying all this communication stuff because communication is me out in the world, right, I have those breakdowns interacting with others, interacting with others, and I find it fascinating when I have these breakdowns, it's like some of it is what I'm listening for.
• 47:19
  Polly Mertens: You know, I have a paradigm or whatever that's broken down inside me that I am have made this person up to be this certain way and then they're that certain way and so I listen to them that way, right, or I have a paradigm inside of me that I'm this way or something's wrong with me or whatever you know, and then I act from that and often it's subconscious, it's kind of running the show and we get these interactions breaking down.
• 47:43
  Polly Mertens: So that's just one dimension of the things that I've been looking into about myself.
• 47:48
  Polly Mertens: And you know, all these things is, I think the us that is who we are when we're alone wants to be with the collective us, more joyfully, more, wholly, more heartfully, more.
• 48:03
  Polly Mertens: And the word more isn't it just fully, like fully from our heart, fully ourselves, fully interconnected, like they talk about, like you said, befriending all living things, love, generosity, forgiveness, it's like that's.
• 48:18
  Polly Mertens: If you ask me, there's all of.
• 48:21
  Polly Mertens: Everything else is just shit on top of the truth and it's like the truth of who you are.
• 48:26
  Polly Mertens: I just see it over and over again.
• 48:29
  Polly Mertens: Whether it's my spiritual work or whatever, it's, the essence of every soul is love and anything else is just a distraction or something.
• 48:40
  Polly Mertens: But when you get, get, get, get, get to the core, core, core and you get one-on-one with every human being, if you can get them to peel away everything.
• 48:48
  Polly Mertens: There really is only love.
• 48:50
  Polly Mertens: You know, and you know me and all the NDE stuff that I've been studying with near death.
• 48:54
  Polly Mertens: It's like you pop out of this body like boom.
• 48:57
  Polly Mertens: Once you're out, it's all a joy, love fest.
• 49:00
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh my God, I feel amazing, love, love, love and it.
• 49:06
  Polly Mertens: Oh my god, I feel amazing, love, love, love.
• 49:07
  Polly Mertens: It's like if we can remember that when we're inside of this form and then be that with each other, that's really what I think we're all seeking.
• 49:14
  Polly Mertens: And then there's stuff that gets in the way, the busyness and stuff, and what I most love about buddhism or any practice that is a slowing down, is a quiet simplifying, is hey, remember you and remember them and you're interconnected and love is what is between you.
• 49:35
  Samantha Pruitt: What is so awesome is at the core of any type of practice like this, whether it's this or any other type of spiritual journey people might be on, whatever they choose, is a desire to get to know the self and understand the self right, and then your place in the world and with others and in that, finding that really unconditional love and acceptance, first of the self, because you can't give it to anybody else if you don't have it for yourself.
• 50:08
  Samantha Pruitt: And so suffering is really that.
• 50:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Suffering gets created from people creating conflict with others and in the world, and misunderstandings, all these things, miscommunications, but it comes from within each of the individual humans, right?
• 50:25
  Samantha Pruitt: So they're walking around carrying their own suffering and then they just basically throw it at other people.
• 50:30
  Samantha Pruitt: And then next thing, you know, we have arguments and we have wars and we have all kinds of things that are going on in the world right now Because that one person didn't take the time to do the work to make peace with really knowing themselves, and so they carry that all around and throw it at other people.
• 50:53
  Samantha Pruitt: It's really quite simple and ridiculous that it can't be resolved.
• 51:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, because I think you know and this is no judgment on anything that anyone would ever want in the world but you know the varying levels of wanting or varying levels of acting out or varying levels of pursuing things.
• 51:17
  Polly Mertens: You know, sometimes you know like you like to get up to hike or whatever, like we just love to feel good and stuff.
• 51:21
  Polly Mertens: But you know, some of these things that we've got ourselves distracted with is because it's an escape from or, you know, not really realizing what's inside of us and what could truly authentically be between a human being and a human being.
• 51:35
  Polly Mertens: If we're not faking something, carrying something, holding on to something that's guided inside.
• 51:41
  Polly Mertens: It's like the true nature of who we are is I'm love, you're love and we're love together, and it's like everything else is that's just on top of it.
• 51:50
  Polly Mertens: And if we know that then it's like sweet, go, go, do those things.
• 51:56
  Polly Mertens: You know, like one of the things you and I've been talking about in the past is like the unconditional love of friendship, right, and the friends that we have and that see anything and everything that we're up to is like it's unconditional, get after it.
