Latest / Being Different Together / #32 - How to Turn Emotional Wounds into Insight: Lessons from Tibetan Buddhism

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#32 - How to Turn Emotional Wounds into Insight: Lessons from Tibetan Buddhism · Being Different Together

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, we welcome them.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: This isn't about being right.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's about being different.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Together.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_04: Hello, hello everyone.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome back to episode number 31.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: Wait, 32.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: 32.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: Of being different.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: Together.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: Someday I'll get the uh I'll get the numbers straight.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: It's 32.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and here we are.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yep, on a beautiful Thursday morning with the dog barking.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_04: In the background.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, here we are.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: We have a really um we have story time today.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's story time, yeah!
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: On BTD.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: On BTD.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what it would be?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: It would be D B D T.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: BDD.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_04: BDT.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: BDT.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Storytime.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_04: Story time.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um, even though it's very early in the morning, I'm going to tell an extremely disturbing story.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: Well, hopefully you're listening to this after you've done what you need to do for the day.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's a great story from the Tibetan Buddhist uh I mean it's not any more disturbing than any other myths.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_04: I mean because there's some some pretty crazy myths.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean I think look at it it's a story that will sort of I think for me it changed the way that I thought about a lot of things.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Compassion for one.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Uh healing for another.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: A vision for another vision.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of things.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so I think it's important with these stories that that they're not it's not a maybe you can help with this part.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: What's the difference between a parable and a myth?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like parable kind of tells you what to do.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_04: It's yeah, it's like a teaching, a teaching tool.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas a myth and mythology, I mean they're really complex psychologically, right?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot in a myth.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_04: I think you just you just did it.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_04: I wouldn't I don't know if I could have pulled up that.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: The complex the complex mythology of the Yeah, so within the story that I'm gonna tell it, there's a lot of different psychological symbolism.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um it's it's it's like definitely not a story to be taken literally.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh similar to the Grimm's fairy tales and exactly.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: Uh well it's definitely one that I had never heard before.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_04: So I do imagine our listeners, this ain't no um this ain't no This ain't no disco.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: This ain't no pulling around.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: This ain't no party.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: This ain't no disco.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: This ain't no winnerboard story.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's it's it's it's not any different in my head that I loved you.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_04: The fact that you just busted out some talking heads reference.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um if we weren't married, I would ask you to marry me.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_04: Oh man.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: And I would say yes.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_04: Can we just can we just share with the listeners that one time that we we had um we did a trip to go see some of my family in Virginia and we had to fly in and out of DC and we decided that we would spend a night in DC since we got to fly in and out of DC.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_04: And we just have we just have one night.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_04: So like we leave, we leave my aunt's house, we go to DC.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_04: There's a hotel we check in, and then we just go walk around.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: And we're like, we're just gonna figure it out.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: We have no plan.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_04: And we walk around and walk around and we stay in the Mayflower.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_03: Which is a really we stayed in the Mayflower.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Which is just I don't know.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I have a soft spot for that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: The location and also for the hotels.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_04: It was a really beautiful hotel.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's cool.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_04: Just a couple blocks from there, I feel like there was a place called the Hamilton.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_04: Which, you know, we were like, oh, obviously that's where we're going for dinner, which was also a super cool, nice restaurant.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_04: And then while we're there at the Hamilton, now we've walked all around, we went to the Museum of Art, we saw big buildings that our forefathers made, or whatever.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_04: Or whatever.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_04: You can see how pictures I am.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_04: And um, yeah, we end up at this restaurant, we're waiting, we're waiting for a table, and um, we realized that there's a basement, and that night there was a show.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_04: And the show was called was it called, was was the show called Stop Making Sense?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_04: Or some something like that.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_04: It was a talking heads cover band.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_04: And we had dinner, and then we went down to this basement and we saw the best talking heads cover band.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: They were really good.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_04: And like And we had ice cream.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_04: And we had ice cream.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yep.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's right.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_04: They had a little like ice cream.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, they had a bar in there, but you know, we I we didn't want to drink, so we had ice cream because they had a dessert service from upstairs.