Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 291: Roshi Joan Halifax

Episode Date: June 24, 2018

Roshi Joan Halifax is an abbot at the Upaya Zen Center is Santa Fe.  She's also a peace worker, an activist, an author, and a personal inspiration.  Her book "Standing At The Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear And Courage Meet" is an exploration of the way that states like altruism, empathy, integrity, respect, and engagement can actually transform into violence and selfishness if we aren't careful and precise.

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with one of the coolest human beings I've ever met on planet Earth, Roshi Joan Halifax, just skip ahead 15 minutes. Alert, alert. Greetings to you, beautiful friends. It is I, Dee Trussell, and you have tuned in to the cosmic pulsation of Sonic Glory,

that is the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast. If this is your first time listening, I am a trained actor. I went to the Rosen Glonder School of Method Acting. For example, it might seem like I'm stammering right now, but that's acting, or you might hear that it sounds like I have a cold a little bit, but I don't.

I'm just acting like I have a cold, because I have incredibly refined. Acting hours. I don't mean to brag, new listener, but you should know that every single thing that you're hearing me say right now has been written by Farness Chint. Damn it.

How about that? Pure acting. That's right. This wasn't actually written by Farness Chint. There was no actual burp that just happened. It might seem like I tried to make up some fake name of a playwright or something, and then burped,

but that didn't happen. I acted that out. I'm just acting. Also, you should know, new listener, that my name is not actually Duncan Trussell. My real name is Louisa Dell. I know what you're thinking. I've actually met you in person,

and you're not a French woman. You're a dude with a beard. And my only response to that would be, acting hours. In fact, my acting skills are so powerful that not only can I perfectly play the part of a neurotic semi-spiritual podcaster with a voice that sounds like

he's a chain-smoking lesbian trucker, but I can also do a dead-on Maya Angelo impression. Check this out. You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom? Just because I walk as if I have oil wells pumping in my living room, just like suns unlike moons with the certainty of tides, just like hope springing high, still I rise. Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes, shoulders falling down like teardrops, weakened by my soulful cries. Does my sassiness upset you? Don't take it so hard just because I laugh. As if I have gold mines digging in my own backyard. You can shoot me with your words, you can cut me with your lies,

you can kill me with your hatefulness, but just like life, I'll rise. Does my sassiness offend you? Oh, does it come as a surprise that I dance as if I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs. Out of the huts of history's shame, I rise. Up from a past rooted in pain, I rise. A black ocean leaping and wide,

welling and swelling, I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak miraculously clear, I rise. Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave. I am the hope and the dream of the slave. And so naturally, there I go rising. Pretty good impression, huh?

I know what you're thinking. You're not an actor, you're just a deceptive French girl wearing the mask of a balding podcaster. Just cause I'm wearing prosthetics doesn't mean that I'm somehow more deceptive than you are cause you have actual skin on your face. Yeah, I come home and peel off the aging bearded mask of a podcaster and look in the mirror

and see a beautiful French girl with flowing golden locks. But guess what? That's a mask too. Yep, when I take that mask off underneath it, there's a reptile head. And when I take that off, it's a mitochondrial DNA spiral. When I take that off, it's a bunch of atoms.

When I take that off, it's everything. When I take that off, it's inexpressible. And every morning, I gotta wake up at 4 a.m. and put on an inexpressible mask, and then an everything mask, and then a mitochondrial DNA mask, and then a reptilian mask, and then the mask of a French girl,

and then a Duncan Trussell mask. And I'm not complaining, I love to wear this mask, but man, that is a lot of masks. Why didn't I pick a Donald Glover mask? But that's okay, I'm learning to love the mask. You can love your mask. And when I forget that, I listen to Ram Dass. And also, I'm a really good singer,

but I'm acting like I can't sing. If you heard my actual singing voice, you would probably come. Now let's listen to Ram Dass. Constantly judging and equating, am I as good as, am I equal to, am I as good a mother, am I as beautiful a woman, am I as an effect of this, a worker,

whatever it is, whatever dimension. And you get caught in constantly living in a judging realm. And if you start to practice seeing people as trees, I don't mean in the sense of just appreciating what they are, including yourself. It's just starting to appreciate yourself. Appreciate your humanity. Like when I get, like I'm supposed to be,

I'm Ram Dass and I've worked on myself and I'm supposed to be equanimous, loving, present, clear, compassionate, accepting. Oftentimes, I get tired, I'm angry, I'm petulant, I'm closed down. Now for a long time, I get into those states and I would feel really embarrassed because that isn't who Ram Dass is supposed to be.

So I would appear like I was warm, charming, equanimous, compassionate, and there was deviousness and deception involved. And then I realized that that's bad business because that cuts us off from each other. And I had to risk my truth. I had to risk being human with other people and realize that what we offer each other is our truth.

And our truth includes all of our stuff. And the first thing I had to do was accept my own truth. I had to allow myself to be a human being. And I think that I was very helped by my spook friend, Emmanuel, who, my disembodied friend who, when I said to him, Emmanuel, what am I doing on earth? He said, why don't you try, you're on earth,

why don't you try taking the curriculum? Why don't you try being human? And I had always assumed the way to God was to deny your humanity and embrace your divinity. And then I realized that the way to truth might be through acknowledging the fullness of where I found myself to be, which was my humanity and my divinity.

And not wallow in it, but acknowledge it. And not reverence it or judge it. Just appreciate it, just allow it, allow my humanity. So I have gotten to the point now where I am what I am much more. And some people like it and some people don't like it. And if they like it, that's their problem. And if they don't like it, that's their problem.

I don't take it all on myself and as much. And well, it's a slow process. It's a slow process. Now, what I found was that as I started to allow myself as I started to allow myself to be human more, just allowed what I am, things changed much faster in me. I mean, things fell away more quickly.

It was as if I was locked into a model which was based on that negativity, that dislike of myself. And once I just allowed that I am human with all the foibles, things started to flow and I could feel change occurring in myself. And then I would start to experience my own beauty. And it frightened me because it was so dissonant

and discrepant from the model that I had cultivated of myself over the years. That I had to do good in order to be beautiful. And the idea that I just am, that what is, when you look at a tree or a rock or a river, it is in its own way beautiful. You look at decay, it is beautiful. I know Laura Huxley, who's a very dear friend,

in her kitchen. She has these jars over the sink and she takes old beet greens and orange peels and things and sticks them in water in these long, beautiful pharmaceutical jars. And then they slowly mold and decay and there are these beautiful decay formations and mold. And it's really garbage.

