Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 405: Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

Sharon Salzberg, dharma teacher and a great spiritual leader of our time, re-joins the DTFH! Register for Sharon's next talk, Mindfulness: Gateway to Insight with Joseph Goldstein and Andrea Castillo. October 27-30! And read Sharon's new book, Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World! Or learn more about Sharon on her website. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: BLUECHEW - Use offer code: DUNCAN at checkout and get your first shipment FREE with just $5 shipping. FightCamp - Visit joinfightcamp.com/duncan to try Fight Camp FREE for 30 days! ExpressVPN - Visit expressVPN.com/duncan and get an extra 3 months FREE when you buy a 1 year package.

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We're listening to a little bit from Wellington Finch's new album, To Kiss a Hummingbird. It's a seven-hour album. And he's only selling it on vinyl, unfortunately. So you've got to have a lot of room and your crate. That's the announcement trumpet, everybody. And that means we've got a big announcement. This just in, the announcement trumpet

has been replaced by a horn. Here's the announcement. We are having a DTFH freakout challenge. If you remember the old days of the DTFH, for a while we were doing freakout challenges, these were simple things you could do that would sort of push you out of your comfort zone and create just a weird phenomena in your life.

One of them was give a flower to a stranger. Since then the world has changed dramatically. So I don't even know if we could do that anymore safely. Even then it was a little like probably dangerous and maybe scared a few people now I think about it. I don't know if you've ever been given a flower by a stranger, but if somebody gave me a flower now, I'd be like, I'm not touching that fucking thing

until you dip it in rubbing alcohol. But we're gonna do another one. This one's a simple freakout challenge. And you know what, you're gonna hear it and you're gonna think, fuck this, this is not extreme enough. I'm sorry, and what can I say? I'm over here, all of my shit's melting down in a good way.

You know, the peak of my life in the old days used to be getting blasted on ecstasy. Making love, pouring wine all over my body, stomping my grapes in one of my vats, or swimming and cum, but now I'm older now. And for me, it's the simple things that bring me joy. In the old days I've been in come to have fun, take big blasts of ecstasy to have fun,

champagne breakfast in your bum. But now I'm only a shampoo with cum. Instead of ecstasy, it's mushrooms. I drink champagne, but out of a cup. I've changed, I've left the city, and I no longer drink champagne out of butts. And I like the new me. So we're not gonna do some wild freakout challenge,

no blimp rentals, nothing extraordinary. You know, these days we've got a pandemic happening, so it's like, I'm not gonna send y'all to like a shopping mall dressed as a clown to give people condoms or something. We've got to have a gentle freakout challenge. And I'll tell you, man, I've really become absorbed in this idea, I guess you could say, in Buddhism called the paramitas. Apparently there's either six of them or 10 of them.

I'm not sure which depends on what website you land on. Seems like somebody added some paramitas to the list, but the paramitas, it gets translated as perfections or another version of it is the other shore. In other words, these are sort of traits that an enlightened being just naturally sort of like exhibits with no difficulty, you know, just sort of, and I've been around, you know, people like Sharon Salzburg,

for example, you know, she just, these teachers, they have this way of just bending, you know, I don't wanna say bending, alchemizing reality so that no matter what, it always, when they sort of break it down, in that breakdown, there's beauty, there's a sudden realization that you're not quite as trapped as you thought you were. And so maybe that's what the paramitas,

that's what naturally comes to a person who's had a lifetime of practice. I am not that person. So for me, like my state, my desired state of being is kind of like, I don't know, like snorting catamine, playing God of War, hold up in some warm, soft, sweet smelling place. And you know, that's, I'm not saying that's necessarily

the worst thing in the world, but I don't know if that's like at the end of that life, you're gonna be like, wow, that was awesome. You're probably gonna feel a general sense of like, I don't know, maybe there was, maybe I should have added to that like tea sometimes, or a walk. So the paramitas, I've heard them described by Pima children

as a form of stretching. By the way, I'm sorry for my Patreon friends who already heard me yapping about this for probably too long at our family gathering today, but it's where my head is right now. So the first paramita is generosity, generosity. And this is not, so generosity, you know, depending on where you're at,

some people just think of generosity as like donating, giving money, giving stuff to people. That's not necessarily what it is, though it can be part of it. In this, and in my very rough approximation of what these things might be, this version of generosity is more about giving yourself. So, you know, in other words, it's like not just going to dinner with someone

and buying them dinner, but also listening to them through the dinner and not being on your phone, like really being there with them. And for a lot of us, that ain't easy, depending on who you're going to dinner with. It's not like, you know, I don't know how many of you all have had

an angry mom make you dinner. That's not fun. Do you remember your mom banging pans, slamming cupboards, smashing down pots, loudly clinking things, like under cooking stuff, because she was fucking mad at you,

but you're a kid, so she still has to feed your ass. That's sweet on some universal, like, eternal mother, like, I'm going to still do this for you, even though you left like a weird condom or two in my bed after I went on vacation, and so you were humping in the house,

and I don't know who you were humping, but there are a lot of condoms, but I'm going to make you dinner. So, that is not necessarily generosity, but so, in other words, like it'd be easy if we could just give shit to people, because, you know, then you wouldn't have to worry

about all the other stuff that goes along with it. This version of generosity is giving yourself, sharing yourself with people and prioritizing other people. I don't even want to say it. Prioritizing other people above you hurts to say. With my kid, it's easy.

I actually love it, but it's not easy for me all the time. It's just not my natural state. So, I've been experimenting with this, and here's where I'm going to add my own little twist to it. God, forgive me. I like the term other shore. I think about multiverse navigation way too much.