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: Dessert service, yes.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, it was so much.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, this is this has made my DC trip right here.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_04: That was fun.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_04: So it was a potty.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: It was a disc.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: There was fooling around.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so uh take us, take us back to um wherever it is that we're going.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna tell the story.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Kelly's steering the ship right now.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell the story.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um just as a little bit of context, I think it's somewhere in this, somewhere between the sixth and eighth century is when is when Buddhism really makes its way very strongly into Tibet.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um prior to that it had been in in Indi more so in India, and it starts making its way into Tibet, and when that's happening, um, the indigenous religion is already being practiced there, which is heavily influenced by shamanism and also by a tradition called Bon, B-O-N, which is a meditative and tantric t tradition.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's very similar to the tantric yoga that you see practice in other parts of the Himalayas.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that whole Himalayan do you like that I said Himalaya?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, I I totally was like, wait, shall I Himalaya saying it right?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I just I just turned into a little bit of a like an N N PR commentator.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, is it Iran or Iran?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Iran.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um Himalayas Himalayas.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that whole region, it the the the traditions are very similar.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like those yogis were meditating in the same caves.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: What yog what yogis?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well the yogis that were in India and then and then if you cross over the yogis that were then in Nepal and and Tibet because of the way that the mountain range r runs there, the way that the Himalayas.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and like I now I'm just sort of curious as to like when when did when do we draw the line.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: Just side note, like I recently learned that Italy as a country, like the borders of Italy is relatively new.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean I don't know that part of the the part of the geography history.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean I'm not familiar with it.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I would have I didn't pull it up.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't research it prior to the episode prior to the episode.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just giving sort of like a broad idea that that Buddhism wasn't always in Tibet.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it came it traveled there and then it laid on top of what was already happening there, which was its own religion and its own contemplative tradition and etc.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was some there was actually some warring that went on.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: There, you know, the the the people who were in power didn't want Buddhism necessarily to come.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: There were some people who wanted Buddhism to come.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Those, you know, it there was some strife in Tibet.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, then Tibet adopts Buddhism and becomes sort of like the seat, really, I would say, one of the seats of um really, really deep Buddhist inquiry during this period of time.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and Tibet ends up like developing its own sort of flavor.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Correct mixed with the Bond tradition.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, correct.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's um And that's Tibetan Buddhism.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a highly complex uh you know, there are thousands of of commentaries and sutras and uh it's and tantras, it's it's Vajrayana Buddhism is like more than you could even wrap your mind around.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: And that is Vajrayana is the same as Tibetan Buddhism.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And you could you could st I mean people study it for twenty-four years.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: They go to school, you know, you know when you go to monk school and you become what's called a geshe, it takes twenty-four years.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_04: Wow.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like being at Harvard.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh they talk about this school called Nalanda.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_04: Where Nalanda, yeah.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: All right, so that was in India, and then this translates over into other sorts of Tibetan schools.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the cultural framework.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And her name is Queen Ramatti, and she is married to one of the cruel kings in one of the twenty-four kingdoms in Tibet.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh she's married to the cruel king of Lanka.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, Lanka.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: And uh Lanka makes an appearance.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: Well Lanka makes an appearance of Ramayana, the story of Rama.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, really?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well well, Lanka is the name of the island that Ravana um abducts Sita to.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, interesting.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if it's the same or not.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, I don't know if they're related because one's a landmass and one's a person.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_04: Real or fiction.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, oh, I see what you mean.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So she marries this king, and she, I mean, I think this is relatable.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: When I tell this story, it's relatable to most people.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: She's gonna change him.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's the cruel king of Lanka, and he's killing innocent people, and he's killing Buddhists.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's genocidal.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And this is in the history.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So she she vows to transform him, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because she's a Buddhist practitioner.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: She thinks that with her own practice and the power of her practice, she can transform him into a compassionate ruler.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean tale as old as time.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Very relatable.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Tale as old as time.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and she spends years trying, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: Years and years trying.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing works.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: No matter what she does, it doesn't work.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um instead, in fact, he becomes even more tyrannical.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's persecuting Buddhists, he's murdering innocent people.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they have a son together, and the son is being raised to continue and even worsen that legacy.