It's garbage as art. And we look at it and it's absolutely beautiful. There's absolute beauty in that. And I've begun to expand my awareness to be able to look at the universe as it is and see what is called the horrible beauty of it. The horrible beauty of it. It's, I mean, there's horror and beauty in all of it

because there's decay in all of it. I mean, we're all decaying. I mean, I look at my hand and it's decaying. And it's beautiful and horrible at the same moment. And I just live with that. And with that, I start to see the beauty in it. So we're talking about appreciating what is. Not loving yourself as opposed to not liking yourself

but allowing yourself. And as you allow, it changes. That's about, I think that gets behind the polarities. I think that's what's important. Now I'm playing the part of an actor from the South. He's not very good at doing a Southern accent. And the reason I'm doing that is because it's easier for me to act like some ridiculous character

than it is to tell it to you straight. Cause if I tell it to you straight, you end up sounding pious and just, I don't want to be that dude. Not me, not old Earl Clinster, the moonshiner who sucks raccoon dicks. The main thing is this. A good friend of mine told me this

next to the still the other day. It's all God, man, the act, the thing that isn't the act, the fearlessness and even the fear. It's all God, God, what the heck's that I said to him? But he didn't answer because his mouth was full of raccoon dicks. Well, I guess that's about it for me. I'm going to head on back to the Bayou. And well, I don't have to tell you what I'm going to do.

We've got a great podcast for you today. With somebody who isn't putting on the show. Roshi-Joan Halifax is here with us today. I'm going to jump right into it, but first some quick business. This episode of the DTFH has been supported by the super geniuses over at Stamps.com. I don't know how it happened, but at some point somebody thought to themselves,

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Enter in DTFH for a four week trial that includes a digital scale. And now please welcome to the podcast the people who skipped ahead 15 minutes. Okay, okay, that's enough, friends. Okay, thank you, friends. Would you like early access to interviews, music, weird opening, rambling things

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And every month I put out an hour long rambling thing, which I'm too embarrassed to put in the main feed. So it's all there for you. If you wanna support the DTFH, go to patreon.com Ford slash DTFH and subscribe. Without further ado, today's guest is a Buddhist teacher, Zen priest, anthropologist and one of my teachers.

She has changed my life with only a few conversations that I've been lucky enough to have had with her. She's written many great books, including shaman, the wounded healer, the fruitful darkness, a journey through Buddhist practice and tribal wisdom and most recently standing at the edge, finding freedom where fear and courage meet. This book is an essential book.

If you are human and you have the desire to help or if you're someone who's been helping and you're getting tired. Also, if you're someone who lives in Santa Fe or you feel like diving deep into the world of Buddhism and Zen, Roshi Joan has a Zen center out there called Upaya. They've got a really cool program coming up

on July 6th called Poetry of Awakening. And that is with Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and Stanford scholar Linda Hess. All the links you need to find Roshi Joan and Upaya will be at DuncanTrussell.com. Now everyone please welcome to the DTFH, Roshi Joan Halifax. Welcome!

Roshi Joan, thank you so much for being on the show. It's such an honor to be in your presence. Thank you for for doing this. Duncan, I'm just so happy to see you again. I think it was a year ago here in this very place. Is that right? Was I here?

I think so. I think it was about a year ago. I remember you and Ragu. We had a lot of fun in the interview. We did, for sure. I love, to me, something that's really fascinating about these Ram Dass retreats is that they book people who seem to have philosophies that, in some ways,

are existential threats to some of the things that Ram Dass and Ragu believe in or talk about. And I love that. I think it's so fascinating to throw the two things together because here we have the soul, Neem Krolibaba, these very mystical things, and yet you are a Zen Roshi. Can you talk a little bit about that mix

and why they do it like that? Well, I don't know. You'll have to ask them why they do it. I mean, why I do it. I sometimes joke. I say, you know, I mean, I've known Ram Dass almost 50 years. We're really close friends.

And also, he's just surprising. He's kind of you thing on us. He's somehow eternal. He has this capacity to just hold everybody wrapped in the space. So part of it is I come here because my love for R.D. And I come here also because it's such a weird scene for me. It's completely opposite from what I do in my other life.

And actually, I have several other lives, but none of them vaguely resembles this one. And it means it's like moving to another planet or being in another culture. But it's not just the difference. I actually feel it's like a heart transplant. There's some kind of psyche that opens up here where people are just kind of melting all over the place.

And I find that kind of healthy. I mean, at least for me, because I have to be very precise in the kind of work that I do in the medical world where I'm teaching clinicians. So precision is really important. As a Zen person, I have to be very precise as well. Here, I can be, you know, very imprecise. And it's not just a matter of coming from the heart.

It really has to do with the power of this community. And I think it's really healthy. I also like a varied diet. So if I weren't, you know, if I were just teaching in medical settings all the time, that would be kind of a mono diet. But, you know, coming here, I feel like, you know, oh, yeah, that part of me, which I can drop into.

I feel it very often. It's sort of underneath. It's like the hum under everything. But here, it's all hum. Yes, it's beautiful. It's so beautiful. And I love them because I think one of the reasons they let me come here and interview them

is because they know I ask them questions that are, I don't know, difficult maybe, or it comes from, it used to be authentic skepticism. I was asking them questions from an authentically skeptical place. And now I feel like I'm having to feign skepticism because I feel so connected and filled with love when I come here.

But, you know, I do, my mind can't help but think things that I, for example, I think like, let's imagine that, I don't know if you've thought this yet, but what would happen if Neem Karoli Baba showed up here in the flesh if he walked into the retreat and suddenly we have an embodied guru,

an apparently awakened being in the midst of a retreat that's been talking about the awakened being and telling stories about the awakened being. What would happen? This is something that's been troubling me a little bit because I keep thinking like, I don't know how many people would stay.

Like, I wonder if people would be offended, if they would leave, if they would feel threatened. Here we have a man who's a conduit for the divine in the flesh, not stories. We can control stories, stories are domesticated, stories are tame. But when, what would happen if some people at a spiritual retreat came into contact

with Neem Karoli Baba? What do you think would happen? I mean, what would you do? Well, my hope is that I would be overwhelmed by the telepathic love frequency. I would hope that my reaction would be the way that I react to my sense of this being in my life already.

