Duncan Trussell Family Hour - 588: Teijo Munnich

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

Teijo Munnich, wonderful meditation teacher and certified Soto Zen Priest, re-joins the DTFH! You can learn more about Teijo and the Great Tree Zen Women's Temple on their website, GreatTreeTemple.org. Original music by Aaron Michael Goldberg. This episode is brought to you by: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/duncan and get on your way to being your best self. Brickhouse Nutrition - Visit TakeLean.com and use promo code DUNCAN at checkout for 15% Off your first order!

Hello friends, it's me Duncan and this is the Duncan Trussell family our Podcast and today we have a wonderful guest Tejo Muneck. She was my very first Meditation teacher when I was a student at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina I took classes in Buddhism with her and I interned at her temple which basically meant I cleaned the temple and I interned at her temple, which basically meant I cleaned the temple and I did a lot of meditation. She's a wonderful meditation teacher and something I love about her and I love about Zen is that it focuses on the very simple basic aspects of meditation practice. I'm somebody who likes to start at the end of things.

When I first tried to learn piano, I didn't wanna do the scales. I wanted to immediately be a high level, ragtime pianist. That never happened and it's never going to happen probably for me because ragtime is really hard to play but the only time I I really started making progress when I was trying to teach myself piano is when I focused on the scales, the very basics, the very simple, boring, seemingly mundane basics of piano, where my hands go on the keys, how I'm supposed to sit on the piano bench and just practicing,

practicing the scales over and over and over. And the more I've done that, the better I've gotten at piano, though I still can't play ragtime. Similarly, when it comes to my sloppy, laxed, daisicle meditation practice, the less that I've focused on the possibilities that we all know about when it comes to meditation, enlightenment, launching your soul out of the back of a slit in your head, astral projection to let the the walking through walls, creating a kind of glowing aura of love around you that entrances and excites everyone, getting really good at sports because through meditation you've learned how to pull yourself into the present moment. All that stuff, the less I think

about that stuff and the more I work on my posture and a consistency when it comes to my meditation and my whatever books I might be reading about Buddhism or whatever spiritual path I'm interested in to the less that other stuff seems to matter and you realize baked in to the basics is the entire thing from the least complex to the most mystical. So this is a conversation about that. One of her students has to really wonderful question that led to this back and forth about the basics, the Buddhist precepts, the posture.

And so I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Plus, there's one of the funniest spiritual jokes I've ever heard in it that involves a fox. I won't ruin it for you. So stay tuned. Tejou Munich is here with us. First, the usual, I am headed back out on the road after a couple of weeks break.

You can see me live at the Spokane Comedy Club in Spokane, Washington. That's the second of November to the fourth of November. I'm also going to be in Salt Lake City, the 17th of November to the 18th of November after that. My last date of the year is going to be in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Comedy Zone. Won't you come? I hope to see you out there. Also subscribe to the Patreon. You'll get commercial free episodes of the DTFH access to a thriving, beautiful, powerful, erotic, romantic, intellectual, philosophical society

of geniuses. I ran out of adjectives, all right? It's patreon.com.com. For slash DTFH, won't you sign up? And now everybody, welcome back to the DTFH Tejo Munich. All the links you need to find Tejo and connect with the Great Tree Temple in Asheville, North Carolina will be at DuncanTrustle.com. Welcome Tejo Munich. and love you well, about how we feel. It's the ducking truss of the apple, that's the tail of the apple.

That's the tail of the apple. Good morning and welcome to Great Tree Sand Wimble's Temple. This morning we have to speak to to speakers in conversation. But before we introduce the speakers, I would like to read a Dada statement. In Buddhism, in practicing your share of their understanding of the teachings and practice, it is offered freely as the practice of Dada Paramita.

Dada is a polyword that means generosity or to give freely, and this practice is done without expectation of getting something in return. This is a spirit of speaking about the Dharma. Other ways to practice Dhamma is to offer support to those who share the teachings, the support places of spiritual practice, and to aid without judgment or expectation when opportunities arise. Those who share the teachings at great tree do so on a Dhamma databases. They support their practice by giving more to you can't and don't okay and do you have a place that you would like to go to for you?

