Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Todd Fink | Awakening Through Inquiry and Annihilation

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Interview with Todd Fink | Awakening Through Inquiry and Annihilation · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the podcast, everybody.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: My guest today is Michael Todd Fink.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, Todd.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Kay.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Good to be here.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm good.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for inviting me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy to be able to talk with you.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy to have you here because I think you've been on my list of potential guests since the very beginning, which has been over a year now.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And congratulations on the year of podcasting.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know that you know that it's a it's a commitment for sure.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of realize, oh, there's there's a lot more involved to keep this going and to keep growing it.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: I think one of the things that's always a surprise to me is like how it really keeps the calendar moving in a sense.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: You can't really like let go of that timing, you know, which is um, which can be challenging if that's not really what you want to be doing.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I was working on a podcast episode today for my podcast.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I can relate.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's funny because um that's kind of where I wanted to begin today, because I'm a fan of your podcast, and I think I've probably listened to probably, I don't know, eight or nine of them.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that prevents me from listening to all of them is that I can't listen to them just anywhere, like in the car or when I'm doing the dishes, because I need to take notes.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I've also found that your podcasts are very good for plane rides because I'm a little nervous flyer.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you sometimes do spontaneous meditations, or and of course, your voice is so calming that it's like the perfect airplane companion.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I need to listen to it on a plane ride because I also get uncomfortable.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like be careful driving and listening.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to fall asleep through my boring voice.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so I wanted to ask you.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: I have so your podcast is really unique in that you bring in so many different sources of wisdom and information and knowledge.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: And there's basically like no area that you won't go to, no subject that you won't go to to kind of draw in the fullness of an experience for your listeners.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're pulling in psychology and philosophy and ancient wisdom and anthropology and sociology and music and yoga, and it's just like it's so um full.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've always wanted to ask you how you prepare for these the podcasts that you do.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I do a little bit of research.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I will have something that I'm interested in anyway, and that often becomes the topic.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm interested in free will, or I'm interested in yoga, uh, or or I'm interested in healing, physical healing or emotional healing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm deep into something, and so it's really easy for me to talk about it in an organic way.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't usually bring any notes or anything because it's it's the way I would speak if I was meeting a friend for dinner that night while I'm in the middle of an investigation, and that's why I think it has a little bit different flair to it, like you're talking about, because I'm super passionate about it in that moment.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: You don't really need to take notes to dinner to talk about this thing you're exploring, it's just flowing out of you, and I need it to be that.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, sometimes I get a little scared that maybe it'll run out, and I think if it does, I would just have to conclude the podcast because I don't want it to be forced, I don't want it to be scripted or just, but I mean, as long as I'm breathing, I I'm going to keep growing, keep exploring.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like I will still want to share something new.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And when I'm researching something, there's a few directions I like to go.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested in etymology of words.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I have studied Sanskrit in India for some time as well, and I and I find that to be such an original language.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, for example, we have 26 letters in our alphabet, but the letter S makes a bunch of different sounds.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: It can make the sa sound or the sha sound, but there's multiple letters to accomplish that in Sanskrit, so it's just much more user-friendly and intuitive.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: But when I go to the origins of words, I feel like I can sort of trace back meaning of concepts.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a direction I like to go.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've studied psychology throughout my adult life.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I graduated from psychology at Georgetown.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's sort of a like a base for me to interpret the world or or our mental experiences at least.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was very interested in neuropsychology there.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: I had really wonderful teachers at my university that were open to the other ways that I like to explore the world.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and I've been meditating for over 20 years.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I have these, and and as you know, I play music, I play, have played in a band for many years.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that this philosopher and scientist David Bohm said it well when he described the getting at truth and then the expression of truth really kind of has three modes artistic, scientific, and mystical.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been going deep into those three sides, and and so I think that's that's what's special, maybe, or that's what resonates with people, because it's very common for somebody to really get attached to one of those three.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've I've been that way myself as an artist or as somebody trying to have some kind of career as a clinician at times.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it just doesn't work for me to just stay in any one of those three streams because I feel like I'm I'm not getting the full view of a topic or an idea or concept.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you asking and and um appreciating that aspect of the podcast.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's amazing in in so many ways.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: One is I was afraid you were gonna say that because I wanted to think, like, oh, you have this whole thing prepared and you're gonna go all these different places.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, to but the fact that you're able to to bring it out in the moment is kind of fantastic and um mind-boggling to me.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I I love that.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I also love this idea of taking three different approaches to any one topic.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that if we all had the the presence to do that, how much wider our view would be?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like you could bring the artistic, the scientific, and the mystic into every aspect of of your life and thought.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm really gonna I'm gonna write that down in my head.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I it's very beautiful, I think, and I agree.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I I try to do that.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I try to look at it from those three through those three lenses.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe one of the of the three is more more uh dominant, but you know, but just being aware of it gives you more options, and and you know, there's I found there's nothing I can do to prepare for a talk, for a podcast that can make me sound natural or feel natural, because that's not how how nature works.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and so I've just kind of let go of that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if I stumble or fall or forget, I've grown to find peace in those moments, and I'm okay with waiting if I'm not sure what the next thing I'm gonna say is, and I think a lot of that just comes from performing also and and playing music and and leaving so much up to improvisation and interpretation based on the energy.