Is that it would just be something either identical to that or more than that or less than that. But speaking with Buddhists like David Nicktern, who teach me a great deal about analyzing experiences and things like that, I wonder sometimes if that being that I feel like I've come into contact with is in some ways a delusion. And I don't think there's anything wrong

with thinking about that. But do you ever think about that sometimes when people say they've come into contact with a disembodied love field that has a name, Neem Karoli Baba, that perhaps this is a delusion to try to maintain a sense of security or come up with an easy answer for problems that need deeper exploration?

Well, I think that's one way you can look at it. I think there are many ways to look at it. One of the ways is with that sense of skepticism or disbelief, the other is that what isn't delusion? We're all in a certain way wrapping narratives around our moment-to-moment experience and giving a sense of meaning or purpose or direction. This is how we communicate as human beings to each other.

So what I would do if Neem Karoli Baba showed up in the flesh is I would just do my best to get up close and personal with him. Right. I mean, here's a guy who, he's awake, he's got a family, he has had an effect on many, many people, generations of us indirectly through the experience of others

and he's really helped a lot of people. I mean, he's served, his incarnation served and we are in a certain way, his reincarnations. Right, right. Yes, I feel like that. So it's totally beautiful from my point of view and the pictures of him, R.D. telling the stories, Ramesh, Raghu, Krishna Das, Katie talking,

I always feel like they're evoking the presence of Neem Karoli Baba as a lived experience for all of us. It's transmissional. Yes, I feel that way. I do feel that way. That's a thank you for that answer. I love that. It's beautiful.

My feeling with it as well, if it's a delusion, it's a pretty, it's a fantastic delusion in the sense that it's, the experiences I've had are so impossible. The synchronicities are impossible synchronicities, not what's the word for it, confirmation bias synchronicities but synchronicities that are mind-crushing or mind-blowing or ego-devastating.

Have you ever had any experiences of that nature? Well, I have, but you know, I just think this moment itself is mind-boggling. I mean, if I don't stand outside of it but I am consumed by it, I'm subsumed by it, I allow myself to actually slide into it or to be brought into it. Tick Don Han calls it the miracle of this moment.

This moment is itself a miracle. And I remember Duncan in my far past, I ingested many entheogens and sought altered states of consciousness. And at a certain point, I just, I thought, oh, you know, they're interesting, they're stylish. They certainly have been a door to practice for me. But if I open the doors of perception,

I'm not looking for illusion. I'm actually appreciating what's, I'm experiencing right in this moment. I wanna talk a little bit about what you just said. Stylish, stylish, I love that. There is a sexiness to them, isn't there? There is a, it's like a tail feather you throw up. There's like, because if you go to a group of people

and you're preaching some psychedelic story, it's, it's, people are gonna- Seductive, seductive, like what is this? Wow, amazing. When you listen to Terrence McKenna's stories of DMT and you're, you almost feel like you've smoked DMT. But if you come to people and you say, listen, here's the thing, this present moment, the now,

onto the next one, that's just, you know, what is it about, what is it in us that makes us feel like the present moment is boring compared to the astral plane, the heightened states of consciousness offered to us by psychedelics? Well, first of all, these altered states we enter into and these alternate realities

that appear in the altered states, I don't know from whence they come. In other words, you know, what is their source? Are these planes of consciousness that people enter and that people identify as real, are they real in some sort of way? So I don't wanna exclude those possibilities. It's not any different from my point of view

or from the Buddhist point of view, than for example, falling asleep and entering into the dream or the dream arising within you and the dream body inhabiting you completely. So, you know, when you're in the dream body, mostly you don't know it, you don't have the experience of lucid dreaming. So whether you're in the dream body of this world,

the moment-to-moment world, or the dream body of a dream that arises in the context of sleep, or the dream body that arises under the influence of an entheogen of a sacred plant medicine, the point of view is not to be swept away ultimately, but it is to wake up, it's to get very clear.

And I think part of the clarity is to end the tendencies within our human experience toward harm, and that for me is kind of where the rubber meets the road. If you wanna know what integrity is, it is really about having a life that is dedicated to non-harming and to ending harm. Is this called ahimsa?

I think you can call it ahimsa. One of the ways that we translate ahimsa is non-violence. And non-violence, I think, I wanna recommend that you interview Father John Deere. He is the spokesperson, the sort of living embodiment of non-violence today. He is a total visionary, Jesuit, a Christian,

and he's been in prison in jail more than 75 times. He was very close with the Barrican brothers. And he is Barrican, no. I don't know them. Okay, they're both gone now. But the Barricans were the greatest activists in terms of, and really moving thousands upon thousands of us

into an ethos that was against the war. Okay, got you. Okay, so non-violence, not doing harm, harm reduction. So are you a vegetarian? Do you eat meat? You know, I eat a little meat. I do. Me too.

But not much. You know, I actually, it's interesting. Whether it's a fish or chicken, I don't eat other kinds of meat, but I'm not comfortable eating meat. And there's times when my body feels like it needs, you know, something, a protein that's heavier. Right.

But I don't feel good about it. Well, I want to talk about this because this is something that's been troubling me. And I was talking to a friend of mine as a hunter, and I was telling him, you know, I don't eat pork. I don't eat pigs. And he said to me, have you ever seen boars, wild pigs out in the forest?

Have you ever seen wild pigs? You know what they're like out there? And what they do to the environment, what they do to, you know, for example, there's a little island off the coast of Georgia that I go to that my family has a little house out there, and we go out there, and they have pigs on the island. And if you don't cull the pigs,

the pigs destroy the island. So the violence from not culling the pigs ends up becoming, there's violence from not doing the cull. The pigs become a vehicle of destruction. There's more violence that comes from not culling the pigs. If you let them, if you didn't tame their population, then all the, much of the island's ecosystem would be radically shifted for,

maybe in a way that's great for the pig, but not so great for anything else. So when we talk about non-violence, I wonder, does this mean not killing? You know, I think it does actually, Duncan. I think it's pretty clear that violence happens in many different ways. Direct violence happens through, you know,

killing or various forms of physical and mental abuse. Then there's structural violence, where institutions actually cause harm to whole groups of people or to individuals who are unusual, so to speak. So the issue of violence is really important in our culture right now, that we look at it. And what we see, you know, I can't say

what is the ecological system on the island that your family, you know, has a house in. Where the boar's introduced, nature has a way of kind of balancing things out. I mean, climate change is a response to interference by human beings through consumeristic activities that have caused great perturbations in our weather system.