Oh no no great tree temple. Then you can go to greattree temple.org and follow the donate path. Are two friends who are in communication and conversation today are Doug and Trussel. Doug and Trussel is a comedian and a host of Doug and Trussel family our podcast and the co-creator of the Midnight Gospel and the Reverend Tadio Muni is founder and abyss of great trees and women's temple and disciple and Dharma heir Adhanin Kabegari Wojshi. Welcome to Bono Verde! Good morning. Good morning. Or why did you do one Lord's name? Okay. I think we're wrenched. Great. Great. So I want to start by asking Lorna to ask the question that she asked me to ask you. Cool. We've been studying in our practice period of book,

live and nursing, call and be out right, and it deals with the presets. I know you've come from a different Buddhist background, and I was wondering about your thoughts on the preset. set. But no, my fantasy regarding the precepts is that they spontaneously would happen. I mean, this is a fantasy. You know, spontaneously, you would just sort of be so in the moment. And in the fourth moment, which is something I'm just learning about now, my teacher is teaching me about that whatever emerged would fall within the precepts. And in the meantime, I think of them as a sort of outside and situation.

So because I am not in, I don't have any kind of stabilized experience of emptiness, that comes and goes, and waiting those moments, I do think that there is some kind of spontaneous adherence, or I wouldn't even call this adherence, a natural sort of way of being in the world. And you can see from that natural way of being how these precepts would appear in some written form. So I think it's a great thing when you're not there to have that to lean into. And also that I've noticed that

when I'm not, when I'm doing things outside of the precepts, which I hardly ever do, hardly ever. I am, I noticed that it tends to create instability. Chaos creates obstacles in between me and the next time I find myself in that place. So I think they're also swimming lessons in a place. So I think they're also sort of a way, like, swimming lessons in a way, so as not to create so many ripples. Create a lot of ripples when you're outside of those things. I guess that's my answer.

Can't you know anything else to follow up on? I guess the only other thing that I was curious about was smile to that and Buddhism handles the presets and teach you the presets. I think that it is a non expert into bet and Buddhism and a I have a really wonderful teacher. And when we work together, he says, we do this in real time, meaning that even though I would like to get

some advanced transmission or a, I don't know, magical powers or something, unfortunately, he works with me where I'm, not where I'm at is still, that's facing working on posture. You know, that stuff, you know, and I've been there for years. So I guess that's, so just so you know, I'm no expert on Audrey on a Buddhism at all. And so, but if I had just from my layman sort of thinking about it, I think that within

this form of Buddhism, there is a teaching regarding holding both sides of things simultaneously, both sides of things simultaneously. So that on one level, you could say everything perfect, all armic activity, has within it an awakening quality. And if you want it to break every single precept and go just to hog wild, you could hear that and think, great, this means I can go doing anything I want all the time and then tell myself, this is my practice. And I, you know, I actually asked, this isn't an answer about the bad version of it, I asked

to, I don't know, Rochie, or no, Sharon Salisberg about this. Anyway, Sharon Salisberg, because I've been really leaning into this idea of like, I don't, you know, it's all, it's all teaching. So this is a Westworld was out. And I would like, because it's a cowboy robot, sci-fi, I would get whiskey, drink whiskey, and watch Westworld fantasizing that I was some kind of robotic cowboy. And I share in Salzburg, this is a practice, right?

I mean, I'm sitting, I'm like in the moment watching the thing, and I think a response was it's a practice, but you're practicing the wrong thing, which I found to be a wonderful answer. And I needed that. I'm not at the place where I think that I am skillful enough to do anything I want to. That just doesn't work out for me. So I need some kind of So I need some kind of orange cones up around me right now. But I would think that if you were advanced up and theoretically, anything, any activity, anything that you were doing wouldn't have some sort of boundary around it.

Or this is good, this is bad, This is right. This is wrong. But it would be all part of just this uh moment or experience. Again, that's theoretical. That's the right. I've tried. I could tell you this. I've tried really hard to do the tantric thing and really like trick myself into thinking that smoking cigarettes and getting hammered was some sort of spiritual attribute. And just doesn't really seem to hate me to a good place. Over time, it just doesn't. I wanted to. Oh gosh, I would love that. But unfortunately, it doesn't. It just seems to me just like, what is it?