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, like when I kind of imagine the story I'm giving Joffrey for.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just was thinking the same thing.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: It is giving Joffrey.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's um it's the same kind of idea.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: I th I thought exactly the same thing.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's so weird.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's so weird.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So she's now faced with an impossible choice, right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, she's faced with an impossible choice.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what even is her choice?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I don't we can ask that question after I'm finished.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are lots of choice points.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's a good question.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: What she concludes is that preserving the dynasty would create more suffering.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so she kills her son.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh trigger warning.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I should have said trigger warning first.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you didn't say it wasn't.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um so she kills her son and and then she flays his body and she turns the skin of her son into a saddle, which she uh puts on a mule and she escapes the kingdom.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as she's escaping, she's pursued by her enraged uh husband.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um he's got an army, and in this army, of course, there are sorcerers who can do things.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so he has poison arrows and he lets fly a quill of of poison arrows.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: All myths have a poison arrow, right?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like what is it with the poison arrow?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Poison arrow, poison apple.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so the poison arrow uh eight of eight of the arrows miss her because as the story goes, sh because of her practice, she's guarded.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's produced such a great deal of prana or shakti that you know she's she's guarded.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: But what does happen is that one of those poison arrows lands directly in the left haunch, like in the hind quarter of the mule.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So she gets down off the horse and she utters this prayer.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the prayer is make this wound an eye that can guard all of the Twenty Four Kingdoms.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you see her iconography, she's very wrathful looking, right?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: They they depict her kind of like if you're familiar with what Kali looks like, dark skin, wild eyes, tongue sticking out.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, she's wrath, she's a wrathful face.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: But uh it's a it's a really interesting commentary on um compassion, really, because it's very ra it's it's very intense, you know, what she what she did.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then the story people uh she's trying to create ruining in the kingdom.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So the story gets even better from there because I don't think I told you this last time.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember anything else.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it gets even better from there.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'm listening for the first time too.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because then she goes on to die.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And when she dies, she has to go to hell because she's killed her son.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, dang it.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: When she's in hell repetition.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: When she descends into hell, she actually fights her way back out.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when she does that, she's carrying away out of hell a bag of diseases so they can't be released on humanity.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like no matter where she goes, she's just doing stuff for humanity.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: She goes down to hell and she's like, These diseases are a real bummer.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna fight my way out of here and save humanity from them, even at her at her own peril, right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um so she she is now alone and exhausted, and she's wandering through a charnel ground.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what a charnel ground is?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's where they burn the bodies or where they leave bodies open for um she goes into a charnel ground, the very sacred places actually in Tibetan Buddhism, uh, and she's praying for direction.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at which point the Buddha appears.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, not to condemn her, but to ask her to become a protector of the Dharma.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: So she accepts and becomes Paul Dunamo, who is um Tibet Tibet has five protectors, and she is the fierce female protector.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh listeners, uh, we'll link an an her image in the show notes so that you can see it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, we'll we'll put a link because l just uh looking at her image is very evocative, I find.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, her terrifying uh appearance really isn't meant to represent evil.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: It it it symbolizes like an uncompromising compassion that destroys what causes suffering uh rather than comforting it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, that's the story of uh Pauldon Lamo.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, alright.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So it leads me to a lot of questions.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's kind of like um if you take the story literally, you would hate it, right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if you take it more psychologically, it it could change the way you think about a lot of things, I think.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: It could change the way you think about compassion.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: Well, how has it changed uh what the way you've been thinking the past couple days that you've been working with this story?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh I mean, I think the first place where I dive in has to do.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's just so many jumping off places.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I wanna say I'm gonna float it back to you.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've spent a lot of time talking here.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I told the story.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I want to give it back to you.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: I want to give the ball back to you.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel ready to jump in at that level.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: Why don't you go ahead and Okay, so I mean, this whole thing about I mean, one of the symbols that really stands out to me is the wound on the on the horse's butt, basically.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_04: Um and her prayer to let the wound become an eye.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_04: Let this wound become an eye.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_04: To protect.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and the idea that it's on its back, its back side, um, which for me is like a symbol of looking back into the past.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_04: So, I mean, you know what?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna go back to Murray and say it is useful to view the past in a friendly way.