The idea that we live in a universe that's an onion layer and multiple other universes, and that every action, regardless of how minute it may seem, sort of veers us one way or the other into a parallel universe. In other words, it's not like you get in shape

from working out. It's that working out causes you to move into the timeline where you're in shape. So, Paramita, the other shore, implies a kind of navigation. And what I have noticed in my clumsy experiments with generosity

is that the reality I exist in, the universe I'm in, when I start stretching my generosity muscles by trying to fully be with people in my life, is a completely different reality. It's a brighter reality. It's a shinier reality. It's a warmer reality.

It's a sweeter reality. And also, again, friends, 46-year-old who used to like nothing I love more than filling my tub with cum and bathing and then snorting big rails of MDMA and, you know, eating an ass. But also, compared to, like,

all those experiences, something about just making an effort to be fully with the people in your life, to be with them, even if what they're saying is not necessarily what you are interested in. For you, I know all of you listening to this are like, you mean, like, just being a normal, nice person?

But for me, this is like an alien landscape to some degree. And also, one of the things Pima Trojan said in the YouTube video I found is you start where you're at. There's no shame in it. Where you're at's where you're at. So maybe for you, this is how you live already.

This is your life. And whatever there is of you is a kind of shadowy, like, glowing, pretty, rainbow-y, translucent, opaque, shimmering of barely and identity. You're not self-absorbed is what I'm saying. But you could still stretch more, I think. I think that's the idea,

but you can always sort of, like, stretch out and be a little more generous. And then, see what happens to your dimension. I'm not saying that all of a sudden, like, rainbows are gonna appear in the air and, like, birds are gonna land on your shoulder. But I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened to you.

It really could be that your three acts of generosity away from, like, waking up in Atlantis or something, realizing you're some kind of pharaoh that was having a weird dream. Regardless, let me know. Generosity for a week. I know this seems like a mundane freak-out challenge. But if you listen to your old Uncle Duncan

with his golden nipple hoops, then you might find that just this simple shift messing around with the first paramedic creates some pretty dramatic, radical, weird synchronicities to happen in your life. Or if it doesn't, so what? What are you gonna do? Find me.

You won't find me. Challenge me to a fight. Are we gonna get in a fight somewhere? Because the paramedic challenge didn't work for you. Are you gonna beat me? Is that what you're gonna do, Daddy? Are you gonna spank me? Are you gonna make me suck your feet?

All right, friends, we've got a wonderful podcast for you today. Sharon Salzburg is here with us. We're gonna jump right into it. But first, this. A tremendous thank you to the Boner Wizards at Blue Chew for not just for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH, but for reigning their delightful, edible pills

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And if you subscribe, you will get commercial free episodes of this podcast. But not only that, you're going to have immediate access to gobs of content. Subscribe to one of the video tiers and you can gather with us three times a week. Tuesdays, we have our meditation, Journey into Boredom, and it's boring.

Wednesdays, we've got our book club. Right now, we're reading the cursed, malevolent, intentionally, psychically disrupting book House of Leaves. We just finished Dune. That's every Wednesday at eight o'clock. And Friday, we have our long running family gatherings where we all just get together and yap.

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It's at patreon.com forward slash DTFH. We also have a shop. You want some beautiful crows milk face masks? They're there for you. That's at dunkitrustle.com. All you have to do is click on the shop link. And now, without further ado, I would like to welcome back to the DTFH,

one of my favorite Dharma teachers alive today and one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. And I mean that. I'm not even being hyperbolic. She's an author. Her most recent book is a must read. It's called Real Change. Mindfulness to heal ourselves and the world.

And it is a really, really great book. If you're feeling like a lot of us are, which is completely paralyzed, stuck in the great bubbling mire. That is the world right now. This book will get you out of the pit. I've been fortunate enough to see her speak on multiple occasions. And there's nothing like it that I know of in the world. When Sharon starts teaching about cultivating compassion,

it's just the energy in the room shifts. And I don't know. It's one of the most profound experiences I've had in my life. And I've watched a lot of performers. Not that she's a performer, but I've seen some great comics and great teachers, great speakers. They have this thing they do where it's not just what they're saying. It's like the energy in the room shifts.

I won't spoil it for you, but post-pandemic, I hope that you will go to one of her talks. And forgive me because I don't mean this in some kind of insensitive way because the pandemic really is rotten. And it's one of the most horrible things I've encountered in the history of the United States or the world. But that being said, there's something really kind of nice about not having to go places. Like you can go to all these incredible events online. And so I want to invite y'all to check out Joseph Goldstein, Sharon, and Andrea Castillo

for a special online course, Mindfulness, The Gateway to Insight. It's Tuesday, October 27th to Friday, October 30th. I'm going to have all the links at DuncanTrussell.com. If you're interested in this, it really is like right now you can go to all these like crazy online events that normally you would never be able to see because they'd be happening live. So definitely if you're interested in mindfulness, if you're interested in Buddhism, if you like listening to Sharon Salzburg, if you read any of her books, highly recommend going to The Gateway to Insight.

It's Tuesday, October 27th to Friday, October 30th. And it's got two other great teachers, Joseph Goldstein and Andrea Castillo on the bill. So the links are going to be at DuncanTrussell.com and you need to register for these events. So you have to kind of sign up in advance for this stuff. And if you don't want to go to my website, just go to SharonSalsburg.com and you'll find all the info regarding this event and some other wonderful offerings that Sharon gives to the community. Alright everybody, please welcome back to the DuncanTrussell Family Hour podcast, Sharon Salzburg. Welcome, welcome on you, that you are with us, shaken, going to be blue.

Welcome to you. It's the DuncanTrussell Family Hour podcast. Sharon, it's so great to see you. I feel like I've been hanging out with you because I've been reading your book. And I love it. Everybody that I've chatted with who has picked up a copy, they love it. But more than love it, everybody is just saying it's such a, it's just weird synchronicity that this book came out right now. Do you feel a little like Nostradamus or something that you wrote a book about?