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you go for our band, if we went into a concert with a a rigid idea of how we would do it, you would miss an opportunity.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like if an audience is riding on the energy of the music and dancing their hearts out, and you just decide that we're going to stop that, you know, then you're just missing an opportunity for connection because of the rigidness of the script.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we had a uh a night once where we we started at 1 a.m.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: at a festival and we were still playing when the sun came up because there was no one after us, there was no constraints, and nobody was concerned with time, and we just let it breathe as long as it needed to.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: I I think of the amount of presence and connection that you would have to have individually and amongst each other in order to be able to perform like that.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: But I I feel the same way.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't prepare traditionally for um my podcast, I don't prepare questions because I found that in the beginning I started out doing it that way, and I found that it even just the slightest turn to look at my notes would take me out of the connection, out of the presence that I had with my guest.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so, but ditching the notes and the the plan requires a lot of trust, trust and comfort in in the quiet spaces that something is going to come to you through you, you know.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's special to access that trust because you you aren't even giving yourself an opportunity without those experiments, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and again, I just want to say like there's nothing wrong with having a script.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I have played music according to a piece of music, and I've given speeches and I've read poems and things like that.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just simply talking about you know, the the way of the podcast that that you appreciate and what's special about those kind of moments, like what's special about a conversation with a friend, and and I've just tried to expand on that.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: So um your ability to recall all these different um pieces of wisdom, threads of wisdom, was that something that you've always had?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: Did what was your experience of that growing up?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Do you were you like a really sharp kid or uh you know?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I gave my high school commencement speech in that same way.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: I had no no notes or anything, and I had some long awkward pauses, I remember.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I'm just strange.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I I'm not a good student, although I've gotten good grades and went to good schools and stuff.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I like I'm not a good student in the sense I don't like the way it is.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't fit with the way it is.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I just I'm not organized.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't like I don't like what we think of as organization here in America.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's just it's uncomfortable to me.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: That I don't I I mean someone else is different, and I I have no judgment of that.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's just about what like is natural for me.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So so my podcasts though, that for instance, are not very structured.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're not like an hour long every time, and uh they're definitely not linear.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know how like a lot of podcasts will be like, and here's our intro, and here's and and again, I have no problem with that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: It that that's uh that's fine, and that's how some people learn, and some people are able to use um a formula like that really, really well.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not natural to me.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I yeah, I mean, I can remember things, but I may remember it at an odd time, you know.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I may remember it at the end.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I may remember something that was really important after the podcast, and then maybe I'll put it in an intro.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, more recently, I've I've included an intro to the podcast, which I record later on, which is nice because if I listen back to that talk, I may get more ideas.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: I may even think differently about it, and I'm okay with that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another trust.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: I trust that people accept that I can change my mind, or that I made a mistake, I said it wrong, or the study I quoted wasn't the right study, or wasn't it didn't happen exactly that way.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and when I find that out, I'll I'll own that and I'll share that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have no problem with that.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's great.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I the an example of that, I was listening to one of the podcasts recently, and you were talking about how um the I think the largest fire in human history took place in China in 1980 something, and you said I think you said it was 20 acres, it's like a backyard fire, 20 million acres is what I meant to say.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it kind of even makes the 20 million even more like wow, it's like wow, yeah, yeah, hard to imagine.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, what was your childhood like?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was beautiful in many respects.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: When I talk about growing up with my brother, we sometimes are like, whoa, you know, we had we had very different experiences.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was born in California because my dad was in the Navy stationed out of the Bay Area, and in the first five years there, he was traveling to Asia, and I think that was meaningful for me because I ultimately went to India and spent time in Asia and had transformative experiences in Asia.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it just kind of planted a seed in me of eastern wisdom that he was in Japan and he was in Hong Kong and he studied karate and mastered numchuks in this exotic part of the world, and it just seemed like Asia was so different than everywhere else.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that that was kind of always expanding in me as a kid.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: We moved around a lot after that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're also really poor by all metrics, but it never really occurred to me because I had nothing to compare it to.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents were really present and engaged and loving, and my mother was just so so wonderful.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: They never they never um said there was things we couldn't do.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: If if there was something I wanted or wanted to do, we would find a way.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but at some some of our childhood, like we didn't even have a home.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I can remember some one year we were living in the basement of a friend.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, technically on the border of homelessness were part of my childhood, but but never felt that way.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing um what that was always important to our dad was to be close to nature.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: So even if we were homeless, we would be homeless near a forest.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and when you have access to nature as a kid, he instilled in us the joy of the natural world.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: You feel so rich in nature.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: When you're walking in among the trees, there's no thought of wealth and um possession, and there's nothing to prove about yourself, you're just part of the of the whole.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I had those experiences all the time.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Those were my first spiritual experiences, would be in nature, because, like I said, probably moved more than a dozen times growing up, but there was always a forest preserve or a forest nearby that I could go into, so I felt very rich in those spaces and and had spiritual experiences in those spaces.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And my parents were great, they they were artistic and completely accepting of me being expressive.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when I went to school and wanted to study music and psychology and wanted to be in a band with my brother, they had no problem with it.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: They they felt like you do what uh what feels right to you.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I had parents that gave a lot of freedom, too, which isn't always the case.