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's brilliant.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I mean, I think that that I think that that is pointing to this same sort of message.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, even if we just think about so this idea of protection, like is it is it more protective for myself to view the past in a friendly way?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_04: You know, maybe yes, maybe no.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I definitely want to learn lessons from the mistakes that I make in the past or the wounds that I've received.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I don't think that it is in my greater good or the greater good for other people to let's say somebody hurt me for me to continue to curse them.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_04: So if I view the past in a friendly way, if I let my wound become an I, like somebody hurt me in the past, or I hurt myself or whatever.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_04: You know, there was pain, there was pain, there was suffering.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_04: You got hurt.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um if that wound becomes an I, it you know, through that hindsight as 2020, through what I'm learning through hindsight as twenty twenty, can I also be able to see more clearly what's coming at me?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought of hindsight as being the hind of the animal.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Until I have been thinking about this story, that idea of hindsight.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought about that, the origin of that word and what it means.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_04: Hindsight.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_04: Hindsight.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it it it almost sounds like it could come from the story.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_04: You know, hind hindsight.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean hindsight is just looking behind you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_04: Looking behind you.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, looking behind you.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_04: So letting this letting this wound become uh become an eye.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_04: Besides all of the things of like I don't know, it kind of reminds me also of what I really enjoy from my own studies in Eastern philosophy.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_04: And maybe there is a correlation of this in Western philosophy, I just can't recall it.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_04: But the idea of context that it's all that that morality is contextual.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: Say more.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: Okay, so like she killed her son.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: On the outset.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and I think I've talked about it on this podcast, but again, a lot of my own studies go back to the the story of the Bhagavad Gita, where one of the major overarching lessons in that is um, yes, these are your cousins.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, these are your family members.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: So in the Bhagavad Gita, this guy, Arjuna, is a warrior.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_04: He's of the warrior caste class.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_04: So his duty, he's morally obligated to fight.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_04: Now he is in a war between with his cousins.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_04: It's like his dad and somebody else's dad, his dad's his uncle, they're all fighting over the kingdom.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_04: So he's essentially fighting over his family members.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you're not supposed to kill your family members.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but but in this context, he actually should.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: And so, and that that's uh my studies of the Ramayana, the Ramayana, um, the story of Rama and Rama being sent there that's a lot that's that's like the Ramayana is like a a um Odyssey.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_04: It's like an epic.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_04: So there's all c there's there's there's There's not really a premise for Mita besides like Rama goes to the woods and then his wife gets abducted and then he has to go steal her from the demon god.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: But again, in all of that, it's all of context, context, context.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like his wife.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: So Rama gets um exiled to the forest, and his wife Sita is basically like, Well, I'm going with you.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: And he's like, uh no, you're not.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you're gonna stay here.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: That's what's proper.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_04: And she's like, no, I'm not.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_04: I'm your wife.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_04: I need to be with you.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: And so it's like what context rules out.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_04: So right.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that too.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that more so being raised in the West, I I think that I I was kind of I kind of always had just divided people into nice people or mean people.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, right.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, good and bad, like that kind of thing.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like Buddhism asks uh a fundamentally sort of a different question, which is you know, what actually does reduce suffering?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um sometimes sometimes it is giving somebody a hug, sometimes it is uh saying, I hey, I love you, I'm here for you.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it it is also saying no.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hey kid, you're fucking up.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's about boundaries, right?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right, totally.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, the the imagery of her not only killing the son, but then taking his skin and riding away on it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's very powerful to me because I imagine her if she is, you know, I like to just sit with these images like when I'm in meditation or whatever, just put him in and let him cook, like sit with it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just sit with the image of riding a mule with your son's skin as the saddle.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: That and you murdered him, and he's your son, and you, you know, you were trying to save his father all this time, and you participated in this kingdom.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you went in with your eyes open to a degree.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, and so I I'm thinking about, you know, kind of like her how she folded that suffering into herself.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't give it to anybody else.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_04: Like she didn't have somebody else kill her son.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_04: No, and so that she would have to suffer less.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't leave it behind.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't just like run out of the kingdom not thinking about her son.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: She literally keeps him close to her.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: And she keeps him close to the part of her where he came out, if you think about it.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the symbol is very for me, it's very potent.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, also it's like she's riding on him, literally.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's like she's riding away on this transformation that she's made.