Exactly the state of consciousness and a path and a methodology, I guess you could say, for being an activist right now during this time where that seems to be exactly what is needed. Well, it's so funny. First of all, I want to say it's lovely and also a little eerie to see you because you're one of the last people I hung out with physically, you know, before the pandemic. I was in LA and there you are. So it's like, oh, right, you know, look at that. He's real, except he's not, he's not in front of me actually, you know, it's like, oh. So it brings it all back that day and, you know, being in LA and I refer to it sort of like, I went somewhere, you know, I took an epic journey because every journey now feels epic. You know, I was somewhere else like, wow.

Yeah. It is really great to see you again. The before time. Yeah. And I actually wrote the book, all of the book, except for the preface in the before time. It turns it in like December or January and I'm very relieved and grateful to hear you say that because one of my concerns, of course, was that it was going to seem totally irrelevant that I've woken up several mornings thinking I wrote a completely irrelevant book, you know. And yet, you know, somebody said to me, are you psychic? And I thought, oh, thank goodness, you know, like, it actually works, you know, for this time.

Well, yeah. And I, this is not my intended thing I wanted to chat with you about, but just to dwell on this for a little bit longer. When I was working on the show for Netflix, we didn't know that the show about the apocalypse would be happening during not the apocalypse, but a relatively apocalyptic time. Do you, what do you think about that phenomenon? Because it does, it happens a lot, doesn't it? Where you, you feel called to do a thing. And for you, you might have some purpose or reason, but then when you, in hindsight, you look back and realize, whoa, I don't know that the reason that I thought I should write that book was actually why I wrote the book. Like I was called.

Yeah. Like something moved me bigger than me. What do you think about that? I think it's really true. And it's, it's kind of amazing, isn't it? It's like, what came through me? Because I, it wasn't exactly my plan, you know, to write. I mean, I wanted a book that was relevant, but it wasn't like I thought, well, by the time this comes out, we'll, you know, everything will have fallen apart.

And like, we can be talking about the apocalypse in a different tone or something like that. It's not like that at all. But in trying to do something that's meaningful to you and something, I mean, every creation, you want to have some timeless quality, right? Because you don't want people to look at it a year later and think, well, you know, that was then. Yes. You know, that has nothing to do with now. Right. But somehow, sometimes it just happens and something comes through you.

It really is like channeling, I guess. I guess that's what it is. I mean, this, to me, this is definitely a, if folks are looking for a guidebook. And I think a lot of people right now are looking for any kind of guidance because all the data streams have been politicized. All the data streams have been warped according to different ideologies and different, you know, aspirations. Many of them not great. But this book, for me, has been very special because it is grounding me in some just very pragmatic things that I could do. And also, I think one of the things I love about it is the very simple, yet somehow something I completely forgot.

The very simple assessment that respecting yourself is radical, is a form of a revolution, is a revolutionary attitude, just that alone. And that is maybe, and well, in this book, it seems to be the beginning of a process. But I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that, about accepting yourself as a form of actual, I don't know, if revolution is too strong a word, but as a form of activism. I think it is a form of activism. And for many of us, it does begin there because there are lots of stories that the world tells about who we are and what we're capable of. Maybe it's for the family, maybe it's the broader culture. But we tend to absorb a lot of stories, a lot of myths about who we are and what gives life meaning and what'll make us happy and what's strength and what's weakness. And to sort of see those stories in a more critical light, realize we can let go of them, we don't have to take them all to heart.

They're not all wrong, you know, but some number of them are really, you know, they're very limiting and corrosive. And to have a sense of, I'm worth more, I'm worth something, you know, I'm worth more than that narrative and the way that I have accepted being treated. I've seen from talking to lots of activists is the turning point in actually being able to stand up and not only for yourself, but for others. But it begins with some sense of, I'm worth more than this, I don't care what I've been told or how many people have told me that. Look at that. And so it's really kind of love for oneself. It's not hatred of the other, you know, it's really a love for oneself that I think has given a lot of these people strength. What are some stories or a story that you sort of unconsciously digested in your own life that you realized maybe wasn't true?

There are things like about what I have to offer is just so-so, you know, like, it's all right, you know, like, I'm all right, but not great. Certainly things like, and I was specifically told this, you know, by a parent. Like, you can't let anybody get to you, you know, you can't let yourself feel that strongly, you know, the world's too hard, the world's a hard place. Oh yeah. You know, don't let it in. And that was not really good advice. And I didn't stand him that well either. But, you know, and I think the extrapolating that, you know, certain feelings are shameful.

I shouldn't feel anger. That's a really shameful thing. It's, I should be stronger than this or an extrapolating even further. Like if you're trying to help someone else, that's like for suckers, you know, that's really something that's just going to happen. That's really something that's just going to bring you down. And so sort of dissolving that entire edifice of belief was almost like task one in meditation, you know, once I was actually looking within and I could see those thoughts and feelings. It was like, really? Wow.

This, what you mentioned about anger, I just, if I could, I want to read something actually that I thought we could talk about from the chapter Awakening to the Fire. And I meant one of my big issues is anger. I get angry. I lose my temper. I blow my stack. I'm humiliated by it. It's caused a lot of harm in my own life. And so I found this chapter to be really special because not just personally do I lose my temper and I, that's one of the reasons I feel like I have to meditate, but also right now.

So many people who I have a deep respect for are just angry and almost to the point of not being coherent anymore, just lost in like anger over what's happening in our country right now and what's happening with the old politics. They're either angry. I have friends who are angry because I'm voting for Biden and I'm a Democrat who think I've become, you know, part of an elitist reptilian conspiracy. I have friends who are angry that the only choice is Biden. They're voting for him, but they're pissed that this is who, it's not Bernie Sanders that we have no, we have this stupid binary and we have to vote for someone that maybe we have a lot of philosophical disagreements regarding. And so all over the one commonality right now is just a lot of times it seems to be irrational anger or the anger has made them irrational or has made me irrational. And so it's this chapter I thought was just wonderful. And I would like to read something you wrote back to you.