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: I see a lot of families where parents are really kind of hovering over their adult children or controlling.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: My parents by the time I was like 14, 15, really gave me a long leash.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: But not that they didn't care about what I did, they just weren't going to control.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think with with that kind of trust, with that kind of freedom, and and still having them very interested in me and supportive of me, I I just kind of gravitated towards trying to be mature and make good use of the freedoms that I had.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: That I think that I grew up, I'm older than you, so I grew up in in the um like late 60s and 70s, and I had a similar experience.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: We had no money, but I was not really aware of that because um nobody around me had any money.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we didn't nobody took family vacations that I knew.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody um right.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: We never took family.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think there was one trip I took in my whole childhood.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I never went anywhere other than when it was time to move.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hey kids, we're going on vacation and we're staying.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's uh, but I also had the experience of having this incredibly long leash.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_02: I I can remember just as a really young kid riding my bike to um, you know, three or four miles away to some store or something that I wanted to get some candy at.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: Or um we had this, I lived in the suburbs and there was um this area next to the train tracks that we called the field because it was undeveloped.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it to me, it felt like it felt like nature, it felt like the wild, you know, and um I did so much of my growing up in that space.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: And what do you think that lack of a tether does for you in your development?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that there's probably a sweet spot, and it it you know it depends on the personality of the child, but but yeah, I was also gonna say that there weren't all the devices when you were growing up, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: So there weren't all these ways to compare.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like now it for me, I bet like to go through childhood now with the limited resources that my family had, it might have been psychologically painful because I'd probably be looking at I'd be constantly able to see what other people have and what they're doing.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all you see is a little bit at school, and and and so you know, you have everything in nature, but now like there's less inclination to go into nature for kids, I think.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, but the I think the the lack of a tether and the freedom builds trust because, like, especially like a teenager, teenager wants independence, but the parents are often trying to balance that with the fear of them making a huge mistake.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think it's a problem when you prevent kids from making mistakes because it's how we learn, it's how we grow.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I have a friend who gave a TED talk about this letting your kids fail and the importance of that, not to be so so protective or so influential that they don't know how to make a mistake, and they don't know how to sit with with that, or they don't know how to how it feels to disappoint somebody and how to rectify that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: Or to yeah, yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: I I have experience on both sides of that because I have four kids, and um I think it it's it's more it's harder, it's more difficult to allow your children to fail than to fail yourself because you know that it's no big deal.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: But for some reason, there's just that much more difficulty when you're.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: watching someone that you love face being hurt or hurting someone or or failing in that way.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's challenging.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's really challenging.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: I bet.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that there's, you know, we're fed also, you know, by the media, the danger of living in the world today that probably hasn't shifted all that much.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's probably more danger online than there is in your neighborhood.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that's probably contributed to it a little bit.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: That we have the perception that childhood is more dangerous now than it was then.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: So can you talk a little bit about your spiritual experiences and how that life developed for you?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well like I said I had some in nature the one of the earliest ones in nature was to just be sitting there and feeling like all the other stuff isn't real.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: The the drama of humanity is just that it's just a play it's not it's not something that it needs to be all consuming.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I would as a small kid I would think if there wasn't this thing of consciousness like if I wasn't conscious of people and nature and all that what would what would the universe be like and that was my question.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if you have some line of inquiry like that about truth because that's what spirituality is to me it's it's nothing more than trying to get at what's true everything else I think falls under religion and um culture.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: And not that I wouldn't deviate into those other domains but but in that that but that I say that I cite that time because that was a moment where I was trying to understand what's true.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't feel like like my ordinary experience was true or real.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would close my eyes and I would just let go and I get this really weird feeling like I didn't exist.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just so profound for a kid to feel like there's something untrue about my ordinary belief system and my ordinary way of thinking about myself.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: But it was a little scary to feel like I don't really exist or when I'm in nature with eyes closed and I have a meditative experience I don't know what to do with that because I eventually have to wait what open my eyes and come back and I st I stopped doing it after a while stopped thinking about those things and tried to just think about regular things because I didn't just didn't have didn't have any support and later I realized like that's why connecting with a teacher or um spiritual communities can have an important place in in one's journey.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually I got into it again and started studying yoga meditation I mean I became very hungry for spiritual knowledge by the time I graduated high school and so everything I was doing in between my studies was seeking out wisdom.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I met lots of teachers I went on a retreat with a shaman I learned different things with energy I never felt satisfied with anything though I would learn things and I I would think you know that's nice or that can be helpful for something but it it didn't solve my question.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then I read a book called Autobiography of a yogi you ever heard of that book?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and the yoga that he was practicing I thought I I need to learn that and I found a um a woman in the area who taught this to people in her home she taught it to me then she got me connected to a master of that tradition in India a monastic and um really a great renowned world teacher and he was compassionate enough to let me come closer and study near him and go to India and and by I think being in the company of a of a truly great wise master helped me to build the environment that I needed to to like continue with that original pursuit in a way that was supportive was conducive and he helped create that space in India where I could explore that fully by the time I came back and you know continued playing music and doing things people would sense things about me and ask questions about where I've been and and my experiences and then after a while I just realized that it's going to keep happening people are going to keep asking and I'm going to keep getting requests to share things.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: So then I just eventually gave into it I had no intention of doing that.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just um accepted that you know somebody put it like this once you know like if you had a lot of money you wouldn't just hide it you know so they're like if you know things that um would be healing for people or transformative for people but you're not going to share it just because it was only for you then I I kind of saw some selfishness in that and and kind of changed my attitude towards leading teaching having a podcast and so on.