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that that transformation, um you know, it's a it's a really gruesome and difficult image to sit with.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I find it really you know, because I as a mom, like I think about what would it what would how what you know what would it take for you?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what would it take?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um i you know, with a grown child.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_04: Well also it isn't a saddle essentially meant for like protection, like it's something between it's it's something to sort of keep down the rubbing of your skin on the skin of the mule.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_04: And so in some ways her son is protecting her.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_04: That's true.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_04: And she's taking a piece of him with her.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't leave him behind.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: And not only does she not leave him behind, when the horse is wounded, th her vow remains that it's like it's like through the wound when the mule is sorry, is I just think it's interesting that it's a mule too, it's not a horse.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it a mule?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, she didn't want to give herself the greatest chance.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think of a mule as more of a beast of burden than a horse.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now I I Yeah, true.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_04: You know, I just don't think of them as incredibly fast.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: But they are incredibly strong.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they are incredibly strong.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think a mule is a combination is a cross between a horse and a donkey, right?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is a mule.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_04: And a mule, I don't know if there's this symbolism.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, mules, I think, are infertile.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think you're right.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think I remember that that's accurate.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't know if that's part of the symbolism.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, you know, sort of that I think there was that movie.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_04: I never saw it, but about like domestic violence or whatever, like this ends with us.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_04: So maybe that's part of that that symbolism too.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_04: Or maybe they just had mules.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_04: I yeah, yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I don't I don't know maybe a mule is just a mule.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm guessing it's not inten it, it was intentional.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think that that like sort of like refuse, she could have instead tried to I mean, like, I think about how could the story have gone differently?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: She could have continued to to not learn from her experience.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she could have continued in vain to change the cruel king.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then she could have continued in vain to change the son.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: And how often is that story played out?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my god.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not advocating playing.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a I'm not advocating and then riding away with them.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not advocating it, but I think symbolically it's really interesting.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, because it's not it's not a s it's a story that is about families, but it's also it's really a story that's about, I think, compassion also.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_04: This kind of really, really fierce and also like even in hell, yeah, she's going, okay, well, how can I use this to my advantage to make things better for other people?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: Even while in hell.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Even while in hell, she's still wanting to benefit other beings.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:57
  unknown: Yeah.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean admirable.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, i I I agree.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I think sometimes it is really loving to say to somebody in a way that, you know, it doesn't have to be harsh, but it's like, I love you enough to let you experience reality.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like I love you enough to tell you what I think is true.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I love you enough to say no.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love myself enough.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh yeah.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, if we take if I take like kind of like that view, but it's but it's also like some it's it if we look at it from a Jungian lens, I was thinking about um it that you know, uh this old idea that the feminine is only nurturing and our our ideas about femininity and um you know the the feminine part of ourselves, you know, like we might think, okay, well I'm working on my healthy femininity.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that might mean what, wearing long skirts and I I don't know, you know.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: Sharing a laugh.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever my healthy femininity is, but I mean healthy femininity really could be quite fierce.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like this idea that girls are only sugar and spice and everything nice.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's what little girls are made of.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's so flat.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's such a flat representation of a human woman.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I really like that about that.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: She's a female, you know, she's a a woman and a role model in Tibet and a guardian of the whole country.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, she's she's not just floating around in the sky, you know, offering flowers.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_04: Well, and you know, it kind of thinks she makes me think about like again in like of if we think of like W The Wizard of Oz and Glenda.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_04: Glenda the Good Witch.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_04: And what do they and then the the Wicked Witch.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the badass.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_04: And that we split we split femininity into Glenda the Good Witch and and then I well, I never saw the movie Wicked, but I did see the play.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that that does a good job, that retelling of Wicked, of showing that there are there that even within those dualistic characters, they have both light and dark sides.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_04: You know, that I think that we we miss this a lot in um you know Western.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: I think we're getting better at showing a full woman, a full the full feminine.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um but I think historically, especially in the West, we have split.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_04: You know, there's the the the virgin and the whore.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_04: And the story is a a great telling of um a whole person.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, for sure.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and I think it's it's really interesting that you brought up um the Wizard of Oz, because I was just talking with someone about this yesterday.