Please. I'd be so happy. If we can be mindful with our anger, we can learn to use the energy and intelligence of it without getting lost in the tunnel vision. It tends to foster were conditioned to turn away from anger or guilt, blame, jealousy, and so on. Feeling angry at ourselves at others, it experiences that come upon us is undoubtedly intense and we might fear that intensity will be all consuming. So to avoid the rabbit hole of anger, our culture teaches us to find safety and repression. But there is a profound difference between recognizing anger for what it is and becoming lost in it. Can you talk about this, please?

Yes. I mean, there's so many layers to that. And then I want to get to the voting issue too, specifically, but, you know, when in the before time, the last trip I took when I was away from home, when I went somewhere, same trip where I saw you, I was doing this workshop in someone's house and another attendee who's a therapist was there. And she had this line, which I thought was amazing. She said something like, the brain filled with shame cannot learn. Wow. And I just thought that was amazing because our goal is, you know, to learn or to change if we have a habit that's causing pain to ourselves and to others.

Or even in terms of a system of oppression, we want change, right? Yes. And shame is a little different, I think, than kind of a moral reckoning, like a recognition. Like I really, when I sent that email, I did hurt somebody. I was really reckless. So when I shouted at my kid or something like that, you know, I want to change behavior, but to be filled with shame and to think I'm like an awful person. And it actually is not a path that's onward leading, you know, because we're so, we get so depleted and so exhausted. And we feel so demoralized that we don't know how to change at that point.

So it's like the ready response. It's the obvious response and maybe the very conditioned response, but it doesn't help. So we look at feelings like anger as one example, hopefully without the add on of the shame, you know, like I'm a terrible person. And also without the add on of I'm only an angry person and I always will be that kind of permanence or isolation. Like I'm the only one who loses it in this way or there are lots of stuff we might add on to it. And within the Buddhist context, it's a complex emotion. Like the positive part is the energy, you know, it's not passive. It's not complacent.

It's it's drawing a boundary. It's saying no, no way, whatever. And the other positive part is a kind of audacity. Like we all know we can be in a meeting or something like that. And it's the angriest person that's pointing out the thing no one else wants to look at. Yes. And we're like determined to look the other way and they're saying, look at that. You know, so we actually rely on that a lot.

But if we just like I wrote, if we get overwhelmed by it and defined by it and consumed by it, we suffer mightily, you know, in the Buddhist psychology Angers like into a forest fire, which burns up its own support. And I just feel funny these days talking to people in California using that image, you know, they know exactly what it's like, how destructive, how damaging to oneself. And also like a fire, like a fire, it can burn wild. We might end up someplace very far from where we want to be. So if you think about the last time you were really angry at yourself and just bring it back. It's not a time where we also think, you know what, I did five great things. Same morning.

You know, I said stupid things like they're gone. So we do get tunnel vision. We get diluted. We get confused. So what we want to do is recognize the anger, not add the shame and all that stuff, be able to extract the energy and not kind of be enslaved by it. You know, for our own sake, you know, just to not do that much damage to ourselves or families or relationships, whatever. And so that is a fine line, you know, to see it, honor it because we have to honor everything that we're feeling. And also have a choice.

You know, we don't necessarily want to get enveloped in it and overcome by it. At the same time, we're not pushing it away. That's kind of the essence of mindfulness practice. It's actually a practice. Yes. It's like a training to be able to be with all those feelings and anger is also very complex. It's like if you sit and look at it and not blame yourself for it, but just look at it, you see fear usually. You see sadness in there.

You know, there are lots of other feelings and almost always you will find at the heart of the anger is some sense of helplessness, which we cannot bear. Right. You know? Yeah. And so if you can get there, I have found for myself, if I can get there to recognizing the helplessness, then I can resolve on taking an action. You know, saying something, doing something, whatever. Well, it's okay. So what I love about this chapter is it is not inviting you to, you know, I think it's a really like these days, especially if someone gets angry, they lose the argument.

It's like if you're angry, what you're saying doesn't mean anything anymore. And you're saying, no, that is not the case. You can be angry and also still tell the truth. Yeah. But, you know, people these days, if you lose it, if you like blow your stack or whatever, then it's like you're no longer valid. And I love that. That I think that's beautiful. It's also, I think for people like me, it's definitely a thing you have to be careful about because I think people would get angry.

We also recognize that it's like it is a powerful energy, just like those forest fires. And I imagine if we could figure out a way to take all that energy and just put it into a battery, we could, you know, fuel California for years and years instead of burning it down. But there's a recognition in folks who get angry that, yeah, if I can't even get close to it, if I get too close to that vulnerability that you're talking about, my brother says it's because of our childhood because we couldn't defend ourselves from a lot of crazy stuff. And so all you could do, I guess, when you're a kid is scream. And sometimes forest, just when I take him away from a stream, if he's throwing rocks in it, we'll just start screaming. Like I'm about to throw him in a furnace or something. It's like, we have to go home. You're soaking wet.

It's cold, you know, but so anyway, can you maybe go a little more in depth about this extraction process? How to, how to harness that energy? Because when I get angry, I just, I'm gone. Like I'm not even, if whatever was there, it's like, I don't know who I am at that point. How do you deal with that? How do you, how do we grab that energy and use it in a productive way? Friends, we've got a new sponsor. Praise God.

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Well, you know, people actually practice in meditation. It's like maybe bring up some situation where you're angry at yourself or someone else. Feel it in your body. You know, learn to recognize that feeling because when you're out in the forest you're getting upset about something. It's going to be in your body. You can recognize it in your body before the cognitive thought comes. We've stayed out here way too long. So that's part of it. Part of it is learning the add-ons that we are used to. Like the shame or I've got to repress this. I've got to deny it.