• 52:10
  Polly Mertens: Like whatever you're doing, you know.
• 52:12
  Polly Mertens: And then there's the conditional that we sometimes have with some people in our life that aren't, you know, kind of tuned into their love and and the love that every human can have religion can be the same way.
• 52:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah judging in a practice of any sort that has conditions to it or a relationship with your practice or other people.
• 52:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Where are their conditions?
• 52:36
  Samantha Pruitt: That's not love, it's an obligation made out of judgment and fear and shame.
• 52:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean we should all be running the other way.
• 52:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Get back to love.
• 52:49
  Polly Mertens: Let's get back to love.
• 52:50
  Polly Mertens: Somehow some beatle songs are going through my head right now.
• 52:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Imagine all the people you know what is also is a psychology.
• 53:00
  Samantha Pruitt: It's a psychology which I'm really big on understanding the mind.
• 53:04
  Samantha Pruitt: You know what makes humans tip and it's like why do we do the things we do?
• 53:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And there's no judgment at all.
• 53:13
  Samantha Pruitt: It's literally like huh, that's interesting.
• 53:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Humans seem to do these things, wonder why, and then let's have a conversation about it.
• 53:21
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I wonder why, maybe if we wanted to change those behaviors because they weren't good for ourselves or humanity or the planet, how would we go about dealing with that?
• 53:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, here's a few practices.
• 53:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Literally, it's so dude, it's so simple, it's so simple and it's just, yeah, it's fun.
• 53:42
  Polly Mertens: It's fun and that's really.
• 53:44
  Polly Mertens: I mean, life is not meant to be this voracious torment of suffering.
• 53:51
  Polly Mertens: Right, it's created.
• 53:53
  Polly Mertens: It's created by us because we're absent to the love, you know, and it's like you have love inside and you have love and you see love in other people and it's flowing.
• 54:02
  Polly Mertens: Hey, that's pretty fun.
• 54:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Like let's move towards it and then you and I want to be, um, you know, whatever calling disciples or whatever.
• 54:14
  Samantha Pruitt: We want to be people out in the world delivering this to other humans, especially the fun we we feel it, we taste it.
• 54:21
  Samantha Pruitt: We are not every day up in it like we have our struggles.
• 54:25
  Samantha Pruitt: This is going to be forever, until the day we die.
• 54:28
  Samantha Pruitt: That's why it's called a practice, because we're going to be practicing for a long time, my friend.
• 54:33
  Samantha Pruitt: But we also want to help bring it to other people as an option, as an opportunity.
• 54:39
  Samantha Pruitt: So we show up into our work life or into our relationship life and we want to be the one delivering the possibility for the other human who we're looking into their eyes an invitation
• 54:52
  Polly Mertens: an invitation or an invitation to love and to simplify and to let go of the meaning and the story and the judging and whatever else is in the way of the love between you and that human right, and and to practice.
• 55:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, and I think, um, the more um people feel on a vibration with somebody or they they're like, oh yeah, that person, you know that, I just knew them, or something like that um, the easier it is to welcome that love from that person.
• 55:23
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh, I just feel like I've known you my whole life, kind of feeling like, oh, um, and I think the the beauty of these humans in the world that practice, the deep, deep practice in these monasteries, is to show us, like you know, they welcome anyone to come onto that property.
• 55:38
  Polly Mertens: It's like, oh yeah, come, come.
• 55:40
  Polly Mertens: They don't have a, they don't have a list of nope, can't do it.
• 55:43
  Samantha Pruitt: It was free.
• 55:43
  Samantha Pruitt: It's free, dude.
• 55:45
  Samantha Pruitt: They never collected money, never asked for money.
• 55:48
  Samantha Pruitt: There's no even conversation.
• 55:50
  Samantha Pruitt: Fed us, taught us, invited us onto the property, hosted us.
• 55:56
  Samantha Pruitt: They're building a farm there, which I'm going to try and get see if my husband can get involved in that, because he knows a lot about farming and they want to grow their own vegetables and they're like just come be with us for a little while and help us farm.
• 56:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Anybody want to farm some vegetables?
• 56:08
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm sending calling.
• 56:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I'll pull the weeds.
• 56:12
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't know how to grow anything, but I mean what.
• 56:17
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's so good, and it's just those places in the planet, that center and ground the rest of us, that are distracted.
• 56:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Beacons of light.
• 56:29
  Polly Mertens: Always there for us.
• 56:30
  Samantha Pruitt: It also helps me really understand.