So we, you know, we have inserted ourselves in a living system that is seeking to rebalance itself, in part through, not consciously, I presume, although one never knows, but through the destruction that is arising in terms of climate change. Well, that's an effort to harmonize or to balance. So, you know, to cull the pigs,

and I have seen wild boars, they're pretty aggressive, grungy creatures. And, you know, in a way, they exemplify the worst in the human psyche. So it's kind of interesting. Did human beings introduce them to the island? One wonders. And also, if they were left to be the marauders they are,

what natural forces, other than human beings culling them, would assert and actually create a more harmonious, less destructive, less destroyed environment? It's an interesting question. But it's also, I don't know, killing animals is, you know, I just saw in passing, they're introducing chickens into retirement homes.

And, you know, here we are merrily eating chickens as if the chickens don't make any difference, but they're making old people happy. So, you know, it's like, oh, we have to care a little bit more about the chickens. And then there are domesticated pigs. And domesticated pigs are really intelligent animals. Now, they're archetypally looked on as greedy

and they eat everything. But, you know, they exemplify greed in the human psyche. And we've objectified them and kind of crucified them as a result of that. Well, sure. I mean, this is, to me, when I, like, I so love Buddhism and I so, and everything about it is just,

the deeper I explore it, the more my life gets better. And there's something just that I think so remarkable in it and that just the simple exploration of it is transformative. It's just looking into it helps you wake up and for real. But yet still there's this non-violence. And I, when I think of it, I just think, well, look, man, how about you stop thinking about pig calls and look at, like, where you're being violent right now.

Where is the violence in your own life and how much of that do you have control over? And how much do you think we have control over this? Well, you know, I think we can become obsessive to the point of, you know, feeling like we can't even put our feet on the ground or we, you know, every piece of clothing that we wear has been sourced in some activity

that's created harm for others. You know, Duncan, we do the best that we can. And we also have to open ourselves to the kind of humility that arises knowing we can't have a perfect world. We all, in one way or another, live with moral remainder. It's like the residue of the harm that comes about from just being alive. Wow, wow.

What did you call that moral? Remainder. Moral remainder, yes. Right, this is, this haunts so many people, doesn't it? Consciously and unconsciously. I actually, I write about it in my new book, Standing at the Edge, Finding Freedom Where Fear Encouraged Me.

And I talk about, you know, there's almost no way to escape moral remainder. What is really important is how do we live with the residue? Yes. And that's the point. I mean, you know, we can't, we're not gonna be perfect. Harm will arise. You're gonna do the best you can.

Most people, even, you know, the most deluded, harm-driven individuals, like I worked in the Penitentiary of New Mexico as a volunteer for six years on death row and maximum security. Wow. If you're on death row and maximum security, it means you've killed somebody.

Yes. And those are the men that I worked with, I'm teaching them meditation. And I learned a lot about how even those who have harmed others in ways that are just nightmarish to consider, they, in their way, were also seeking happiness. And I learned that.

I thought, oh, my Buddha. Everyone, even though there are ways that we seek happiness that harm others or are just completely deluded, like people, for example, getting high from anger. I mean, you know, it makes you feel good. Yes. But actually, from another point of view,

anger is a very destructive mental state, not just for the object of anger, but also for those who experience it. But people will, you know, it's like chocolate. You know, you eat too much of it and you'll get sick. And you're in that situation where suddenly, you know, maybe a little bit of anger gives you energy and insight, but being overwhelmed by anger causes harm.

So, you know, you're always trying to modulate and to dose yourself with the right amount. Oh, anger is so embarrassing. I would so rather be scared than angry. Like fear is kind of cool. Like if you get scared and someone sees you get terrified, there's something in that that's so vulnerable and beautiful, but man, anger.

Oh, it's embarrassing to get angry, isn't it? It's so, the way you hold your body and the, you know, one of the things I love about Buddhism and the teaching of mindfulness and watching yourself is that you do get to a place where you watch your angry state and you're watching it and you're thinking, man, this is not in any way, shape or form, a good look. Well, another thing I learned, you know,

working in the prison system, it is actually an institution of anger. Everybody's angry, the COs are angry, the warden is angry, the guests of the correctional system are angry. Not everybody, I'd say, you know, 90%, but what I learned Duncan was fascinating is that anger for most people arises out of a sense of helplessness and when you lack agency

or you feel threat, anger becomes the default mode for you and no, it's not cool. And it is about not having the confidence to where we're all to uphold yourself in the midst of conditions and to, you know, really become in a certain way a victim to your own sense of, you know, my ego is being threatened. But look at this world right now.

This is something where that is so, to me it's just, you know, I hesitate to even talk about it and this brings me to your book, which by the way is just spectacular and I'm so grateful to you for writing it, it's so great. And it's given me a lot to think about and I've been thinking about it, these edge states. And so I hesitate even talking about this

because I've gotten to the point now where I've decided that even talking about politics, talking about the government, talking about it at all is to be in some way contaminated or is in some way to draw attention to a thing that feels like it's drowning out a much bigger problem. But so I, that's the case. Well, you say much bigger problem, which one?

I think it's the much bigger problem is that people have become fixated on the state. Oh no, I'm sorry. The much bigger problem is that we're gonna die and that we're selfish and that we've forgotten that and we're fixating on the state and the state is figuring out how to be entertaining in the most vile way.

And in the old days, the state was in some ways, it seemed like stodgy, formalized, almost boring. I'm not saying Nixon was boring, but it was in a weird way, malefic, but in a kind of dull down way. Now the state has evolved and it has become its own garish reality TV show. And so it's grabbing our attention.

And it's, many of my friends, I have a very close friend of mine who has become darkened by it. And truly, I don't wanna say hurt, but from the, this is a person who's been very influential in my life, his spirit is one of like, I want the world to be great. I want love, I want people to evolve

and for there to be love and fairness and justice. And his fixation on the government has disrupted his consciousness in such a way that he has become- He's colonized. That's what it's called? Yeah, I mean, this is what happens when someone experiences moral injury,

when seeing the harm that a system or that another can do. And you look at it, I mean, this is actually people in the military, many people suffer from moral injury, but I feel that we're in a process of global moral injury that we're seeing so much corruption, so much harm, and we're not able, we feel, to do much about it. And as a result of that, we feel in a certain way disgusted with ourselves and also ashamed.