Damn it. No one ever listens to me. Everything I do is complete futility. Whatever is that habitual add-on. We learn to recognize that and then we let that go. And then it's almost like and you need the time. You can't do this when you're on the spot. But in the meditation that's why it's like a rehearsal. You feel it in your body and you notice the other. Ask yourself what else is here? Like once I was working with somebody as a meditation student and I said the next time I see you I want you to tell me three things you found inside your anger and one of them can be that it's changing. You know, it peaks and then it evaporates and comes back or whatever. But one of them might be, oh it's a lot of sadness in there. You know, it's a lot of fear in there or whatever.

And I would especially look for that sense of helplessness because that's the moment that you channel. You know, you say I'm going to take some action. And often we don't take action because it feels too small. You know, like what is that going to do? But it's actually going to do more than yelling, you know. Or writing an angry tweet or something, you know. And so you can resolve on the action once you recognize the helplessness. And it's very important because the anger might have a very valid message but it's pretty distorted by the time we're overwhelmed with it. And I do tell a story in the book which is one of my favorite stories about my friends from the Holistic Life Foundation who bring yoga and meditation to the inner city schools in Baltimore.

And they tell me the story about this little girl who's maybe like let's say eight years old and she was a fighter. She was always getting into terrible trouble and kids were mean to her and they were picking on her and they were teasing her. But still she was the one who'd like knock them out, you know, and end up in detention. So they taught her how to meditate and one day they walked into like some public space like the gym or something. And she had this other little girl up against the wall by holding her by her throat. Oh my God. And then she looked at her and said, you're just lucky I know how to meditate. And she dropped her and she went and sat in the corner and composed herself.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. I love that. That, you know, maybe we could, this is something, by the way, I wore a Hawaiian shirt today because I don't, we were priced, but we probably be in Hawaii at a Ram Dass retreat at this point. If not for this pandemic. But the, I want to talk about this because I feel like you are such a genius at it. Demystifying meditation. Demystifying. You just disappeared.

You're going to have to say that all again. Okay. Am I here? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Now you're back. Okay. Yeah.

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Visit expressvpn.com slash Duncan. That's expressvpn.com slash Duncan for three months free with a one-year package. Visit expressvpn.com slash Duncan to learn more. Thank you, Express VPN. Sharon, I think you're a genius at many things, but I think one facet of your genius is you are so good at demystifying some of this stuff. Can you hear me, Sharon? Great.

Yeah, now you're back. Demystifying was the key word. Demystify. Yes. And specifically in the sense that I think many of us, me included, have, whenever we think about how to be, especially when it comes to activism, do you know where my mind goes and the thing that makes me not want to do anything? I think about Gandhi.

I think about the Salt March. I think about his discipline. I think about all that he did. And then I think, what am I going to do? I'm not Gandhi. What am I going to do? I can't do anything. What am I going to do?

What are you going to go give food to somebody? Is that, who do you think you are? Are you going to not going to do that? You can't do that. Are you Gandhi? There's a real, there's an asshole in my mind that's like, come on. What do you think you're Gandhi? Forget it.

But you, what I love about what you give us is that we don't have to be Gandhi to help. In fact, for some people, just not, just not getting in a fight is a victory of victories. But also part, part of what I feel like is easy to fall prey to is like then not holding yourself to high enough standard. Do you know what I mean? Like thinking, oh, I'm doing enough just because I'm not, you know, like sending the email when in fact you could probably do a little bit better than that. So can you talk about, how do we sort of find the middle way here? I mean, how do we not, you know, set the mark too low out of some sense of like, well, you know, I'm doing what I can versus, you know, not tormenting ourselves with like the stories of Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King or Gandhi. I think more, I think I've encountered more people tormenting themselves than feeling complacent.

You know, mostly it's like I could never do enough. Nothing I could do could count it will make a difference. And so kind of getting up and having that sense of agency for even what maybe a kind of relatively small act is so crucial. I talk in the book and often about how much I love the Statue of Liberty. She's like, you know, she's my idol. In Hinduism, there's this concept called an Ishtadev. It's like the deity, the bodhisattva that you want to emulate, you know, because they all have different characteristics in the pantheon. It's like, you know, this one's mostly about wisdom and this one's mostly about song and this one's mostly about compassion and so on.

And so I've often said the Statue of Liberty is my Ishtadev, you know, it's that incredible inclusivity of welcome like there she was and is. But you know, I think like when my grandparents came, you know, like there she was and saying, you know, you're welcome here. You can have a home here. You can have a sense of belonging here. Even you, you miserable thing that no one else wants. I want you, you know, and what I hadn't realized until I was working on this book so much is that she's actually taking a step. She's a woman on the move. She's taking action.

It's not only like that kind of wide open embrace standing there, but she's moving. Yeah, I didn't know that until I read that in your book. I didn't know she was on the move. It seems like I thought she was just staying still. Yeah. And that's that we have to take that one step. We have to because otherwise nothing will happen. And it's not insignificant.

It never is because of enough people do that one step. It will count. I guess you could get really complacent. Like, yeah, I'm not Gandhi and I never will be, but I've done enough. You know, I gave, I gave the temple or whatever, you know. Yeah. But it's different if you see your whole life is kind of your creative medium. And I would also say that one of the things that changed for me in writing the book was that conversation I had with Bell Hooks where she told me she didn't like the term social action.

Because she felt like people might think it only meant marching or protesting. And she said to me, what about art? Yeah. You know, what about a creative act that will dissolve boundaries and make people have a different, help people have a different vision of what's possible. And I thought, yeah, you know, that is a pretty limited use of that term. So I try to be much more expansive than that. The one act, I mean complacent, I mean, and it brings me back to what you're saying about people not wanting to vote because they're ideal candidate or their preferred candidate is not there. It's, I mean, that is really a statement of privilege, you know, and I had a conversation with a friend once who told me he didn't vote.