• 56:33
  Samantha Pruitt: So I did forget a piece of the story, which is when I first had my health mental and physical health crisis and I was coming out of that, I started to study holistic health as a way to heal my body and brain that were broken, and on that journey, I got exposed to spirituality, which I really didn't know anything about.
• 56:55
  Samantha Pruitt: And then, on that journey, I got exposed to meditation, and even what that was.
• 57:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So I did take some meditation classes, you know the traditional kind where you sit on the mat and then do these things, and you got to monitor all this stuff.
• 57:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my, I could not do.
• 57:11
  Samantha Pruitt: It Couldn't do it.
• 57:12
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I started studying Ayurveda Ayurvedic medicine as part, which is ancient from India, to try and understand the healing of my body.
• 57:21
  Samantha Pruitt: I wanted to naturally figure this out and I went to the Deepak Chopra Center and I met Deepak Chopra and David Simon.
• 57:28
  Samantha Pruitt: It was amazing and I was trying to heal this really toxic, poisoned body and brain that I had and I had some great experiences there with them and also in that, but I'm just sort of laughing at that.
• 57:42
  Samantha Pruitt: And after that I said well, I could never meditate, I just can't, because I can't sit in one place and I don't like it, it's uncomfortable and I'm on the floor and I can't get in that position, like all these stories, right.
• 57:51
  Samantha Pruitt: And then here I find this type of Buddhism where walking meditation is their primary.
• 58:00
  Polly Mertens: You're already meditating and I'm like I've been.
• 58:03
  Samantha Pruitt: How many?
• 58:03
  Samantha Pruitt: You want to know how many thousands of miles I have been in walking meditation, literally for 25 freaking years I have been doing walking meditations, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but I listen to my breathing, I listen to nature, I allow my body and brain to process all the complications of the world and I arrive back a better person every time Exactly.
• 58:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I call it the church of sweat, you know like that's what it is for me, but little did I know there was going to be something.
• 58:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Later in life I would discover where that was just perfectly acceptable.
• 58:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I didn't have to sit on the mat for two hours and right and a mantra and whatever, whatever well, I think, um, I want to say a couple things about that.
• 58:50
  Polly Mertens: So, when you were, so on sunday, when you were there, I was with my one of my buddhist friends and I was telling her.
• 58:56
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh, my friend samantha, she's at, uh you know, this monastery.
• 58:59
  Polly Mertens: I think she's gonna do walking meditation, and I described you and I said and she probably is going to learn that like she's been fucking meditating for like most of her life, like she doesn't realize it, but I think she's going to find that out because, guess what, I want to tell a little bit of my meditation journey, if I could, because I haven't really gotten too much into Buddhism, although I have a funny story now that you were telling your story.
• 59:21
  Samantha Pruitt: You're already living it.
• 59:22
  Samantha Pruitt: I just I listen.
• 59:24
  Samantha Pruitt: I know you incredibly well.
• 59:25
  Samantha Pruitt: You've been living it way longer than I've been, so anyway, okay, go.
• 59:30
  Polly Mertens: I can remember.
• 59:31
  Polly Mertens: I think this was shortly after college I moved to Berkeley, which is a very hippie, hippified place, and this was in the early 90s, so it wasn't the 60s.
• 59:43
  Polly Mertens: This is, you know, fast forward a little bit, but still had some hippifiedness for sure.
• 59:47
  Polly Mertens: And I can't even remember you talk about the calling like you pick up a book or something.
• 59:52
  Polly Mertens: I was like I found myself.
• 59:54
  Polly Mertens: I mean it's everywhere, but I mean it's like all you know, like now it's you can get yoga and healthy food stores and smoothies and stuff all over the US.
• 1:00:02
  Polly Mertens: Well, that was not a thing.
• 1:00:03
  Samantha Pruitt: This was not a thing in the nineties.
• 1:00:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, the nineties.
• 1:00:06
  Polly Mertens: This was a place that looks like a lot of you know Santa Barbara and you know these San Diego, whatever now.
• 1:00:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:00:12
  Polly Mertens: Anyway.
• 1:00:12
  Polly Mertens: So I was like, oh sweet, check it out.
• 1:00:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, and I wasn't all hippified, I just got out of college, you know, I was like business major, whatever.
• 1:00:20
  Samantha Pruitt: I can't even remember how I show up in your polo shirt and your penny loafers.
• 1:00:24
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey, what's up?
• 1:00:25
  Polly Mertens: So that night.
• 1:00:26
  Polly Mertens: So I get to this room that's upstairs and you know, free, come on in and there's just chairs.