Hold on one second. I have this on my piano. What the? This is Pima Chodronodzhong cards and this one I think is the one that I dislike and need the most, which is first train in the preliminaries. First train in the preliminaries. I got to, that's where I got to stay. There's these other stuff, this really high concept, lifetime or lifetime of practice stuff?

And it's so, if you could see how, like my karma is to not first train in the preliminaries, my orientation is to go to the very furthest reaches I could find and then work backwards. That's how I'd answer that one. Thank you. I was thinking as you started talking that pretty much that's what Lohan's and she talks about it too that he says that it reaches a weight and to in her remains and to dependance the cap breathed pre-sales That really I think that's a helpless sauce on her sitting up push I'd yeah, and again, again, never lose that again and I'm back. We're just those moments like he's fair. Yeah, we're just those moments, like he's saying. And then the book that we're reading, we're reading being upright by around the Andersville right now.

Even now, he seems, and he's doing his usual. Oh, talking about, he's making commentsary on Logan's commentary on the pre-shouts. We're on the pre-set on the Gowen commentary. And E, what I keep noticing, and other people who are worrying is none, people who are real, well, well, and while in comment on this too, is that it keeps find back to the real breaking of the precepts is being sausage. In other words, not taking that relationship

with other forms of reality and see, I feel it all now recognizing that. And our recognition is not an intellectual recognition. That's the problem. It's intellectual kind of in retrospect. Right. Yeah. And so when it's happening, you know, until we become from an illness with that experience, then we don't.

We don't have the awareness that went out the when it's you know that that not judging that thing. We judge that experience that we have and one this or emptiness we judge it as not real because it's not familiar and when it becomes a more familiar when we've done more meditation, then we start to just accept it as reality. Yes, yes, yes. This episode is sponsored by Better Help. My friends, meditation is a wonderful way to understand your mind, to become familiar with the wild, chaotic, maniac monkey skittering around

inside your skull cavity, whispering and yelling strange thoughts, sending bizarre compulsions out into your body and basically rattling the cage of your consciousness non-stop. But for me therapy really got down into the deep dark foul, festering, cemetery of my past and helped me exume some things that needed to be exhumed and it created a profound change in my life. And actually has helped my meditation practice. The two go really, really well together. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and

switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Make your brain your friend with better help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Duncan today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help h-e-l-p dot com slash Duncan. Thank you better help. And I think that what's interesting when people hear things like pre-sabs or, I don't know, commandment, so over any kind of rules set around spirituality, there's a habitual like cringe that happens where you interpret that as a place where a lot of shame or guilt or self pruning can happen. Whereas, I think that what you're talking about, the sort of ground of where these precepts

come from, is as wild as wild can be. It's a completely undemasticated, untamed, unbridled ground. Well, it's laughing with my wife because we realize that our baby, our new baby, is wild. Like this is a wild as you can be as a human, like not capable of like movement, gain control, arms, legs, but this baby is outside of any kind of precepts, any kind of do this, do that good, bad, purely in the moment, and purely wild. purely in the moment and

purely wild. There isn't a st- I don't the baby isn't questioning herself When she wants milk she wants milk when she's crying. She's unhappy when she's laughing Something is funny to her and it reminds me of this loud and Wainwright song be careful. There's a baby in the house and the line goes be, there's a baby in the house. And the line goes, be careful, there's a baby in the house. And a baby is better than smart. And so this is what you're talking about outside the intellect. Better than smart. We're talking about something that the intellect is within.

So I think maybe that's what they're getting at with this sort of, you know, for me theoretical spot or zone where the precepts become a spontaneous quality of life versus an initial imposition. And I see how it brings me to a question I wanted to ask you, but how in the and the my first earliest days of practice with you, you're my first Armitie, Shirtasia. How it is purely intellectual because you're reading this stuff. You hear you, you know, you're taking a class with you, you're he, you're studying it.