His family didn't vote. And part of the reason, I think that's not true for many people. This presidential election, although maybe if your friends is true, you know, a lot of people say, well, the candidates aren't all that different. There's only like this marginal difference between them. And what I said to my friend was a lot of people live in those margins. You know, it's easy for you to say that they're not that different, but if you were counting on your praying for a minimum wage to go up to $15 an hour, you would see the difference. Right. It's a pretty big difference, you know, and some of the people I interviewed in the book like Chantel, who's one of the leaders of the striking fast food worker movement.

That's exactly what they want is minimum wage of $15 an hour. Right to unionize. You would see the difference. Well, yeah, I mean, we say, you know, I, you know, I think we are seeing the difference right now. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to say that it's good luck that he just decided not to give people benefits. I don't know. But he showed himself to me.

That's the that, you know, I don't know. It was the steroids. Maybe I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, that, that, that moment was, I think, the nail in his coffin, because who is going to vote for this person now? He's bragging about, he had access to medication that would probably cost a hundred grand. And on top of that, he's taking away people's benefits right before the election. I don't know, man.

I don't know who wouldn't vote right now. And I don't, I don't like Joe Biden. I don't like him, but I'm definitely voting for that man. And I, it's anyway, look, I don't want to get, I think getting political, but you can even hear my own voice. We're all feeling it. This is a nightmare. We just want it to be over. We want the election to be over.

We just want it to end. And, and it's anyway, to me, I love that this is your invitation in the book is just pick up your foot. And I think in the same way it's people don't realize about these margins. I think some people don't realize how very difficult that is for some people to pick up the foot. It's not easy for some people to pick that foot up. People are especially right now. I mean, Sharon, what about these people? Like I am privileged.

I am lucky. I have a great job. I'm doing fine. That does not make me doing fine though. That just means I'm doing fine. I know because people in my community who I chat with, I just talked to someone today. He was in his room completely dark with a little bit of like some kind of lights behind him. Dark.

And he said, I haven't talked to anyone, my friends or my family for two months. I've only been in this room for the last two weeks. And I don't think that's an uncommon situation. I think that's happening everywhere. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that fight, flight or freeze. I don't think people know too much about reaching out to a person like that is is a really important thing. I see it too because I'm also doing, in addition to the book, I mean, just come out and so doing book-centric things. I'm also doing teaching to make up for travel, which I'm not doing.

And so I joke and I said, yeah, I went to LA last weekend. Of course, I didn't go anywhere. I'm always sitting in this chair. But I taught for inside LA last weekend and the week before for DC. And if I'm in Zoom or something, I often read the chat casually as I'm talking. And it's phenomenal. Like the sorrow and the depression. I feel like, well, everyone is, of course, different.

In general, there's been a wave from incredible anxiety to more grief, to anger, to exhaustion. I think a lot of people are in the exhausted phase and I read it. You know, like I'm a school teacher, someone wrote and my kids are all depressed. They just can't handle, you know, screen learning and I don't know what to do and I'm ready to give up. Someone so sadly wrote, 62 years old, which is younger than me, but I'm 62 years old and I've just lost everything I care about. And I don't have it in me, you know, to begin again. And anyway, I'll probably die soon. There's literally there, you know, I was like, whoa.

You know, so people are lonely, people are, I mean, it's just gone on a long time and, you know, it's grinding. And so the other side of it, the beautiful side of it is that I do see a lot of people reaching out in different ways. Like, you know, that group, they're not going to let a comment like that go by without saying, you know, if you want to talk anytime. You know, someone in that group will do that. And having, you know, I left New York City March 14th when I got back from LA. I was in New York just pretty briefly. I went and taught at Kripalu with Krishna Das, which meant singing 200 people in an enclosed room. You know, it's like, we're lucky we all survived.

And, you know, and very little knowledge, like the only warning was use hand sanitizer, you know. And then I got back to the city and I taught another large program and I thought this doesn't feel good. It just doesn't feel good. You know, I think I'll go, I have a house here in Massachusetts and a retreat center, which was then open. And I thought, I'll go up to Massachusetts for a couple of weeks. So I came up here with my snow boots on March 14th. So I'm now in my third season here. But I'm very in touch with people in New York City.

And I hear that story over and over again. Like I've lived in this apartment for 12 years, never even knew the names of my neighbors. And now we all have one another's names and phone numbers. We check on one another. We make sure we're okay or an 86 year old friend of mine lives in New York. And that means, you know, he's of an age. He's been pretty restricted. He also did not leave his apartment for a good long time, although now he's taking walks.

But he said to me, I've gotten the phone number of every elderly person in the building, not other elderly persons, you know, people, because they're thinking of themselves that way. I've gotten the phone number of every elderly person in the building. I call them every day to make sure we're okay or I hear that over and over again. People are caring and they're reaching out. Hopefully people who have the need for some support, you know, are finding it and are willing to accept it. This makes me think, you were talking about the Statue of Liberty. And in the book, as I'm reading it and thinking about times that I felt like a legitimate outcast, like a pariah.

And like no one would ever love me, no one would ever accept me, no one. I don't deserve anything other than like, you know, scuttling off. What is it? What's that great T.S. Eliot poem? I should have been born a pair of ragged claws scuttling in silent seas. It's, you know, the universal sense of shame. But you, you were talking about embodying the Statue of Liberty. Well, you disappeared again. Oh, I'll come back to T.S. Eliot.

Okay. Can you hear me? Well, I'll come back. Okay. The T.S. Eliot poem. I should have been a pair of silent claws scuttling or something like this. This should have been a lobster. It's basically what he's saying. Should have been born a crustacean. You know, and, but the Statue of Liberty.