• 1:00:31
  Polly Mertens: I can't remember.
• 1:00:32
  Polly Mertens: There was hundreds of chairs, how many people were there, I don't know, and it was there for meditation.
• 1:00:35
  Polly Mertens: I was like meditation, I've never heard of this thing, right, and they hand you a candle and like look at the light and just quiet your mind, right, yeah, that was not happening in this spot.
• 1:00:53
  Polly Mertens: I was like what the freaking my mind was just going?
• 1:00:56
  Polly Mertens: Next one was here's a flower, like it's just a little daisy, and then just look at the daisy and, um, I walked out of there and I can't think of a face that I saw in the room or what it was.
• 1:01:06
  Polly Mertens: I mean, maybe it was Buddhist, I have no idea, but I was like damn, that meditation thing.
• 1:01:11
  Polly Mertens: I just don't think I can get it.
• 1:01:13
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I gave it a good college try, I did two hours, or, you know, one hour in the flower or whatever.
• 1:01:18
  Polly Mertens: I was like, hmm, fast forward, like I don't even know five years later.
• 1:01:22
  Polly Mertens: So I was in a different.
• 1:01:23
  Polly Mertens: I wasn't living in Berkey, I was living somewhere else in the Bay Area, san Francisco Bay Area, and I liked taking little night classes, like I took a class.
• 1:01:31
  Polly Mertens: This was like pre-internet.
• 1:01:33
  Polly Mertens: I took a class on the internet and I took a class on computer, you know, like that little continuing ed.
• 1:01:39
  Polly Mertens: So I there was a class on guided meditations and I was like what if I should take this guided meditation thing?
• 1:01:44
  Polly Mertens: I was like I should take this guided meditation thing and we get into this little room and I want to say there's maybe 10 of us, you know, and and what he did was turn out the lights, just get comfortable in your chair, and he just told us a story and he just took us on a visual guided visualization meditation.
• 1:02:04
  Polly Mertens: Nice, samantha blew my mind.
• 1:02:07
  Polly Mertens: I could not wait every week to come back to that guided meditation.
• 1:02:11
  Polly Mertens: He'd take us on little paths through the forest and out into you know, and I, like you said you go out on your run and you come back at the end and you're a better human.
• 1:02:21
  Polly Mertens: I would walk out of there with my heart not even in my body.
• 1:02:25
  Polly Mertens: It was like it was in the room.
• 1:02:27
  Polly Mertens: It was like palpable, probably.
• 1:02:30
  Polly Mertens: It's like okay, well, she's obviously opened up, you know, and I was like what is this guy?
• 1:02:35
  Polly Mertens: And I wouldn't say that like, oh, you know, I didn't become a nun, I didn't like go after it or whatever.
• 1:02:40
  Polly Mertens: But I always remember that and, you know, fast forward many, many years later.
• 1:02:44
  Polly Mertens: So now I don't sit with candles, I'm not.
• 1:02:48
  Polly Mertens: You know, there's stuff I've tried like I remember 10 years ago, oh, I want to do this meditation again, get my miracle morning going, okay, and I would just sit there with like nothing for five minutes.
• 1:02:58
  Polly Mertens: You know, the five or 10 minute quiet meditations.
• 1:03:00
  Polly Mertens: It was a non starter for me.
• 1:03:03
  Polly Mertens: It just was like this is not, you know, and so I finally found my way.
• 1:03:07
  Polly Mertens: I was like how do I want to do this, you know, just trying different things, and I finally, nowadays part of my and it changes but part of my practice now is I listen to a little bit of a prompting for questions, of remembering times of love and gratitude in my life and so I really just get in the space of gratitude and love and then I just I do.
• 1:03:31
  Polly Mertens: There's a particular song that I like that has no words, it's a woman's voice or whatever, and it just opens my heart and I just let whatever's there for five minutes.
• 1:03:36
  Polly Mertens: Like you know, sometimes, who knows, maybe I'm talking to my guides, maybe I'm not, sometimes I'm just receiving things.
• 1:03:44
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes it's like I hear things.
• 1:03:46
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes I just focus on somebody in my life that I love and I'm just winging it.
• 1:03:52
  Polly Mertens: Who knows?
• 1:03:52
  Polly Mertens: But it's that time, that center time of like me and me, me and all me, or whatever, and it damn well feels good.
• 1:04:00
  Polly Mertens: So who cares?
• 1:04:03
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly, and that's how it should be, you know.
• 1:04:06
  Samantha Pruitt: And the other interesting thing about this religion is you don't have to be invited.