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah so when was that in your life?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Was it after college?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Which part the part where you started to come onto your spiritual path and then you you extended that was after college um I was 25 years old.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you recognize for yourself the truth in what someone else has to say how like how do you find a teacher like that I don't really know I I mean I do think there's something some truth in the in the adage that when you're ready a teacher will come I don't know that a teacher is necessary for everybody I think it was in my case or I thought it was and so it was but I think if if you are just honest with yourself when you're learning from somebody your your body your heart will tell you this is aligning with something true or you know it's not I mean I met a lot of students on my spiritual journey that had a lot of cognitive dissonance I mean one group of people tried to get me to go with them to somewhere in Southeast Asia to be with a teacher because you can do drugs with the teacher not that like I have anything against drugs but they were trying to adapt the teacher they're trying to find a teacher that will accommodate their ego and I was looking for a teacher that would kind of destroy mine.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I I mean I I feel like you can really get lost for a while if you do that you can you may have a teacher and if you're getting you're finding a teacher that accommodates your ignorance sorry to put that bluntly that accommodates one's ignorance that's not going to help you at all I mean that can get you lost for your whole life I think so there are strategies I think to try to find the teacher and there are books about like a guru disciple relationship that I think have a tremendous amount of wisdom and there's books like the Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita just like historical texts classics that one ought to refer to if they were really going to pursue that so that you're not just giving up your life or pursuing something that's just leading you astray.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a very serious thing you know and it's a delicate thing um we're talking about one's mind here and the fight for our mind.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah I it is very serious and I um I I came to some conclusion some time ago that if if the teacher weren't still learning then that relationship was no longer right for me.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: I needed to see that the truth is ever expanding there's no set box called truth that you open up and then you know it it it's like an evolving process.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's it's easy for any of us to get trapped in our own little boxes of what we think that the truth is.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And and I also believe that there can be multiple truths.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: So you understand one truth and I can understand completely different and they they're both true and to us you know so this it it kind of reminds me a little bit of the last podcast that I listened to of yours which was on skepticism and toward the end of the podcast it was like getting really into um this idea of reality what is what is true and what reality could be and what reality might be and that was kind of trippied there toward toward the end.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes yeah and and sometimes that's where you take people is to the edge of understanding and yeah wow well yeah and I mean I I do think I I hear what you're saying Kay and um that makes sense I I think at some point on this path you have to strip everything away I mean any shred and this is just like if you if you really want to know like who we are every belief you know is um any belief can become like your the the little bit of ego that we cling on to or the little bit of an identity I have a belief I you know I exist I I think something therefore I am but I mean I I think at some point we do have to shed everything just like strip everything away and start back from nothing I don't know anything I don't know a single I don't know a damn thing you know and and anything that comes up well I think what is that you know where does that thought come from is it does it come from what we think of as true or is it is it coming from a culture is it coming from a book a religion so yeah I mean and that is um a brutal you know undertaking and I don't think it's for everybody but um but some people feel like you know they they can't live without they can't live with themselves their idea of themselves and will have to do that kind of work.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that that experience that you had as a child or kid when you had such a profound experience and there was no way to really manage it at that age that you withdrew from it I find myself doing that all the time and it it it's like I have to come back into my human experience like fully fully plant myself in my human experience like what am I going to cook?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: What are my family relationships?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: What does my body need?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: What do I enjoy like on the earthly plane and forget all about the spiritual stuff because it can become like a a vortex you know that you can kind of get lost in have you had other experiences of having to pull back from your oh yeah oh yeah I mean I've had experiences that just annihilate have annihilated me I don't talk about them much um and and I think you know but there's there's a there is a fundamental um premise about our experience as human and that is that it's going to end and it ends any moment now I mean to just come to terms with that like we can do a bunch of things to avoid thinking about that and all that's going to do is give us a really crappy death I think you know meaning like we can't be present at the grand finale because we didn't get ourselves ready to watch it you know we didn't grab a seat you know um so yeah I mean I think there's that's completely normal and natural that we'll have to shift back and forth because it's sort of like it's sort of like working um uh let's say a branch with like some water so that it can bring you can bring the ends together and complete this circuit of knowledge but if I just do it too quickly it'll just snap and and then I lose my mind um and so I have to like release and pull again and release and I think that's what you're talking about.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: I sometimes I have to release from thinking about spirituality as something separate maybe if I put it that way like a separate endeavor and to just make dinner you know but it's really not separate.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like I have to let go of the idea that there's a a separate pursuit um because yeah I I think you're absolutely right but this for me this um anxiety about death is just like it's always like right here and so I I I'll step back or do something that I think is like not spiritual.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really think of life like that anymore but just like something that I guess you could say is grounding for my physical health.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: My physical health has gotten bad at times I think because of too much intellectualization and like this year has been for me just totally taking care of my body more um but but now I'm finding like like that is like still no different than everything else I was doing trying to take care of my body is um you know it can be a very zen-like experience but this hovering specter of death never like goes away for me and and that was what it was as a kid and the that first experience as a little kid was just because I gave up everything I gave up every idea about what a spiritual experience was or what spirituality was I don't know why I mean maybe there's something to past lives and stuff I don't really think about that much um but it was just like I don't know anything I don't I don't have anything and uh that led me into it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: So when you talk about some of those experiences about being annihilated I I mean I've certainly experienced like the annihilation of who I thought I was in a lot of instances what what was that experience like for you if you can share well I wouldn't volunteer this um reflection because it's hard to put into words and and it it can create confusion to talk about I think but but you asked and uh I respect I respect the question.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: So for me I had an experience once where basically and it wasn't a meditative experience it wasn't like I was sitting in meditation or something I was just like walking across the room I heard a sound I looked for the sound I realized there was no place the sound was coming from it wasn't inside it wasn't outside and it got louder and louder and louder and it then it was accompanied by a a light that wasn't inside or outside and it literally just started to destroy my sense of self and first thing to go was my body like I had no sense of a physical form and but then it started to dissolve my mind and that annihilation was almost complete I feel like except I had there was just some spark of fear some seed of fear that sprouted back into this experience and yeah so that that was a time where it was like I clawed my way out of the abyss I feel like but I'm not proud of that or anything I mean I feel like the meditation is people wouldn't know that probably but like but deep meditation is preparing you for the end of your your selfhood and by selfhood I mean like little s we think we're this body but we know this body's not going to last and when people are talking about something that's true or eternal like their soul they don't talk about it from first person I mean as that they say like I well I believe my soul is going to go to heaven well what good is that for you if your soul goes to heaven your soul and your car and your pet can go to heaven but where do you go?