I, I love that you're recommending to people to become the Statue of Liberty. But what about folks who, who, who welcomes the people? Who's the welcomer? If you know what I mean? What about the folks who aren't getting the old person knocking on the door? This, you know, this is where my, I just feel the heartbreak. Or this is where I feel the crushing hopelessness or the hell realm or whatever. It's like, Jesus, God, for every one person who I talked to on Zoom or you talked to,

there must be what, a hundred thousand who are just locked. They, they're gone. What do they do? Well, you know, it is, it is heartbreaking. And yet, you know, I think if you, if you have enough energy, which won't be massive, you know, but if you have enough, there are things in place. Like when I was still in New York or watching New York news, once I was gone, you know, and I'd see like how much, how much free mental health service was being offered,

including meditation teaching, which I found very interesting, you know, because I'm used to it being so kind of counter cultural and weird and woo-woo and other people's eyes. And I thought, look at that, you can sign up as a mindfulness teacher and help somebody. It's harder because you have to have some initiative. You have to reach out and just like you have to watch what you consume in terms of news. You know, I learned this new term, doom-scrolling, which I know I knew before. You know, and it takes conscious effort, especially the media being what it is, to look for the good in life.

And not everyone has the energy to make that effort, but it will make a difference. You know, usually we doom-scroll and we're just going, it's not even different articles. It's the same damn article, but different news sources, you know, and you're reading it again and again and again and again and again, you can't stop. And I contrast that to my favorite story of this time was the school in Minneapolis, which when there was like rioting and looting and burning, somebody burnt down a lot of grocery stores and so the school became a collection site for families to get like a bag of groceries so they could feed their kids and they asked for, they put out a call.

I was just writing this last night, they put out a call for, I think it was 70 or 75 bags of food and they got 20,000. Wow. Wow. You know, so I think of that name Crowley Bobo, like love people and feed them, you know. Yeah. 20,000. Wow.

Yeah. You know what? There was a picture on, I saw this picture on Reddit where they put out a call, a child had some kind of rare genetic disorder and they needed a specific blood type or a specific genetic type and they put out the call and it's a picture of a line stretching so far you can't see the end of it of people who came just in case their blood was what this kid needed. Yeah. That's what we are. That's us, right?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. God, why is it so easy to forget that? Sharon, I lost you. Can you hear me? Yeah, now you're back. My question was, why is it so easy?

Is this all you or is this me? What's that? Can you hear me? Why is what so easy? I was asking if it was your, yes, now you're back. Why is it so... So you better finish the question while I have you. My question is, why is it so damn easy to forget that humans are pretty great and, you know, and is that naive anyway?

Are we just looking at outliers, you know? How the hell, you know, maybe is that the first step forward? I don't even know what the question is, Sharon, but I do know that it's real easy for me because I'm the lord of doom-scrolling to just decide from time to time that I live on a planet of mollusks. Worse than mollusks. Mollusks are actually pretty harmless. Yeah, I think... I don't think it's... I don't think they're outliers.

I think that it's a question of what we've been taught in terms of cultivating attention because the other is also true. We see a lot of cruelty and a lot of coldness and disdain for others and not recognizing like that's a person you're talking about, you know? We see real, really terrible stuff and then we see a whole, there's a whole range in between of just indifference. Like, I had this really weird experience not too long ago where a journalist was interviewing me about the book and they chose a meditation. They wanted me to read out loud to record it and they chose this loving-kindest meditation toward a neutral person. A neutral person is somebody we don't especially like or dislike. We just feel kind of neutral toward them and indifferent, really. And then what's interesting is to see what happens if you keep offering them loving-kindness, like silently repeating phrases in your meditation.

You know, maybe happy, maybe peaceful, something like that. So it's like paying attention to them differently. And, you know, we always say try to choose someone who you'll tend to run into now and then because you may not see any great change in your formal meditation. But you'll see a real shift eventually when you run into them. You know, you may not even know their name. You don't know their story, but there's just some sense of like, oh, we're in this together. You know, we're on the same team. And so for 45 years or so, my colleagues and I have been saying like the checkout person in the supermarket, that's the perfect person because you run into them now and then we couldn't care less about them.

You know, like, we're indifferent to them. We look right through them. We objectify them. So I'm reading this out loud to this journalist and I think, whoops, look at that. Like, how do we think we get food? You know, now we call them essential workers and we're saying, oh, I need this person. I'm counting on them. But look at that whole realm of indifference.

The people we just, just counter I was talking to a doctor who runs this large medical practice in a hospital. And he said, you know, I'm appreciating in a whole new way. It's that cleaning staff. I thought, well, yeah, you know, if you're a surgeon, like you'd rather have like a really clean operating theater, you know, but we can just be in this fog of indifference. And so in either case, a lot depends on what we do with our attention. Are we only doom-scrolling? You know, and it's not to say there's not terrible things. There are terrible things.

But is that all we pay attention to? Or are we stuck in that middle place of not even noticing others? Or can we consciously turn our attention to seeing the good? And sometimes people don't like that. They think it's phony or, you know, but it's really not. It's just giving a little airtime to something that is also true and doesn't, doesn't reach us usually. And so if we pay attention, I think we will see these are not just outliers, you know, they are coexisting to the really terrible things. And we can, we can get a lot of hope from looking at them.

Indifference. It's worse than anger, isn't it? Is indifference the worst thing? I mean, it kind of is, you know, because you're really denying the humanity of somebody or it could be an animal. You're just denying their aliveness. Yeah. When you see a lion eating something, it's indifferent. They look on a lion's eyes when it's eating anything.

It's absolute. It's not thinking like I'm killing a mother. When you look, wow, indifference. Yeah. That's, that's it. It's so intro. What do you think about this? That the internet, when it connected us, you would think that it would be, it would do the opposite of indifference.