You're reading these things and your mind is creating an approximation of, oh, this would must be emptiness or this must be what they're saying here. This must be what that is. And if you have more than an academic interest and you want to start practicing because you have this sense of like, I'm not sure that I'm really touching anything here other than simulating something mentally. And then you get these little glimpses when you start applying some of these, hopefully all the precepts to your practice or just having a practice. And then it does, but then it all starts making sense. But in retrospect, you know,

that is so frustrating, by the way, the retrospect part. Those that are under question? Oh, my question for you is, can you, sorry, I forgot the question part. You're initial, when you first start practicing, versus now, can you talk about maybe some intellectual ideas you had regarding Dharma, Dharma practice, and any of those that changed over time? Some preconceived notions regarding Buddhism that have shifted over the course of your practice.

Well, I could say that I didn't exactly know that it was Buddhist when I started with my teacher. I was just kind of drawn to his energy. So I do exactly how many preconceived ideas about Buddhism. It wasn't that interesting. It was just natural. But one thing I drew around of that, I there, it's clear thought, was that if I just learned all the forms that I wouldn't have to do anything else.

And when I started at a certain point, was that I was very attached to the forms and to the de-gel of the forms to the point where you saw I did something that wasn't correct. My body will just react. And so that kind of, and then I then that recognition of how I was attached to the forms also made me realize how I, you know, I was a whale kind of say, well, as long as we'll do it all, the word, you know, follow that, to follow the form. And to some extent, I mean, that's true, you know, because in dance, that's certainly true. But there's also kind of a spirit behind it, that I'll, I mean, you can't, you can't just feel I all the more.

Right. And maybe that's, you know, when you stand early and you have to hold both sides or something like that. He's all, I want to see what both sides does to me and I figured later on, I'm certain that he already probably meant things that were pleasant for him wasn't, I don't exactly wish him that, but my idea was a reaction, reaction was a relative reaction. That's what I was trying to get at, relative and absolute reality, that sort of an absolute

reality situation, no precepts, relative reality precepts, you know, somewhere in there we need pre, if I'm everything, I don't know where the precepts come in. I don't even know where the, with it, I don't know what it would be like to be everything. Absolute reality. But it find like deep and relative reality. And I'm sitting in the steam room at my gym and someone's yapping, I'm sorry, if this is completely unrelated,

but I really don't like it when people talk to me in the steam room, there's no rule. But I don't like it. And talk to me and see him around, there's no rule, but I don't like it. And so it was the one that they're yapping about, like their biggest real estate deal. And I'm just trying to not pass out. There's a part of me that gets so embarrassingly irritate. You know, so, so, and you feel like,

you just feel yourself right on the precipice of making a horrible mistake. Because really, you're going to silence somebody you can binge press, 400 pounds in the steam room. I was not going to go for you. You know, when you feel that moment, I'm like, they stop. This is a quiet place. It's so relative reality. I need these precepts. I need some kind of map. I'm not naturally a generous selfless kind of person. That just doesn't come naturally to me. Compassion does not come naturally to me. None of this stuff comes naturally to me. So I need just basic, like, simple, simple, something to refer to in those moments.

You know, that's relative reality. That's what I meant. So maybe, and go back to that earlier question, maybe there is this possibility of holding both of those spaces simultaneously or something. I don't know, but I usually pinwheel in between the two. Well, you know, as I was talking about the warms I was thinking at the same time, you know, that they are told in the use list. You didn't know that.

Yeah. Like a dance for everybody who moved together, having a form. And then we went together and we just experienced that and pointing to Trion, I don't know if you can get him, Joe, I don't know if you can get him, you can get him. See, there's a vast, he was out in the alley, what ran, and we experienced the five day ritual

of precess soundbari, renewal and recingular decadence. There were hundred and eight people in the space doing it together. And, you know, we all had our stuff that we were supposed to do at, but to the big times, you know, you come about born, and now everybody was like wanting to do a ride

and everything. But at the end, a product was that we were all moving together. And then experience our end of repentance, even in just a realm. And it wasn't just human beings. It was like all the beings in the room, you know, but certainly like we, we have divided beings that we, yeah, that we didn't even know existed if I were beyond the, beyond the townfall, you know, of course we'd run back and ask beyond, I still feel actually nice, but to know, to have those forms really, a cannon bring us to, uh, can