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they can't say I'm going to heaven because they think and we all think uh until this awakening or realization that we're the body yeah that's interesting and it creates an attachment to the body so I mean what I what I share with people is not to ignore the body or reject the body that's not what I'm getting at here like you you shouldn't do that with anything that you're in contact with your pets your belongings it's it's a relationship I think of stewardship of the self of the body of the body wow I never really contemplated that that that question about where the the small self the small self goes I just assume that it's it's a finite organism and I am not right right we have to answer the question we have to solve the question who am I before we could know where I go but people find try to find out where they go or if there's life after death before proving that there's life before death before knowing what life before death is yeah that's incredible.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm really interested in your perspective of meditation being the preparation for the death of the self I I I of course I've heard that before but I always I also thought there was you know other aspects to explore within meditation.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: So can you take us through that a little bit about you know kind of presenting the fullness of the purpose of meditation and what it can do for you yeah well first I say I'd like to say that I uh in my experience I tend to think that meditation fits in as part of a a broader philosophical inquiry into reality meaning if someone just tries to do a Contemplative practice, I don't know that that will work work in the way that we're talking about.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: So like I feel like something like the Yoga Sutras has a lot of wisdom in the sense that when you integrate um certain disciplines with asana, like for instance, it would be hard to sit for meditation if your body's got a lot of pain, if you haven't taken care of the body.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you you may not get to that place where there can be enough stillness, breathing, um turning the senses inward, learning how to concentrate.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I try to find a modern way to share that wisdom with people, giving people contemplative practices.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: Throughout the podcast, we talk about those principles that help people refine their life, refine their senses.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a systematic way, which includes meditation, to gain the experience of reality.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: So when we think we're the body and you start to meditate, you will start to have the experience that your sense of self doesn't map on to reality.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like something simple.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: We think we're the author of our thoughts, but you can't stop your thoughts just like that.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_01: In the same way, you can't stop digesting your food or pause your food in the intestines until you choose.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: But it takes mindfulness, it takes awareness to realize that those things are happening.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't do them.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Our language is what confuses us.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: We say things like, I forgot what I was gonna tell you, Kay.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: But is forgetting actually something that you do?
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it'd be more accurate to say file not found, but you're not going to realize this, you're not gonna be able to cut through some of that cultural conditioning without practicing the awareness.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so the awareness is where a person's locus will start to shift to to see, like, oh, I have a body, and then you can start to figure out what is the I and awareness would be closer to that than uh than the body, and so it's preparing us, yeah, because everything else is transient and ephemeral, and everybody is trying to grab on to something stable, but there's nothing to hold on to.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I say, you know, it's preparing us for what is already our destiny, but people don't want to face it.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you know, meditation is a way to to wade into those waters.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sam Harris for uh, for example, on his podcast, Making Sense, talks about psychedelics a lot, but he says like psychedelics are like being shot out of yourself with a rocket, and meditation is a way to like wade into the waters of selflessness, yeah.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, yeah, it's definitely a gentler.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, wow.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so how do you recommend that people get started with meditation?
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because some of the things that you're saying today are causing me to reflect that I think a lot of modern culture is telling us that meditation is like a solution to the human predicament and or whatever might be going on, like for instance, if you're if you're experiencing a lot of anxiety or you're um you're you're unsure, you're in doubt, you know, things like that, that it's meditation's becoming more talked about as a practice, a helpful practice.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like yes, and also the opposite is true, that it can bring you to some understandings that are confusing and um that require further inquiry.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do you recommend that people enter into that, wade into that river?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good question.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it did it does depend on what what people are seeking, right?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I'm seeking a resolution to my anxiety, that's that's different than seeking to know the truth about who I am, and you know, mindfulness practices and and yoga, they they help with with all these other things.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: But our culture is you know made an enemy out of emotion, you know, and emotion is just it just is.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even think the point of mindfulness or meditation is to eliminate emotion.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Emotion is is just a natural part, is is is part of nature, like storms.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: A place isn't good because it has no clouds, a weather isn't good because there's not rain, even though culturally we describe it as such.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that same confusion happens with self-inquiry.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, mindfulness, for instance, its design is not to feel better, it's to get better at feeling, actually.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Our problem, our predicament, as you put it, with our emotional experience is that we reject what's natural, we suppress our feelings, we find really creative ways to numb ourselves, to stuff our and ourselves, I mean our experiences, to stuff emotions as they arise, to hold on to them after they're trying to go.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that that creates unnatural disturbances.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: But mindfulness practice allows a person to feel, so you just become more in the flow, and an emotion will come, just like rain will come, but only rarely is a like a storm going to last a long time.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: It has its natural motion.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to push the clouds, they're already moving.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's a but but nobody sees it.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: You just look and you go, it's great, I gotta do something, I gotta, I gotta fix it.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: You look at your feeling and you just see, I'm sad, I gotta solve it, I gotta get rid of it.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: But mindfulness shows you that it's moving, that it's dynamic, and that allows us to be free because I don't have to hold on to or push or reject or block what's natural.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think that is um so powerful that when you do come face to face with your emotions and start to feel them, that again it comes back to trust, knowing that as you experience them, they're going to change, they're going to move on, new things are going to present.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's so much about this life that is just about trust.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's amazing, really, that yeah.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I recently came across a teacher who um was talking about using meditation like for a specific purpose to manifest something, and that had never occurred to me before.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: I've never gone into meditation with any sort of purpose in mind, like with a goal.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that you know it was just entering into the present, and whatever came up was kind of worth looking at.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: How do you view that?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do you use meditation in different ways?