And that, and a sense of self-blame. And then it drives people into apathy. Moral apathy is something that really is insidious in our society. It is characterized in many different ways, but one of the ways is through addictive behaviors. Okay, sure. So, like fixation, like being addicted to the news,

for example, or being addicted to drug sex and rock and roll. Sure. Food, consumerism, and whatever we can do to distract ourselves and to dull our pain, these are forms of moral apathy. This is when we have withdrawn ourselves from the truth of suffering in the world, even though we might allocate our attention

completely into the midst of that suffering, but it's done in a way of addiction, not in producing insight, but there's some kind of, you know, like dopamine, a hit that you're getting from one catastrophe after another. Oh, that's right. I mean, it's great. It's great.

It's just little bumps of some kind of satanic powder that, and it is that there is a set, like when you really look at yourself and you realize, oh, I'm kind of getting off on this. I'm getting off on it, but I want to talk about this. So this is this edge state, these edge states that you write about, we have altruism, empathy, integrity, respect,

and engagement. And so the book was revelatory for me because I'd never even considered that these were edge states. And I always thought of these states as in states, maybe if you're lucky, you know, empathy. I never thought of the reversal of these things. And I never thought that you could topple over

onto the other side and become a real mess. But when a person has fallen over, you know, and not only just fallen over, but fallen deep over in the sense that it's gone beyond even a sense of like, I can even climb out of this mess. Oh, I'm happy here. No, this is where I am. This is who I am now.

This is the, you know, the classic, I mean, Lord of the Rings, you know, where a wizard starts off being like this, a good wizard, but then accidentally the thing it's fighting becomes the thing and that's right. How do they get out? Well, you know, sometimes your friends help you out, so to speak.

I mean, it, I have to say, I feel really fortunate to have had the opportunity to interact with so many people who have, you know, good people trying to do good things in the world, but who are actually suffering because they're engaged in a way that is not cool. And so, for example, like altruism, very, you know, you and I wouldn't be alive saved

for the altruism of our parents. In other words, you know, somebody had to feed you. Yes. Is your parents or your step parents or whatever. Somebody had to take care of you. It's kind of the selfless act on behalf of others to alleviate their suffering. And yet, what you see is just really interesting.

How many people actually go too far to the point where they're harming themselves mentally or physically. Yes. But there are stories that are really interesting. I'm sorry, may I ask you this? Is that, so would that be considered violence? It is, it's self-violence. Yeah, pathological altruism.

It's when we harm ourselves or we harm the very people that we're endeavoring to serve or we're harming the institution or the nation that we're trying to serve. Right. Or on the institution that we're serving in. This is, to me, so insidious because a person who starts off with some altruistic intention

and then becomes colonized, so to speak, becomes almost worse than the thing that they were, because everyone thinks of this person as being the altruist. And now this person is rampaging in a way where they're still wearing that mask a little bit and it's hurting people. Wow, it's so insidious. Well, Duncan, that's, I mean,

I was talking about moral injury before and in the section in the book on integrity, I identify four different ways that the shadow side of integrity show up. In the sort of big category, it's moral suffering. But the first one is moral distress. And moral distress happens when we, for example, your friend who's politically charged up,

completely distressed, floating between visions of attack and futility. Yes, yes. So, and by the way, there's a ton of people in our culture who are in that state of mind and they've got AK-47s. I mean, you know. So, moral distress arises when we see how to shift a situation, but we can't effect it.

We effectuate it. We can't make it happen. Everything is blocking us. So we experience moral distress because our integrity is threatened by the fact that, you know, we want to do something, but we're paralyzed. We can't do anything. So that's moral distress.

Then moral suffering is when an individual or a group of individuals actually witness or engage in activities that are harmful to others and have a kind of crisis of conscience where they feel ashamed. Right. And there's many examples of moral injury, not just in the military.

It's primarily identified among military people, but it's, you know, you see it in medicine. You see it in law. You see it in politics. You see it in education. You know, it's really, it's much more pervasive than we recognize. It's when teachers are driving their students,

you know, no child left behind. It's when politicians are conning their constituents and so forth. Right. And, you know, when a politician wakes up, I think that, you know, like John McCain in a certain way as he's dying is going through the experience, if you will, of moral injury

and wanting to sort of straighten out the record. Right. And wanting to be, you know, less political and more conscientious in these final days of his life. Then there's moral outrage. And it's when you see how disgusting politics or the corporate world are, and you experience a mixture of anger and disgust.

And that's called moral outrage, where you are basically holding up as an example those who are harming others. And, you know, it's full of shaming and blaming. That's though, to me, this is, I would like to talk about this. So this is, and this is not a very popular thing to say, and I will probably be slammed for this.

But, you know, recently, there's what it's called the press club. Oh yeah, right. Right, the press club thing happens, and a comedian like does this like vicious brutalizing of a great many people, who many of them are not great people. And it was, you know, this is a comedian.

She's great. She's trained. She's from New York. She's like a trained roast. She's good. She knows what she's doing. She's a surgeon. I mean, it was, they basically invited a tiger

into a room and let the tiger out. And the tiger did what you might expect a tiger to do. So in no way am I saying she, you know, shouldn't have done it or should have done it or whatever. She did what, she did her job, if you ask me. But something in it made me so bummed out. Because it's like, well, I guess this is what we're doing now. Like pretty bad.

We attack you. You attack us. We attack you. You attack us. Increasing levels of outrage, increasing levels of superiority, righteousness, and where does it get us? Where does it get us? Well, it demoralizes us.

It demoralizes all of us. You know, I think you and I both want to live in a civil society. We don't want to live in a repressive society. But we want to live in a society that has a view of the humanity of every human being. Also, the creatureliness of every creature. But let's just stay with the two-legged.

For us to engage in bullying, disparaging, denigrating discourse, even against the worst of our enemies, the people who are the greatest harmers, if you will, doesn't make things better. That's not what the Buddha would do. It's not what Jesus would do. It's not what Muhammad would do. And it's not, I think, what you would do.