move us to another place. These rituals can actually, uh, lift us up and, um, can take us to another place. These rituals can actually lift us up and he can take us to an invite space so that our line becomes clear of her moment. Yes. The first time that I did this particular fine date on jupiah, it's called a precept ceremony, that one of the speakers said to us, well now you have what part of the ceremony is your pencil serial letting go, the stuff we really don't want to do. And he said in the side, you know, and he said, so now you've sentenced it's in your clear of all your dad via karma. But he says probably you're going to go outside and immediately.

Yes. And I go, no, I'm going to go to a real pay attention. And sure enough, for me, it wasn't five minutes outside, and I found myself. Yeah. You know, so it happens you're quickly, but at the same time, the way awareness was somewhat different. I was thinking, oh, yeah, I'm doing this now. Yeah.

Which in the different than being in the Asian, I think you might out. Or it's all maybe I shouldn't have done that. Or I'm right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, yeah, you can... I understand. I understand. You know, I think there are these little mini heart breaks in Buddhism. I don't mean like, but there's, I don't know any other way to put it in these little mini heart breaks because you do. So here are these forms. You're working with these forms. Hopefully a teacher.

And you go through these moments of like, you're there, you're there. This is it. It isn't an intellectual. There it is. Oh, this is real. It's not just some academic nonsense or some archaic, anything. There's a reason it's been around as long as it has. And it's such a joy, a legitimate joy. And of course, you would connect

that to the forms because if you weren't doing these forms, there's no, if that does happen, it happens, at least for me, in some random moment, and you don't even know why or what it is, and then you forget about it. And so the attachment to the forms for me, but comes very sentimental. My attachment to you, I mean, I think, I bet you don't even know how much I think about it. And so the attachment to the forms for me, but comes very sentimental. My attachment to you, I mean, I think I bet you don't even know how much I think about you. My first star, my teacher, I think about you all the time. My attachment to David, my teacher, it's attachment. It's a loving it's attachment, but it's attachment. And then you remember, jeez, they, they're, they're, I don't think they're immortal. What happens when they're not here anymore?

And then that's a bummer. That's a bummer. And then, but then, but then, you know, my first introduction to the Heart Sutra was a sashine. We said, and I was not ready for it. There you are, you know, and that we're droning, chanting, way, reading the art sutra. And within that seems built in a dissolution of the forms. And I don't even think I understood why it hit me so hard. But now, yes, I don't want to lose the form. I don't want to lose the structure. I don't want to let go of it.

I'm barely, barely understanding it at all right now, and the idea of letting go of all of that is something about it when I'm up at my head is really heart-free. So I understand the attachment to these things, and why someone could get incredibly attached to the forms for their entire practice, their entire life. It was meditating in the woods once. And he had this obvious realization. Buddhism doesn't own meditation.

This has been around from before the word Buddhism existed. This is something outside of even Buddhism. And it was nice to realize that, but then also kind of weirdly disappointing. I want this is our zone. And then you realize, this is everybody's zone. This is everyone's in that. I don't know why. I mean, that hits me the wrong way, which is lame.

I don't wanna let go. Like suddenly you begin to let go of all the relative reality stuff in a healthy way and then out of the blue, the next trick, it's thrown at you, yeah, but you're gonna have to let go of all the relative reality stuff in a healthy way. And then out of the blue, the next trick, it's thrown it is yeah, but you're going to have to let go of Buddhism to you know. No, no, what? I don't want to want to sit in. Why it all do got. What's that?