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, but I don't I don't judge those who do.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think it's quite normal to desire things, to want things, and to to want to be successful, to want family.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I I want those things too, in the in the sense that I want to eat well, I want to sleep well, I want companionship, I want connection.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the body wants that.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but I'm learning that everything I could possibly desire is tied to another desire, except wisdom.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because wisdom destroys suffering, wisdom dissolves everything, and wisdom lasts, everything that you can desire, nothing wrong with wanting something, it can't last.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: You eat something, and then it passes, you have some success, doesn't matter what kind of success, the highest success, and then it passes, and then you're not the top dog anymore.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there will have to be another desire, and so all all I'm talking about is with meditation being what what it is, I don't use it to get me more enmeshed in that cycle.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm saying, yeah.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: I use it and just to try to get closer to what's true and to release my attachment to things that are untrue.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you get comfortable in that space between truth and not knowing?
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because it it feels like you're perpetually there.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that can that can feel a little uncertain or wobbly.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how do you get comfortable there?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get comfortable.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm an uncomfortable person.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I've been doing uh cold showers and cryotherapy for back problems and other health issues, and I'm getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_01: So what you're talking about, like being uncertain, is not comfortable, but it doesn't have to be rejected.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had an experience yesterday in the cryo chamber.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sitting, not sitting, standing in there, full full, fully enclosed.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: So your it's a whole body chamber, and it was minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: And after three minutes, my time was up.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I had gotten so comfortable with being uncomfortable, I didn't want to get out.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was wishing I could tell the staff person facilitating the session for me, can I just stay?
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that's what I think of with your question that we just need to get exposed to being uncomfortable, it's gotta be willing to get in the cold tub because it eventually passes.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like eventually, I get out of the chamber, and you you feel more alive, you feel a certain kind of vitality that you didn't have before you entered the uncomfortable environment.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: So when you understand that you know you're you're willing to do it because you know it's like everything else, it's impermanent.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what my suffering is, you know what I mean.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I suffer like anybody else, I know it's gonna pass.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: The season of suffering, the the season of bad luck.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I feel like, man, in the last year I had some really bad luck, but so did everybody, right?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because the pandemic, but then it passes, passes, and it's like another example of like why do not trust in myself in nature that just plant the seeds of success in the season of failure, and everything passes.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody may say, No, you know, some things don't pass, some of your suffering, you know, is gonna kill you.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but when it kills you, it passes.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: I have that experience, I have had that experience throughout my life because I was always an athlete, so I was always hurting myself in some way, always had some kind of injury strain, or you know, the you just get used to that.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I noticed a few years back when I was really doing a lot of yoga that if I tried to dissect and address my physical situation, I might do some different poses to try and strengthen different areas, I might get more massages, I might do some acupuncture, go to the chiropractor, blah, blah, blah.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes I would do a lot of these things for a lot of time.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: And on the occasion that they didn't ever help, eventually, if I just forgot about them and just said, like, forget it, like I I just throw up my hands, eventually they would resolve themselves.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had this situation with my hand that is it's been I've had it for a year and a half.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's extremely painful.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but nothing I've tried has helped, and I'm kind of in that position now where it's just like, oh well, like it's just throw up that hand.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I want to like cut off literally and metaphorically.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know what you mean though.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was actually my question for you today.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_01: Have you had a situation like that and what wisdom came out of it?
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's it.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not always in charge of what happens, but everything will pass.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this seems like a great spot for us to move into our lightning round, and I just want to confess right from the start that the questions I have for you are not light or fast.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'll do my best then, but they're perfect for you because okay, yeah.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um so, and in fact, the first question has three parts, and it was a little bit about what I wanted to talk to you about after the podcast.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_02: I just decided to ask you in the podcast.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, one, what do you think revelation is?
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: Where does it come from, and what is your experience of it?
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's it is deep, that's not lightning.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's um well, I think revelation has a very religious con uh connotation now because it's a book in the Bible, and people talk about divine revelation.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that much of spiritual growth is not, well, I would say all of it is not something you acquire, it's something you lose.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: You lose attachment to what's unreal, and that doesn't have anything to do with religious beliefs that you need to take on.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, revelation is just simply to me, is that the truth is always the truth.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying here's the truth, or this is the truth, or that's the truth.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever is true was true, is true, will be true.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if it's covered up, it doesn't make it untrue.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like gold buried or gold covered in dirt is still gold.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's and and the spiritual work is just simply removing the dirt, the non-gold, like Michelangelo carving the angel out of stone is revelation.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: The angel is already in there, right?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's only removing the non-angel.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's such a beautiful art form where all you do is shed, you know, you don't add, and spiritual life is is a little bit like that.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: I I love reductive sculpture.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: I absolutely love it, I love doing it and looking at it, but it the the process of doing it is incredible, just for that reason that it you're you're tapping into something that's already there and it's just revealing itself to you.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_02: So is it relevant to ask where this comes from, where where something like revelation comes from?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't think it comes from any particular place.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you you can't say you can go find it here, it come it comes from our experience.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it comes from the heart of our every experience.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: It comes from like I I make a mistake or I think I'm making a mistake, and when I peel back what I think about myself when I peel peel layers, then um then wisdom reveals itself.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's available in every experience though, I think.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: Pleasant, unpleasant, successful, unsuccessful.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: In your relationships, relationships showing us something about ourselves if we would just peel, not peel away the relationship, I'm saying peel away our attachments, our insecurities about it.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that it feels like that is like allowing every moment and every situation to reveal itself to you, reveal something to you, that every moment has the potential to be revelatory in someone, if we're if we're paying attention and if we desire it.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, okay, num question number two, technically, what was your first airplane flight like?