No. I mean, I'm not that funny, but I would be. At least in that way, I'm terrible at rose jokes. But I know what you mean. And then, OK, so let's talk about this a little bit. Because this is this moral outrage thing. This is the game in town right now. So the response is, OK, well, if you

don't want us to call these people out, to alienate them, to ostracize them, shame them, humiliate them, make them, expose them as the demons they are, what do you suggest we do? What do you suggest? Because should we give them an audience? Do we let them? The greatest example I've heard is, like, all right,

you go and have an open-minded conversation with a Nazi. And I'm going to keep punching them. And let's see what works. Because we don't need to do anything more than give these people the, in every single way that we can, a hard time. And if you want to be Zen and Buddhist and Gandhi-ish and all this stuff, go ahead and see what happens.

See what happens. We tried that. It doesn't work. What is the answer? How do we deal with them? Well, I actually don't know how we deal with them. But I have a little more sense of how we deal with ourselves. And to engage in behavior's talk that

is disparaging, bullying, denigrating them, where you're putting people down like crazy, is not going to help anybody. And it basically is a reflection on your own character. And so really, the point of practice, Duncan, is to have the capacity to see deeper than the personality. Tick-Not Han talks about it in terms of a wounded Buddha. So I look at Trump as a wounded Buddha.

I practice when Dick Cheney was vice president. I found him a highly problematic individual. And I had a very aversive response to him. And yet he was a powerful foil to practice with. Every time aversion would come up, I would. And I actually write about it. You said aversion. Every time aversion would come up.

Aversion. OK, yes it is. You're like, ugh. Yes. It would be like a mindfulness bell because it came up a lot. And I would think, I would go, that is, he's still a human being. Just like I experienced with people in the penitentiary. This is still a human being.

This person was a baby once. This person is going to die. If I were asked to sit by his bed as he was dying, would I do it? Of course I would. It's like being able to see through to a. It's like John Paul Letterac, because this great peacemaker talks about this in terms of rehumanization. It's rehumanizing even those who from the perspective of our experience,

our side of the equation, to see this is still a human being. And even though they are destroying the environment, even though they have caused vast harm, whole ethnicities, people like the Rohingya are being driven out of Myanmar. You know, I'm trying to really understand that crazy Nazi monk who is turning, you know, all those Buddhists into races. He's still a human being. And how do I not actually buy into his process of dehumanizing others?

So I feel it's really important to, you know, hold your, you know, one self accountable and to see every human being as worthwhile, even if even though I don't have to love, like them all. I think I have to love them all, but I might not like them all. And I will work as I have for, you know, decades for justice, for social justice, now environmental justice, but not at the expense of, you know, allowing myself to degrade my character by disparaging others.

Well, this is, to me, another, as I'm reading the book and realizing what your life is like and realizing it's just thing like I've like hung out with that person and I'm reading these stories of you and Nepal in these camps and realizing that you, you really, for lack of a better word, you really put your money where your mouth is. You're not messing around your, well, you know, many of us, like me, we have a podcast, we talk, we have fun.

I have a wonderful life that I love so much. You're traveling around the world, actively trying to get blankets to people, actively trying to ease suffering in the world. And as I'm reading that, I became aware of a force field that exists between me and that this thing of like, I just don't, I love the stories, hearing about what you're doing. It's beautiful when I think, oh my God, this is brilliant human is going around the world giving people blankets.

But that's not really me, you know, I do a podcast and you know what I mean? What is that? How do we overcome that? What is that weird, like, for, I think for many of us, not just me, the thing that you're doing seems like a dream or a fantasy or a kind of like, it seems like something on the other side of the mirror. When did you cross over into that person? You know, I think I've been that person for a long time.

I mean, I think it's part because I was really sick as a kid. I talk about that in the book. And the person who took care of me when I was in this state of, you know, great sickness between the ages of four and six was a totally amazing person. She, you know, her, her, she came from the Bahamas. She was the most resilient person I ever met. She had a disposition that was just so joyful. And she gave me, she taught me about slavery because her forebears

had been slaves, but she also taught me about dignity and joy. And so I, you know, I was kind of lucky in a certain way to be blind for two years because I had a chance, one, to realize I had an inner life. I was poorly socialized as a result of being isolated in my experience of illness. But also I recognized that, you know, I had, I had a relationship with this extraordinary human being, which when I became healthy again, I didn't understand why there was discrimination against somebody who was so extraordinary and it blew my life open.

It totally blew my life open. So, you know, since I was a child, I have been involved in issues related to justice and compassion, but social justice is really important. Now it's, you know, I feel the same way about the environment. You know, the environment is in a way being slaved by corporations. Right. And so, you know, the liberation of the environment from corporate interests is, you know, of great, a great passion of mine.

When you say social justice, you're doing social justice. You're in. Yeah, but, you know, you are too. We all have different roles, you know, without your voice in the world and you being a conduit for, you know, the kind of, I mean, when I'm sitting in, you know, the Rohingya refugee camp in Kathmandu or I'm up in the Himalayas in some remote village, nobody knows about it except the people who are right there. And, you know, I might come out and talk about it.

I've written about it in the book, but, you know, the effect is very immediate and it feeds me, you know, it's like coming to this retreat. I'm fed in a different way, but it's all about love. Still, just a different kind of love when I'm in the Rohingya refugee camps in Kathmandu. I mean, you know, there I am sitting in this, you know, desolate, desperate situation with people who have been, you know, hyper disenfranchised. And where I am having the opportunity to bear witness to their generational

dilemma, not just immediate dilemma, it's immediate, but also this has been going on for a long time, discrimination against the Muslim minority in Myanmar. Or if I'm up in the mountains of the Himalayas, I have a similar, there's kind of an intimacy about coming alongside listening to people in the Himalayas as we're in this, you know, delivering health care and becoming aware, my, you know, these people have nothing materially, but they have immense resilience. They also live in these micro societies, which are characterized by high

civility, they have to, they won't survive without it. Right. So I'm just, I'm like this kind of incredibly curious person, but also, you know, compassion drives me. You know, I want to take the sum of my learning in the world, because the world has afforded me so much, offered me so much, been a source of, you know, some suffering, but nothing compared to the people that I work with. I've learned so much from those whom I work with and serve.

I mean, it brings me deep joy. You know, it's a win-win situation. Sometimes I do a little bit of good, that's pretty nice, but also I'm deriving, you know, just this sense of wellbeing out of what I do in the intimate part of my work. But you must in some way recognize that you're an anomaly in the sense that if all of us were acting like that, then we would be living in some, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to toot your horn and forgive me.