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how when a woman in our culture ho is held, has power, and maybe has power that's on the fringe in some way that's different.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe she's an intuitive, she's a mystic.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sh those women in our cultures were called witches, and they've been systematically eradicated by modernity, right?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's there's no room for that, for that kind of unpredictability in our industrial in our tech industrial world, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like everything, you know, there's there's there's no room.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, unless it's a boardroom of a bunch of men and they're bringing in disruption.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that kind of wildness.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it's different.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I think what I'm talking about is different.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's I think it's I you know, I think women, particularly powerful women in our culture, you know, it's like if a woman is powerful, she might if a woman says something powerfully, she might be called what, a bitch or a witch or aggressive, whereas a man is more likely to be called confident, confident, a go-getter.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: He really knows what he wants.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think, you know, and then this idea of you well, you're either a good witch or a bad witch.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it does come out.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the Wizard of Oz really it shows it.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Dorothy lands and the munchkins say to her, Are you Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: They assume she's a witch because she got thrown there.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: They see her flying in a house.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they make an assumption that she has some sort of you know power over the elements, right?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, which is what a witch can do.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: A witch wick wick means to bend.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the word comes from.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, the the witch can bend nature, change nature, right?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: Has that control over the elements or can work with the elements in a different kind of way.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: And Dorothy says, Why I'm not a witch at all.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: You remember that?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's so powerful because what she's saying is, I'm not I'm just a human.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm not a witch at all.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm I'm in between that.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's like she's starting to integrate her shadow right there, you know.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: She's she's she's figuring it out.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um it's it's it's really powerful.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other thing that really strikes me about it, uh the story, if we just want to change the change the the channel a little bit.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think about the the the commentary that it's making about the vision?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: Your vision.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: The wound becoming an eye and how that affects your vision as a person.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like the wounds that you've had could become eyes.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_04: Let this wound become an eye, and that that would affect I mean, you know, I just sort of think about like maybe the fur let's say my first heartbreak probably came after wearing my heart on my sleeve.
• 34:25
  unknown: Yeah.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_04: Because I just didn't know.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, ah, oh relationship and and sound effects.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um and then after that, uh letting those wounds I mean, again, I just think about in in relationship with other people or in falling in love or out of love or whatever, like letting letting myself learn, you know, be able to see things that I was not able to see before in people.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's really where where my mind goes with that, letting letting wounds become eyes.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_04: Like it's sort of uh burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me, sort of a thing.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_04: Like I should have known.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or that like you can look back on your past and learn, you can learn from what happened.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that she talks about that, I mean, she makes this prayer that the eye would then look be a guard for all of the 24 kingdoms.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And if you think about the suffering that was involved in what made that wound, and then why that wound would become a guard over the kingdom, it's really interesting to think about that transformation.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's very alchemical, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like the the the wood the arrow is coming from the king's murderous rage at her.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: He's he he's like, You kill, you kill this pro, I'll kill you back.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's constantly killing you back.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this guy, he's the kill you back guy.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and um, you know what I mean?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm gonna you kill you kill I'll kill you back.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, you know, there that's what's going on in that kingdom, right?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of killing and back killing and back and forth.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, so that energy is what makes that wound.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: She's saying, I'm I'm transforming this, I'm gonna stop it.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: This stops here.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you said, I'm not gonna let this continue.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take your son.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right, she's not killing you back.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: She's not gonna kill you back.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that friction that creates the wound in the mule.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's that friction where she does not meet his murderous rage.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_04: Well, she doesn't pray over the wound and go, make this wound become a sword through which I could slay your ass.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly it, miss.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's exactly it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Or she doesn't it she doesn't turn it into a piece of armor, she doesn't turn it into a weapon.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you think of it like Dungeons and Dragons, I mean she could transfic transfigure it in into anything.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: She's in she's like got all of these powers.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's like actually let me turn this into something that would allow protection for myself and other people.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_04: And other people without harming.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I isn't gonna harm.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, see, I love it that you said for other people.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think there's something now.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I mean, I I'm not making the case that it's okay to be wounded.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to whitewash trauma.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying, you know, I I I please don't misunderstand me here.