I see you all doka. What's that? I see the old doka. Yeah. I was thinking walk over when you said, um, You know, you have that experience you just kind of there and I know remember exactly you said it a little bit more clear, but you know that experience of just being present with everything And you say oh my gosh everything is just flow and it was on, you know, but I remember something I cut a gear and roshies that they made me think about how, you know, by the time we noticed that we're there, you know, it's all right? We're already attached to the air and asking ourselves,

oh, how did that get here? And what one chin I didn't just stay here? Yep. That's it. That's it. And there you go. It's a you know, I watch my kid at swim class. He's learning to float on his back. It reminds me that his like he will in the beginning, you can now do it. But in the beginning is, you know, you had to calm them down. This is they don't this is water, man. This is way bigger than the bathtub. And they don't know you can float if you're a lax. And yeah, the moment he starts loading, he's like, I'm doing it and then down you go into the water. You know, it's just like that. And then if you don't

have some way, then once you're in the water again, you're like, oh, then you could panic and you're not going back on your back again you know and and every single early Contact with what we're talking about here was milliseconds milliseconds before oh wow This is it. I'm there. Baby. I did it. This is what they were talking And then you're just it's gone. Just gone. I'm there baby. I did it. This is what they were talking about. And then you're just it's gone. Just gone. I'm gonna write a wall. I don't know. I'm gonna talk about this in the podcast.

I can't wait to yap about this one. When we were at it, a lot of stare at one time. We slept in tents, you know, a spree at Premature to a roadside. And he now, a little one-room cabin. And in this is a one-room cabin. He had a jaffron, he's bathed up that somebody had bought for him. Now we didn't even have, runny water, we had to heat the water down out the, I'd the kitchen and take it up to his cabin. So I ordered him to still this thing. I was like, I really big deal. But one day it was talking about,

how after, you know, because we had a long days, we'd get out, we'll work out him in the morning and go to bed at like 9, 30 or something. And just go all the way all day. And so he said, he, somebody had prepared his bath for him and he went down to the bat. He looked out the window and there was the load. And he thought, wow, this is perfect.

And he said, I need to write a poem. And then he said, I need to write a poem. Result is too much. He said, ah, this is perfect. It's too much. Yes. Thank you, Brick House nutrition for supporting the DTFH. You've heard about those weight loss injections that produce incredibly fast results, right? They work by lowering glucose, reducing fat and curbing appetite.

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Let's get you started with 15% off and free rush shipping. Visit takelean.com and enter Duncan. That's promo code Duncan at takelean.com. Stapents have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This project is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. And it's not a substitute or alternative for care from a healthcare provider. Obviously! Thank you so much, Lean! I need to write your poem, Rizal, it's too much.

He said, Ah, this is perfect. It's too much. Yes. Yeah. I mean, gosh. Imagine if poems became sentient, you know, the greatest poems. I don't know. Paradise Lost or something. Realize it was Paradise Lost. And then suddenly tried to start writing poems about being Paradise Lost. The ruin and heart poem.

That sounds good. A little too far out of me, doc. I'm sorry. I mean, but you know, you just, yeah, I'm sorry. That's the problem. I just, you know, saying and I didn't quite follow that. Well, I mean, in that moment, you know, there is someone who's in the weave, you know, the thing and the, that, a perfect, beautiful, you described it so like I'm gonna see it. You know, and then this instinct or impulse to like try to make it better. I'm gonna prove it

somehow. Even if it is generosity, which I think in his mind, it's he's not thinking like, I'm gonna write a poem so everyone says I'm a great poet. He's so inspired. I want to share this somehow. Yeah, I didn't get on. Yeah, I remember when he was talking about it, I was thinking, oh, good, he brought a bomb about it. Baby, yeah, right. Right, yeah, yeah. And maybe there is a way.

Maybe there is a way to have those mind moments and still be there in the bathtub looking at the moon and not have the whole thing You know spiral off into some mental Confabilation maybe there is a way I think there would be a way where them whatever the the thoughts Become part of the scene itself and there isn't that disconnect I think there it would theoretically would be a way but for me, it's just like, no, it's like waking up. You know, it's like waking up in the wrong way

or something or going back to sleep. It's kind of alluded I'm trying to say, but you wake up from a dream, you know, and about to sleep. You're learning about the poem, by show, by showing, and about to sleep. You're learning about the poem by show, or a poem by show. And by show, lived out in our counting the woods outside out. And anyway, every day used to go to a chair in the tree

and at each area, you see, just look forward to the Jerry Caesar. And in one day, he went to the wheels of box out in the tree. And he said to the refox, hey, what are you doing in my tree? I was like, tree. Box said, well, when makes corn you? He said, I'm going to show on a great poet, and he said, so, so. And he said, anyway, he said, everyone knows that box of their better poets than Pete. And so, and by show said, wow, wow, how do I really? And he said, yeah, and he's singing back, I'll tell you what, if you can write a poem that is as good as that,

it's exalted by us boxes. You can have all the cherries in that tree and all by the evening. And so it was about eight minutes through chances. So by show or a thought, so about Lady, nine a time to meet and by show was all many writing and writing and writing and writing and writing. And we finally have a belt, it's just the perfect one.