It's nice. Sometimes I fall into this, you know, comparison or whatever, it's ridiculous anyway, but you have, you're very insightful, you're brilliant. And so in some way you must recognize that you are, you're an anomaly. This is not a normal way to live. This is not a normal life. Not many people are Zen Roshis who are headed out to refugee camps to help people.

You are talking about helping people whose ethnicities I can't pronounce. You know what I mean? And so this is an anomaly. And surely you find yourself teetering on these edge states. Oh, well, there's no question. I wrote this book in part. I, you know, I wanted to serve people because I've met so many people, listened to so many people who really, you know, doing this incredible work

in the world, but they're also suffering. So, you know, and I also have fallen over the edge countless times. But you know what? I want to just get back to the anomaly question. There are a lot of positive anomalies out there. That's good to hear. You know, I'm really happy to report. Compat, you know, people talk about, and even I say it sometimes, I said it in a

recent video and I wish I could change it now. But, you know, I talk about compassion deficit and there's a lot of compassion deficit in the world, compassion deficit. But actually there is so much goodness happening out in the world today. It's, you know, it's just the, the fraught part are tendency toward, you know, paying more attention to things that are negative like your friend. And instead of seeing, you know, hey, there's a whole range. There's an entire spectrum out there from goodness to not so good.

And we're just paying attention to the not so good. In fact, we have tremendous amount to be hopeful about. But y'all are, you know, you anomalies, positive anomalies, you guys, ladies are not secretive, but you're camouflaged out there. You, you're, you're in, you know, why, why is that? Well, you know, I mean, you can't go around bragging about your accomplishments. I mean, that's, that's pretty stupid behavior. You know, it's like my friend, Matthew Ricard.

He's another one. He is out there. He's doing so much good. He's a contemplative. He's a social activist. He's really doing, you know, a big spokesperson for the world of creatures and why we shouldn't eat anything that, you know, is alive, so to speak, except plants. And, you know, he started orphanages and schools.

He goes into these remote areas. He's another one. And, you know, you don't, I mean, I talk about in the book things that, you know, moments in my life where I might have, you know, benefited others, but I'm more interested in other people who've done it and less in myself. I just, you know, I'm just, I feel fortunate to be driven in a certain way, just to have the energy and also the interest to put myself in fairly complicated situations and to see what arises.

It's, it's, it's so beautiful. I really love it. I don't, and I, you know, I don't mean to keep hammering the point home of how cool you are, but the, um, to me, you said, oh, no, it's not good to talk, you know, to let this, okay, so I do understand what you mean. I've seen these, you know, every, every once in a while, someone will, it's very weird to me, somehow the news will pick up a story that someone has left a $500 tip. I don't know if you've ever seen that before.

And it's very confusing to me. Cause I think who reported this, how did it get, get there? How many other big tips are not being reported? Is there like a, how does this make its way into the mainstream media that someone left a thousand dollar tip, which to me, I think it's wonderful. And I'm, I'm glad that that happens. But meanwhile you're up to your ankles and mud, putting blankets on people and that people don't even know exist.

And the news is not reporting on that at all. They're saying, you know, an Applebee's waiter got a thousand dollar tip with a note like, great job. So to me, I wonder, is this that kind of garish bugling out of it, of some kind of crazy tip seems embarrassing, but sometimes I wonder if the ethic of anonymity when it comes to good works can be counterproductive in the sense that just from reading your book, there is something so very inspiring about it for us that the world needs to hear about this, that we need to hear about more than just people

leaving tips. Don't you think that there's something to be said for being a little louder about your activities out there? Um, uh, I actually don't feel I need to be any louder. In fact, it's interesting the way publishing works today in a way authors become their own publicists. Yes. So, you know, I had to kind of, uh, you know, tweet about my book and put stuff

on Facebook and it was like, oh boy, I didn't have to do this with my other books. But anyway, I want the book out there. It's not about money. In fact, I haven't taken any money for anything since 1979, which is very, um, I just decided to stop supporting the military industrial complex. So, you know, I, I've given it all away to the institutions that I've started and the causes that I care about. So it's very freeing.

Uh, you haven't taken money since 1979. Right. Yeah. But I have a lot to support, but it's not me. My God. No, but never mind. So, you know, the point really, um, there are people out there in the landscape who are really extraordinary like Malala or, uh, Nelson Mandela or Jane Goodall.

You know, people who have, um, become, if you will, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, uh, Tick Nott Han, global figures of goodness. Right. And they inspire all of us. I'm just, you know, the kind of corner drug store variety. You know, I, I, I just do the best I can. But, um, I don't feel there's any shortage of extraordinary stories. You know, like I, I tell the story in the, uh, altruism chapter about Wesley

Autry, the guy who jumped off the subway platform in New York to save the, the young guy who was having a seizure. And, you know, he was trying to get, uh, Holo Peter off, you know, out of the train tracks as the subway is barreling down on both of them. And he realized he couldn't get the kid off. So he just held that kid down. He was having a seizure and the train passed overhead. He has his two kids were standing on the platform.

And afterward, what did he say? So, you know, anybody would have done this. Well, there were a hundred more people on that platform. He's the one who jumped and did it. Right. And, you know, there are many stories like that. I, I share a lot in the book. You talk about the guy who defended the, on the train, the guy who got stabbed.

That's right. And as he's died, he's, what did he say? I say, you tell everybody I love them. I mean, you know, this is just, people are remarkable. And, you know, these are ordinary people. I mean, Nelson Mandela, but, you know, Malala was just a schoolgirl. Yeah. And, you know, she was principled and she was inspired and she sent her voice

and she was almost killed. And now she, you know, she won the Nobel Peace Prize for good reason because she's, you know, addressing a kind of suffering, which is gender violence, basically, you know, it's how important it is to educate young women. Right. And it will change the world. Women are going to change the world. They already are.

Well, yeah. We want direction, us who aren't, we do know we want direction. And I know, I know personally I do. And I know that, like, you know, many people have gone tumbling on the wrong side of altruism and are just, they're done. They're just getting hammered and they're done. And all of us want, we want more direction. And I know it, not to sound victim, like, please help us help.

Like, you know, I know it's something that we can really figure out, but it seems really quite convoluted and complex out there. There's charities, I guess, or you could look up volunteer organizations or I don't know how to, how, where did, you know, the best way to start. So I would start with your family. Start with your friends. You know, start up close. Because, you know, I often say for people doing research on compassion.