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of easier ways to learn this kind of compassion.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've been through some difficult things in my life.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've survived cancer and loss of a spouse and loss of a parent and moving and divorce and ex I you know, I've gone through a lot.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't recommend any of it.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I recommend none of those courses.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Please don't, you know.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: But my experience directly is that what has taught me more than anything have been those experiences.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: Particularly in regards to my abilities to be compassionate for other people's suffering.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I started to reflect after hearing this story early this week, and I had heard it many years ago, and but then I heard it again, and it was like, wow, it just woke up a a lot of reflecting in me this week, which was like I started thinking about all the wounds that I've had.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: And like if you just reflect for a minute, not just on that first wound, but think about your the wounds that you've had, and then think about placing an eye on the part of your body, literally on the part of your body where you imagine that wound lives.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I sat in meditation this week and I thought about doing that intentionally.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I just thought about well, what about this one?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I just started reflecting.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: I started looking back.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: What about this wound?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: What about that one?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Not not as a way to spiral down the drain in self-pity or anything.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's useful, by the way, of doing trauma work.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I I really don't think at all that's useful.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it it was more just like, you know, taking stock of it, taking a look at it.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then I thought, what a cool shamanistic idea to to imagine that eye.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like if my heart was broken, what would it be like to imagine myself with an all-seeing eye in the middle of my chest?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_04: Totally.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: In the iconography in Tibet, you all you often see eyes in the middle of people's foreheads, and it's like this represents the the vision, the third eye, right?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: It represents this more supernatural kind of vision.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: But often people will have eyes in their hands.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: They have eyes in the palm of the hands.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, uh, Avaluki Teshvara has a hundred arms, and there's an there's an there's an eye in in every hand.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: She got a hundred arms, and so the idea is that all of those eyes can see everywhere.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: And they can, you know, so those eyes be become clarity that is informed with the boundary because it's because the compassion is not just this idiot compassion, it's not just this, well, this person is going through something hard, so just let them do it.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of thing.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you know what I'm saying?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's compassion that's really grounded in a sense of ethics.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, and clarity, right that image of like my body covered in eyes, I've had it all week.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because when I really started thinking about it, I thought, oh my god, I mean, how many times have I had a boo-boo?
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: I've had so many boo-boos.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_04: And we so have we all.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, totally.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_04: Well, now I'm thinking of like, you know, the limitations of our own vision ph physiologically are the fact that we have these two eyes and they're in the front of our heads as opposed to other animals like a horse or whatever that can kind of see at almost 360 degrees.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_04: And so, you know, what happens and you know, actually now that I'm thinking about it, those an the animals that I can think of that have the ability to see more directions.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I guess they could be predators or they could be prey, but I feel like they're more often prey animals.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_04: They have to be able to see out for themselves.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_04: And so I don't know, like if we were able to see more on all sides.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_04: Also, metaphorically, being able to see on all sides, at least for me, um, is what helps my compassion.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_04: Because I can I c have a way of being able to sort of step into somebody else's shoes and see things through their own eyes, and I can do that more.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_04: You know, if I'm less fixated on my two eyes that are seeing the things that are, you know, in front of me, then I can expand that vision outwardly.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_04: And and I don't know, it with the idea of like, you know, prey animals are able to do that to protect themselves.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know, it's sort of like it goes hand in hand with protection and compassion.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_04: The ability to see more.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: To see more.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: And also guardianship.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's a guardian of Tibet.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think this idea of guardianship, like we've kind of we've really we've l I think we've lost it in modernity to a degree.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_04: Tell me what you mean by guardian.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it used to be that everybody had their own personal, like in for example, in India, people have their own personal deity.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Each family has their own deity.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not not only the family has a deity, not not only do they have this pantheon of you know, gods and goddesses that that that are minor and major, there are these minor goddesses that just like look over the house.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Greeks used to, when they when they cleaned the hearth at Hestia was the goddess of the hearth.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so there were rituals around the house, around the house being guarded.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, when you go places and there are gargoyles and there are fantastical figures outside, I mean it's like, you know, you you go to the I mean, gargoyle is a great example.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've often thought about, you know, like Mahakala is the guard is one of the guard another one of the guardians is the guardian of Avaluki Teshvada, is the he's a fierce form.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh or they.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um Mahakala looks a lot like um our dog.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know when you look at images of the Mahakala.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, these are little protectors.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_01: He's our like little he's he's like a little gremlin, or he's you know, he he he's a he's really a guardian.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: But this idea of like having our own guardians, do you you know, do you go are you are you guarding yourself with these eyes?