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember anything out of the ordinary, uh, other than just, oh my god, I'm in the air.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was a junior in high school.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: I may have been on a plane as a baby, but I have no recollection of that.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_01: So as a junior in high school, I attended a youth leadership conference in Washington, DC.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only place that um that I really traveled to on my own.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why I went to school there, because that was all I knew outside of wherever I was living.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I just remember it was a great adventure.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: I flew by myself, I went to a city I'd never been to, found my way, and then came back there a year later for college.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_02: I think about when I when my oldest son was um a senior in high school, he neither myself nor his dad could accompany him to this college orientation at um University of Colorado Boulder.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: So he had to go by himself, figure out how to get from Denver to Boulder, figure out how to find out where he was supposed to be.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: And at the time I was feeling, excuse me, so awful about that that he had to do it on his own.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it actually led him to um a life that was rather um expansive.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_02: He ended up going to school in the UK and has lived there for 10 years.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's recently come back, but um, yeah, so he's he's been on his own quite a bit since then.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it always like goes back to our initial earlier in the conversation about letting go.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, uh, next question How has the last year and a half changed, Gio?
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, everything I was working towards either stopped or ended altogether.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: I had to cancel retreats and programs and everything I was building towards with this with.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: But the work that I do just came to a screeching halt.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I did my best to just accept that and pivot.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it was a reminder that you don't have control and not to be attached, even as an artist, not to be attached to what you're painting with your life.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: Just do simply do your work and step back.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I started writing reflections during my time most when I was spending more time alone or in solitude.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: Started writing reflections and sharing them and getting feedback from people on social media.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm organizing it into a book.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost finished.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I can really relate to you the step that you took.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_02: You talked about um recently about actually making the book physical and shuffling the pages around because that's how I've that's what I've done with my books.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_02: They did not make sense to me until I was able to get them in the physical, and then they just started to shuffle themselves.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, print printing them out, right?
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm excited for your book, by the way.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is awesome.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: Congratulations.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_02: This experience that you had of having to let go of everything that you had been working toward and planning on reminds me so much of having a miscarriage.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you like the minute that you know that you're gonna have a baby, your entire life takes a turn and is now has an order, it has an a date that or you know, a presumed date where everything is gonna shift.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_02: And when you lose that pregnancy, it's like it the grieving process is it's intense to to let go of um you know what you had expected to happen.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think it's I mean, obviously, a miscarriage is huge, you know, it's absolutely huge.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: And but so are all our dreams, you know, that we that we we build for ourselves.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_02: So how can we build the dream and not be too attached to it?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: But that is a big dream, and because it's not just like a dream job that you work for some years, it's a dream life that you plan to be a part of for the rest of your life, and I mean that is that is a a painful bubble to pop of uh of expectation.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm sorry, I mean, I'm sorry you've you've gone through that, and there's a there's wisdom in the letting go of things not meant for us, or not meant in that way at that time, yeah.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the release of control, I think leads to acceptance.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's not what you want or what you envisioned, but you realize at some point that the resistance to what is limits us.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and that that's the painful part of it is hanging on to to the what you thought what you thought was gonna happen and how it was gonna be.
• 1:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um what always makes you laugh Seinfeld.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm disappointed they took it off Hulu.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I always find something funny in Seinfeld at the office, but but I I tend to find humor in the moment.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I make mistakes, I say things that I think were stupid, and I try to laugh at myself.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can't believe some of the things that my mind puts out into words sometimes, and I try to find humor in it and and the strangeness of you know this of this life.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's beautiful.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um do you wrestle with the idea of aging?
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm starting to wrestle more.
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I've gotten into more interested in martial arts lately.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just jumping off the wrestling.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I do wrestle with pain.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh like if aging was just simply going gray or having wrinkles, yeah.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would I would so it's weird because I'm getting a lot more pain as I age, but people are always telling me you don't look like you're aging, and I feel that I'm aging, but it's not showing.
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I would trade the feeling of pain for the showing, but we don't have control over these things.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's genetics and there's other things.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think there needs to be a balance, and there's not a good balance in society because youthfulness is the value of our culture.
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So aging is kind of become like a shameful thing in our society, and it's really sad because you know, like I see people not wanting to be called grandma or grandpa, and people doing whatever they can to not look like they're aging, as if that's somehow like some proof of success in life.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, you must have done something right, and it's just like ignoring so many factors that people have no control over.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know when I'm going to die.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and all my youthfulness doesn't matter.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a healthy balance of aging gracefully while taking care of your body.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: So this isn't about neglecting your body.
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_01: And very few people can do that, can age gracefully.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but part of that is our society celebrating beauty in all its forms, not just beauty being usefulness, because that's not the only thing that's beautiful.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I talk that that's what my whole TED talk was about.