Actually, it's not so interesting doing research on the altruist. It's more interesting doing research, talking to the wife of the altruist or the husband of the altruist or the kids. Wow. Yeah. I mean, you know, this is how do we walk our talk? How do we have a strong back that is, you know, our capacity to send our voice in the world, to uphold ourselves, to have the kind of equanimity that

and confidence that allows us to stand in our principles and to share principles with others at the same time, open front, you know, soft front, to, to, to be really allow our subjectivity to expand, to include all beings and things, including the Trumps of this world. Start with our families and our friends. You got it. And let me go a little deeper into that. What does that mean?

I, I, when, you know, I, I have, when you think of that, and I know that it's sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not so obvious. When, what is that, what is a real world example of that? Give them money, call them, tell them we love them. What is that? Exactly. Um, you know, when my father was dying, um, uh, my father really wanted me to move to Florida and I, you know, it's like, oh my God, I cannot move to Florida.

And I, he said, okay, we have three choices. You move to Florida and live with me and take care of me. I'll marry your mother's best friend, Lucy, or, um, uh, you put me in an old age home. I said, well, listen, dad, he's very fast. I said, there are two options that are probably not viable. And one is the old age home. The other is that I'm going to move in with you. Uh, but Lucy's a great choice.

Wow. And I actually ended up marrying my father to Lucy. Wow. So that was really great. But as my father was dying, um, I commuted from New Mexico to Florida every few weeks and sat with him and I sat with him as, uh, in his, you know, final weeks and it was like such a privilege. I'm so grateful I had that opportunity.

And I think my father, you know, was grateful I was there. Um, I think it was mutual. I mean, he died, uh, there were some complications toward the end, but ultimately, you know, in the last, last phase, he, he slipped away, uh, peacefully. And I, you know, I can honestly say the benefit that I experienced in offering that kind of connection to my father, um, is inestimable. I mean, you know, it's just like, it's, you can't measure it. You know, you feel like, wow, I, you know, I'm so lucky.

I, I'm really glad I did that. And you know, um, we aren't always perfect with our next of kin or our best friends. We're just human beings. Does he, you know, we have to know that too. Well, sometimes it feels like, you know, the, um, the anger, you know, towards some, some people have, you know, a lot of anger towards their parents and their family, sometimes justifiable anger. And so that idea of helping the family becomes a little complex because you

think, well, you know, for example, I have friends whose brothers are opiate addicts, you know, and, and have been in and out of rehabs and, and, and are stolen. And you, you think, well, I mean, I would, I hear you, Roshi, Joan, I'd love to help my brother, but every time we've tried to help him in the past, he just steals from us or hurts us. Or what about that situation? Yeah. Well, that's a good example of pathological altruism. You know, it's like when, when you're, you know, engaged in trying to serve

somebody where, um, you know, you're not really helping the situation at all. And you have to set clear boundaries and not invite harm. I mean, you know, it doesn't have, it's like, you know, if I leave the car unlocked in a neighborhood where there's, um, uh, economic depression, I'm just asking for trouble. Gotcha. So, you know, you don't want to nourish the wrong thing. Love it.

Beautiful. Thank you. You are so inspiring to me. I'm, I'm so grateful for this little bit of time I got to spend with you. Um, I will have a, um, there will be links, uh, on my website for your book, but can you let people know if they're, if they're, I know you're a teacher and I know that you give talks and I know that you have the Upaia Center in Santa Fe. So please, if you could just direct people to you.

Thank you. Um, wow, Duncan, this is, it's always so much fun talking with you. And you know, I really thank you for reading the book. It's a wild book and I, I hope it serves. It's called standing at the edge, finding freedom where fear and courage meet. And, um, you know, you can buy it in your local bookstore, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. I mean, you know, it's, I, somebody just sent me a photograph and you know, it was

in an airport bookstore. I was really happy to hear that. I, this is, you know, reading that should be in the hands of, you know, all flyers, so to speak. Is there a Kindle version? There is a Kindle. There's, yeah, there's a Kindle. There's an Audible, there's a CD.

Um, it's in hardback. It probably won't be in paperback for a while. It's so beautiful physically. They did such a great job in producing it. It's a juicy, I mean, it's gorgeous, uh, book physically. So, but it's also enthralling and the writing is so good. It's my favorite kind of book cause it just pulls you along and the most beautiful. It's really great writing.

Thank you. On top of the message, which is amazing, but the writing is just so good. It was really, really good. Cool. And then I'm the habit of Upaia Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is probably, it's one of the most beautiful Zen centers, I think, most beautiful Zen temple, uh, I've ever been in, but you know, that's just my opinion. And, um, you know, Upaia is a very interesting place cause it brings together,

it's like a micro university, but it brings together, uh, contemplative practice with social action. So, you know, our work includes work in the prison system with people who are homeless, dying people, people in Nepal, uh, who are in remote communities and refugees. So it's a very, uh, um, interesting environment. Beautiful. Friends go.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. And, and, um, yeah, let go. I know you out there. Listen, just do, buy the ticket. Cause I know many people when they hear you, they're like, I gotta, I gotta do that. Well, Roshi, Joan, thank you so much.

I will, um, as much as I can try to implement these things that you're teaching us into my life. Great. I'm counting on you. Thank you. And, um, again, thank you for, uh, interviewing me. I, uh, if, you know, uh, we have another chance, I'd love to dive in again, at least within the next two years.

Let's do it for sure. Okay. Maybe you, Upaia, I love you to come. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. Our new president, by the way. We just, um, uh, elected a new president of Upaia is 33 years old and a totally

fantastic human being, smart as a whip and just doing all the right things. And my thing is, is, you know, you got to build these places for the future as well as the present and, you know, draw from the past. So, you know, I'm very into, you know, young people. Beautiful. We're going to get them out. Hopefully we'll come out there. Well, I don't count as young anymore, but I'd love to see the place.

Howdy, Krishna. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for listening, everyone. That was Roshi Joan Halifax. Don't forget to head over to Upaia and check out one of their cool programs. And definitely immediately order standing at the edge. It's a wonderful book.

I love y'all and I'll see you next week. Hare Krishna. A good time starts with a great wardrobe. Next stop, JC Penney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. Dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with. Get fixed up with brands like Liz Claiborne, Worthington, Stafford and Jay

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