• 1:04:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and again, it's not a religion.
• 1:04:13
  Samantha Pruitt: I have to stop.
• 1:04:14
  Polly Mertens: It's not, it's a practice.
• 1:04:15
  Samantha Pruitt: You don't have to be invited, even to be come a monastic, it's by choice.
• 1:04:20
  Samantha Pruitt: You're not recruited.
• 1:04:22
  Samantha Pruitt: There isn't some kind of resume, certain like a calling yeah, they're actively recruiting, by the way, like, please, anybody.
• 1:04:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Like, right, we gotta heal the world right now.
• 1:04:33
  Samantha Pruitt: We're in a bit of a global crisis, right?
• 1:04:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Um, and the people are really intelligent.
• 1:04:38
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh man, the amount of stuff going on in these brains and so many of them are authors and poets and artists, and it's just crazy.
• 1:04:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It's really beautiful.
• 1:04:48
  Samantha Pruitt: But for you it's so funny because, yeah, I do think of you, as I mean, you've just been practicing this way of life for a really, really long time and you and I both came to.
• 1:04:59
  Samantha Pruitt: You know art, as you know, our life being art and this practice, uh, in the art of living through pain and suffering, it's how we discovered that we were the artists of our own life, not because somebody blessed us on the head and sent us into a building and you know, whatever the hell we literally came to it are in it through pain and suffering.
• 1:05:30
  Polly Mertens: And I think it's the tuning in that you and I have chosen to do.
• 1:05:33
  Polly Mertens: We just keep dialing back into ourselves, back into ourselves and tuning into you know, like I said in that earlier, it's like what excites you, like, what turns you on, what interests you, what are you fascinated by, what are you hungry about, what are you hungry about, what are you open to?
• 1:05:48
  Polly Mertens: And do that Like, oh, you know, like I can remember being sporadic, I'm going to go to this place and I'll go there, you know.
• 1:05:57
  Polly Mertens: And sometimes you know like your experience was heartfelt and beautiful that you shared about this past weekend, and sometimes I'll just go there.
• 1:06:05
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, oh, it was a little like flat, but I was supposed to go there.
• 1:06:10
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, okay, I did whatever.
• 1:06:12
  Polly Mertens: And you, just, I just follow that trusting of the steps that you took were the steps that you were supposed to take, the people that you met along the way, the confusion, the am I in the right place?
• 1:06:23
  Polly Mertens: The is this all there is?
• 1:06:25
  Polly Mertens: Or that was amazing?
• 1:06:27
  Polly Mertens: Any degree of that is part of your art journey, because I have a feeling, if you interview any artist, whether actor, painter, whatever, like there's no perfect, always Like they're not, always just like the writers, you know, they get that writer's block.
• 1:06:47
  Polly Mertens: Or the painters get, you know, frustration.
• 1:06:49
  Polly Mertens: The piece isn't quite finished or done, or you know it's not, or they're not inspired or whatever, and yet they still get back at the paint or the pen.
• 1:06:57
  Polly Mertens: You know, and that's us being in our life, right, it's like I'm gonna stay curious and right now I'm in the conversation called team and managing and leadership and communications and that just feels like enlivening and underneath it, I know, is the core of love, because I know this, this organization, I'm like they're up for people having greatness, like, like themselves be great and loving themselves.
• 1:07:21
  Polly Mertens: So, yeah, and you're, and being around that community, yeah, yeah, and and knowing that, like you know, the team, if you will.
• 1:07:29
  Polly Mertens: And so I just came in this quarter two weekends ago, and so this new leader, um, but I think she's a Thai and so English is in her first language and so she's, you know, fumbling some words or whatever, but like the love of the community, that is, like she's so put herself on the line and so wants this growth in this direction.
• 1:08:11
  Polly Mertens: She doesn't want to, like, her daughter killed herself six years ago, so she was like, she's like I lost myself.
• 1:08:16
  Polly Mertens: You know, she just lost who she was, and when she did some of these courses she found herself again.
• 1:08:21
  Polly Mertens: And now she's like and now I want to be out in the world, I want to be with people.
• 1:08:26
  Polly Mertens: I don't want to be hiding out.
• 1:08:27
  Polly Mertens: That did happen, that was tragic, that was traumatic, that whatever, but it doesn't mean my life ends, I'm still here, what can I learn and grow from?
• 1:08:36
  Polly Mertens: And so she's just putting her out in this container of love where people are like, okay, she's not doing it perfectly, okay, whatever.