How ironic is it that something about just the massive amount of data that we're getting produces a state of indifference. Is indifference the same thing as paralysis? Is indifference, do you think, a form of freezing? I do think that. And I think it is, you know, again, it's the overload, you know, it's like the way people have always said that. We said that if you hear that three people died in a tornado and you hear their stories and that's different than, you know, 12,000 or because it's just a number. And once it's a statistic and we lose touch with that, it's too much, you know, we just can't take it in. And so I think we, we need to, it's almost like if you're going back to Bell Hooks, if you see your whole life as your creative medium, you know, and that's where your activism is.

And so what, how many hours are you going to spend, you know, like doom scrolling or just fixed on your, you know, you've got a kid, you know, like, would you just ignore him? In order to, you know, doom scroll a little longer or, you know, probably not. I saved my doom scrolling for late at night. Sharon, we need to come up with a term here. Doom scrolling is great. What's the opposite off the top of your head? Can you think of something to call it? Ooh, I don't know.

Something about the good. Good scrolling. That's not that good. Joy mining. Joy mining. Oh, very good. Doom scrollers versus joy miners. Because, yeah, I love that.

I love that because that would be another form of activism. That is the thing I've thought of as I'm looking at the, what is I hate? Watch Fox News, which my wife and I unfortunately do is we hate watch Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. We hate them, but we turn it on and we watch and we glare and we shake our heads. And it's like, I begun to realize like that's exactly what they want. If there was something in the world, if there was like evil in the world, really it wouldn't ask much of you except to keep looking at the darkness, right? That's all it would want.

It wouldn't care if you looked at the darkness and hated it. If you looked in the darkness and rejected it, it doesn't care. It just wants you to keep looking like some horrible, horrible, attention-starved beast. But, whoa, isn't it addictive, Sharon? Isn't it addictive? Isn't it like the greatest drug of all time? Snorting big lines of terror and fear. It really produces a kind of interesting high.

I've applied the mindfulness training I've gotten to the feeling. It's not like we're Doom-scrolling and feeling pain. Like in the same way you say deconstruct anger. What's the feeling of Doom-scrolling? It's a specific weird fear-gasm or something. It's a complex feeling we're getting as we are trying desperately to dig up as many horrible events in our phone as we can before we go to bed. What do you think that feeling is that's gluing us to it?

I have a belief, so I'm not sure it's true, but it's true for me. Which is that certain things are more activating trauma for each of us than other things. For me, I have this in the book too. I have some reference to it. Because my childhood was full of secrets, I have a very, very visceral reaction to thinking people are lying to me. And it goes in deeper, it's more crazy making than almost anything. I saw pretty quickly that there are certain things I just shouldn't be...

It's not ignoring, I'm not suggesting ignoring them, but there's certain things that I shouldn't be devoting a lot of time to because it was going to hit that very place. And I think something I've seen, which I always have a hard time putting into words, but something I've seen in myself as I've grown through the years and changed, is that it used to be that when there's a certain feeling like life's falling apart, this chaos, this confusion, it's something awful and pending. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it's coming.

Then something in me would settle and think that's what life should feel like because that's what it once felt like. And I've seen over time that that feeling, oh, this is right, that's gone. Or that's very different than it used to be. And I think, oh, that's probably a really good sign. Life should not feel this way, especially for a child, but for anybody. It should not feel this way. And so I don't have that same kind of magnetization toward those rehashes.

Like, let's hear the recounting of a hugely chaotic thing that's full of deceit and you sit there because you think, oh, that's what life should feel like. Home sweet home. It's like a little time travel back to your childhood if you're like us, a little journey into the past. I get it. I love it. That's brilliant, Sharon.

That is it. That's what it is. So many of us didn't have a little house on the prairie childhood. That's just the truth of the matter. That's right. That's right. And so this appeals to all of us. I get it.

Wow. Sharon Salzburg. I don't know how I got so lucky that I get to have these conversations with you. But I am so grateful to you for your association. And God bless you for writing this book. This is really one of the, this is going to be, this is a big one. And I love you and thank you for your very generous time. Can you tell folks how to find you?

And you mentioned that you, are you still taking students? Are you still, how could someone if they, you know, the people in my community, we have a weekly meditation. I always say, I am not a meditation teacher and I don't say that in a humble way. I'm literally not a, I'm not, I'm a podcaster, but I always recommend finding one. If people wanted to connect with you in that way, is it possible or what would be the steps to do that? Well, you know, I have a website, which is just Sharon Salzburg.com.

And, and I think more than thinking, you know, people could work with me individually, which is kind of a lot of people, but I'm happy. I'm going to invite myself to your weekly meditation in your community. You know, I'm happy. I've been wanting to ask you, I've been dying to ask you, God bless you. And I'm like, I'm, there's no way I'm asking, I'm asking Sharon Salzburg to be, to come drop into the meditation, but God, I would love that. Of course I will.

I'd be so happy to. Thank you. You should get counseling from your friend, Ragu, who asks me for things all the time. He never hesitates. I literally thought I'm not Ragu. Sharon, God bless you. Thank you. I will have all the links for people to pick up a copy of your book and to connect

with your website. I just really am grateful that you're in my life and thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's so great to see you. Great to see you too. Hare Krishna. That was Sharon Salzburg everybody. Thank you so much, Sharon, for being with us.

Definitely check out her book, Real Change. It is incredibly good and dive in, man. Take mindfulness, the gateway to insight, the IMS online course, October 27th to the 30th with Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzburg and Andrea Castillo. All the links you need to find that are going to be at DuncanTrussell.com. Thank you to our noble sponsors, Blue Choo Fight Camp and Express VPN for sponsoring this episode of the DTFH. And most importantly, thank you for continuing to listen to this podcast.

I love you all so much. Don't forget our freak out challenge, generosity. I'll see you next week. Until then, Hare Krishna. Next stop, JCPenney. Family get-togethers to fancy occasions, wedding season two. We do it all in style. Dresses, suiting and plenty of color to play with.

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