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: Are you seeing what could come are you and are you learning from the past?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think that thing about learning from your ancestors.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if we really learned from our ancestors, Nissa, would there be war?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: As long as we all learned.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if we were really learning from our ancestors, it's like I w if we were really looking behind us and learning from the people that came before us, you know, would we continue to do some of the things that we're doing?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: In modernity, I I really don't think we would be.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're moving forward at such a anxious pace.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_04: Well, like we think our culture is very forward focused.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we don't look anymore.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like what's coming next?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_04: And how can we be the best at it?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Ancestors to manchesters.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean there's like there's just such a big argument in our country about, like, for example, reparations for slavery.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: And people who are against it will say, well, that wasn't me.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, it was.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you're certainly benefiting from uh Right.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: But but the idea that your ancestor is not you is fundamentally wrong.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's just wrong.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: You are your ancestor, and your ancestor is you.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: You are a continuation of your ancestor.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can it's you can't dissect yourself in that kind of way.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't think you can.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's it's just a loss of anything that isn't sacred to to disavow your ancestors.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Those that wasn't me.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're responsible.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you might it's it's kind of like, you know, I've said before, well, you might you might not be responsible for it, but you're responsible to it.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: Be responsible to it.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um Yeah, I mean, I've really been thinking about all of this deep stuff this week.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's good stuff.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's good stuff.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: So then it's kind of like um, you know, just for the listener, if you want to think about, you know, what wounds do you have that are becoming eyes.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: What are you working with and what what would it be like uh to work with that imagery is to play with it.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's another intentionality, you know, it's another way of showing up for the difficulties that we're just naturally gonna experience in life.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, not all of us are gonna be married to an evil king.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: But some of you right now, but also like some of you right now are.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or queen.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, it it yeah.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_04: That you might be thinking that you're gonna change.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_04: And so then I don't know, I guess my my takeaway from um what's this person's name?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_04: What's this Pauldon Lamo.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: Pauld and Lamo.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_04: My takeaway from Paul Denlamo is also like, okay, how can I reduce my suffering in a way that also reduces the suffering of others?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: By by using what I'm learning through my wound eyes.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and like what if your wounds helped you to see more clearly?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of less.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what what if instead of saying, well, I can't do this because of my PSD, PTSD, and this is my this and this is my that.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a very different way of um, I just think it's a really beautiful way of approaching healing.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_04: Totally.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_04: Totally.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_04: Totally.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, to make it like very basic with what I work with people on on the regular, it's like um, I'm I'm working with my own Achilles tendonitis right now.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_04: And um just when we're getting ready to go see the Odyssey.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_04: And so um, yeah, I'm I'm looking at my days differently because I got this thing that I'm working with.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_04: You know, and then it makes me want to talk to everybody else about their foot health.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_04: I mean You love talking about feet.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_04: I do.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I do.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_04: Well, you know.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe we'll do a podcast episode on feet.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's maybe that'll be next week.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: What if your feet had eyes?
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: What if your feet had eyes?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's really powerful.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yeah.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you all for listening.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: For being on this journey with us this time and every time, sitting with us.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's a kitchen table with our furries who uh were pretty good today.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_04: They were pretty good today.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_04: Jackie's sitting here laying down with the teeth showing, because that's the wounds he's looking out at.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_04: Hello, Jack Jack.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_04: And we will see you all next week.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_04: Something different.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_04: Together.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_03: Shall we do this?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, why not?
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_03: And what do we have to lose?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_04: Um uh I'm uh I'm following you.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm following you.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're the producer.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you're the star.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm the star, why does it smell like cat poop in here?