• 1:08:48
  Polly Mertens: It's like she's practicing what she wants.
• 1:08:49
  Polly Mertens: Practicing her what, what she wants to overcome, what she wants to be up to and be about right, and it gives us all permission to.
• 1:08:54
  Samantha Pruitt: It gives us all permission exactly because if other people around you, in your space, in your life are willing to just show up, no matter how messy, imperfect, chaotic, all the things, you'll do the same damn thing you know and god, the liberation that comes with that is just phenomenal really.
• 1:09:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, wow so this is a sweet.
• 1:09:19
  Polly Mertens: Well, I just really want to encourage anybody, whether you've got like oh, maybe try on meditation, or pick up one of these books that Samantha's talked about.
• 1:09:27
  Polly Mertens: So what's?
• 1:09:28
  Samantha Pruitt: our one thing.
• 1:09:29
  Polly Mertens: Well, I want to read this.
• 1:09:30
  Samantha Pruitt: This will be my closing.
• 1:09:32
  Samantha Pruitt: One thing Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
• 1:09:35
  Samantha Pruitt: And these are called sutras.
• 1:09:37
  Samantha Pruitt: So basically, any time you're reading any of the teachings, Okay.
• 1:09:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Basically.
• 1:09:41
  Samantha Pruitt: So this is one of the things that says oh, this sounds like what we live and breathe every day.
• 1:09:49
  Samantha Pruitt: You're going to love this.
• 1:09:50
  Samantha Pruitt: And they call it on the path.
• 1:09:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, we call it the work, they call it the path.
• 1:09:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Please notice that I say a way, not the way on the path A way, not the way on the path.
• 1:10:14
  Samantha Pruitt: There are thousands of pathways up the mountain, and all of them have the potential to reach the summit.
• 1:10:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I feel that the role of a good spiritual friend is to help create an environment in which the other person can discover ways to transform their situation for themselves.
• 1:10:26
  Samantha Pruitt: This is empowerment.
• 1:10:29
  Samantha Pruitt: This is why we're here.
• 1:10:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I can't think of anything more important to do with my life.
• 1:10:37
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, once I figure this person out, empowering others.
• 1:10:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:10:45
  Polly Mertens: Well, and I think that's where we, when we take those steps, when we become the leader and the coach in our own life, like self-coaching is the most important.
• 1:10:54
  Polly Mertens: Self-leadership, you know, not self-criticism, self-love, right.
• 1:10:59
  Polly Mertens: When we are that way with ourselves, we demonstrate and we give it's magnetic, it it's contagious, it's like the smile, it's like, wow, that person obviously feels good about themselves.
• 1:11:09
  Polly Mertens: Wow, that person obviously enjoys, you know, living.
• 1:11:13
  Polly Mertens: It's like we give people permission to love themselves, to enjoy living.
• 1:11:18
  Polly Mertens: Like, get after it, get the hell after it.
• 1:11:22
  Samantha Pruitt: So this has been so.
• 1:11:24
  Polly Mertens: Ah, get curious.
• 1:11:25
  Polly Mertens: So we'd love to know what you guys think was this helpful to you or any practicing buddhists out there.
• 1:11:30
  Polly Mertens: Anything you want to share or add to it?
• 1:11:32
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, we'd love to hear from you.
• 1:11:34
  Polly Mertens: Love to hear from you, so all right sister posted on our journeys, yeah, yeah and I think this, like we talked about, I was like I want to do so right now.
• 1:11:42
  Polly Mertens: You're not like this practicing know-it-all buddhist.
• 1:11:45
  Polly Mertens: You know, got them all like tattooed on your arm.
• 1:11:47
  Polly Mertens: No, it's like yeah, you're on the path, but we wanted to like, benchmark this and say, okay, this is where we are right now, and five years from now and then five years from then, where are we at?
• 1:11:56
  Polly Mertens: So thank you for sharing all of this.
• 1:11:58
  Polly Mertens: It's beautiful, absolutely All right.
• 1:12:01
  Polly Mertens: What are we reminding our beautiful humans today?
• 1:12:04
  Polly Mertens: Breathe.
• 1:12:09
  Samantha Pruitt: A new one, guys.
• 1:12:10
  Samantha Pruitt: One of the cool things I did adopt is they ring bells and every time there's a bell rung, everybody stops and they just breathe and they basically are clearing themselves, their mind, their body, and then they move on.
• 1:12:27
  Samantha Pruitt: It's quite beautiful.
• 1:12:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we say to our beautiful humans out there, how their life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 1:12:38
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.