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um the beauty of imperfection, the beauty of incompleteness, and and so on.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's the problem, is that we have a narrow, narrowly defined view of beauty, and so people don't want to age, and it's bad for society in the sense that we lack true elders, people that are in the elder stage, own that space, and can be accessed by the community and celebrated by the community as the wise people that they are.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And other cultures have celebrated the wisdom and the beauty of old age, like in parts of China, parts of Japan.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that factors into their longevity when aging is something to look forward to and not to dread, because your stock comes down.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's true in the material sense that our value goes down as we age in this system.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_01: But there are other systems where your stock rises as you age, and so people can age more gracefully because they actually want to derive the benefits that the society provides in that system.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when your value goes up as an elder, as a wise person, you don't want to miss that, you know, by it.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: So so the reverse would be true there.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, damn, I'm old, but I don't have any gray, so I don't get any of the benefit of so so much of this is cultural conditioning.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I struggle with it though, because I mean I struggle mostly with the pain, the pain that comes like in my hip from years of being athletic and and bugs in my genetics that I share with my dad.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just trying to find a balance of doing what I can without being obsessed with it.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because I can't prevent it all.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I don't want to be neglectful of my body either.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so that this year has been a big learning experience for me to find that balance.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_02: I my personal journey with that is is like I'm amazed at how um I I appreciate and don't I appreciate aging so much in other people, and I can't turn that same appreciation onto myself.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so much more critical of myself in ways that I would never judge anyone else, like not even close.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the other experience, so I grapple with that a little bit, and uh from time to time, like I go in and in and out of that.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um the I forgot what I was gonna say, um about aging.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll just move on to the next one.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I just want to add one more thing to that.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I said I don't really care about reincarnation or think about past lives at all, but this is the one instance where I think it would have real value for the society.
• 1:16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like if we knew for a fact, like when I'm as I'm older, if I know like as an 80-year-old man, I'm literally two years away from birthing in a hospital and being a helpless infant, then it'd be like, I'll be let me be old, let me enjoy this, because it's gonna be 80 years or a hundred years before I get to be old again.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_01: If we just knew that there was this cycle and you knew it, it wasn't just a wild theory, then I think people would just be like, That's where I'm at on the Ferris wheel, it's all good, you know.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Totally, totally.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, yeah.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_02: I sometimes think like, what what if this were my last incarnation on Earth?
• 1:16:50
  SPEAKER_02: What as a human, what would I want to experience?
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that and that is really potent for me because you know, when you're busy, you can skip over experiences and not fully appreciate what it means to be in a human body because we're so used to it.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we we sometimes forget like what a miracle it is to touch a cactus, or you know, whatever.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so yeah.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so my final question for you is what remains undone for you?
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think I'm meant to release this book at some point, it's not finished yet.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think about this sometimes.
• 1:17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think I was meant to make music, I was meant to make these talks, this podcast.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was meant to make a book, and um, I don't know, maybe maybe there'll be more books, but it feels like this is the third creative piece, the final piece in the sense of literature, like some written things.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how much literature, but I don't see myself going back and being active as a musical artist in the way I was like in my 20s.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the the major piece of that part of my life has concluded.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm inspired to share music, to still play my guitar and banjo, and and to perhaps do something again with bandmates, but I'm just saying never on that scale again.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it'll all be just for the love of music and tribute to that.
• 1:18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think at some point the podcast will reach uh uh a full place, and uh, and so I think what's left undone for me in terms of my creative life here is to create some some more literature, and that's it, I think.
• 1:19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel content.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I I'm I'm open to I'm open to the idea of partnership and and family still, although I'm I'm getting older, but I don't have like that's not something that like I I feel like I have to cross off to feel like I did everything I wanted to do here.
• 1:19:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's more like I'm open to it, like I'm open to living elsewhere.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have any plan to live elsewhere, but I'm open to living in the southwest.
• 1:19:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think that would be beautiful.
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:19:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I just want to um conclude today with just a little quote.
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I I don't know whether I got this, I got it from your podcast, but I don't know whether it's something that you said or or that some that you were quoting someone else, but it really um it's so beautiful and it makes me think of you.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I wanted to read it as a way of thanking you.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the quote is this it's beautiful when your heart is the temple where people can take refuge.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember saying that, but there's a lot of podcast episodes or or who I was referencing, so I I'm sorry I can't give the source.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: But could you say one more time?
• 1:20:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's this is how I think of you, though.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's beautiful when your heart is the temple where people can take refuge.
• 1:20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's such a such a nice energy to aspire to.
• 1:20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, I I fall short of that all the time.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I still get overpowered by frustration and anger and say things to people that I don't mean, and and then I come back to this idea that you know peace is peace is inner peace is accessible, and our heart is a temple, and when we tend to that temple and we radiate that peace, people feel that and know that they can come to you and find sanctuary in your energy because you're not gonna judge them, you're not gonna provoke them, you're not gonna try to draw out the worst in them.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: And even when I make mistakes, I still I'm still erring or trying to err on the side that that I was just caring in the wrong way.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I I find like I'm I am maturing on that level.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like I still say things and do things that are hurtful to people, but I'm getting better at improving my intentions and trying to build that energy overall, even though it's it's a work in progress.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for having me.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing that.
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for coming on.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_02: I people are gonna really enjoy discovering all the things that you have to offer.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_02: We'll put your notes, you know, down below, and people can get in touch with you.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I look forward to your book coming out because when you read the chapters, I was like, oh my gosh, but just like the chapter heads moved me so much.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, so I can't.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate that.
• 1:22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for your book too.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:22:35
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 1:22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I wish you all the best with the book and everything you're doing is beautiful, and uh and I'm proud of you, I'm proud to be your friend and thankful for our connection and this opportunity to share time together.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Me too.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.