And he goes, we. He means the box from the box. Here's a column and he was like, wow, yeah, it's okay. Not that great. So by show, it was very sad. I think why how old my team worked out at it? Yeah, say anything. Anyway, back in the I'll say, yeah,'m better, but not afraid So then he goes home when he's raining or any or any and he cannot come all and it's time to meet Fox It's like every month whistle and he goes to meet the Fox By she's he came up think of I was trying to think of a poem and seeing the else there and just like the second before, it means the fox. He changed something and he said it. And I can't remember exactly how,

well, something like the lunacy followed the fox in the way and something. I don't remember exactly how it goes. And so the fox said, oh my gosh, it's perfect. You're rare po' it then. Then any fox thought I'd never heard so you can have a tear sheet. Well, my show said, well, we could share a tree

but I just wanted around one day. Well, was so great about this color. And he said, well, it had a fox in. Yeah, I want to take it back. And he said, wow, it had a fox in. And my show said, and then my show decided then box of words of great all I've had here. That's a winner. I love that. But you know, I mean, people that I up that I love about that. It's just how I like it points to just Well about that. It's just how night it points to just The moment he was really a little bit and he was really friend of and he saw in a box He saw the prop that all box wanted was to be Steve, right? Yeah, right

Yeah, yeah, I mean it reminds me there's a Dory heard about Chugum Trump rimpampage was with Alan Ginsburg. And Alan Ginsburg was marveling at the number of Dharma talks on Trump's schedule. I can not stop just teaching, teaching, teaching. And Ginsburg was, how do you do this? You know, I have to do all these poetry readings and it's annoying and I just, it's too much.

And Trumpa said to him, oh, well, you know, you don't like, you don't not. You don't like these poetry readings because you don't like your poems. And Ginsburg was like, what, what are you talking about, my poem, what, what are you talking about my poem? What, what are you talking about my poem? And Rampus says, why don't you write your poems on stage? Don't you trust your mind?

You know, and that, that, that's such a beautiful way of sort of pointing out the technical thing. I'm listening to this wonderful book on meditation right now because why we meditate highly recommended. It's wonderful. Simple for me, it's a simple thing, simple book, but it's really good. And yeah, the, the, they talk about near enemies and fower enemies, right? And so the near enemy is the one that you think is your friend, but is really getting in the way. And that is where you get to, to technical it and stand up comedy. It's when you get too attached to your jokes.

And you get on stage and you just do joke, joke, joke, joke, no spontaneity, not letting any no risks, nothing. And then you'll have a very dry set. And it will, maybe you won't make them laugh and maybe it will be a good show, but you'll get off stage and feel right. And then there's the moments where you're fully there, and you realize you're not doing material anymore. All the jokes you've been spending months and months

refining and getting funnier, they're out the window. But somehow you're doing better than you're doing with the jokes. This is the dream moment, you know, because it's hard to write and it's hard to revise. But when the thing starts happening, it's coming out of you. It's so beautiful and so exciting.

And then inevitably you're like, the next year, you're like, ah, forget my jokes. I'm just gonna go out there with my brilliant, and you bomb because you're trying to make the thing that spontaneously happen. You're being faith spontaneous. And then a genus who does a gesture and just spontaneity. Attachment of spontaneity. It is so so deadly and so easy to do. And it and what a path to laziness.

When she was all the fear, I was thinking as you were speaking, we set all those ears up, of reviving and writing and figuring it out. All those things led to that moment when you're on stage and you're not a triumph, he was in the end. Yes. It all kind of gets introverted Brandon and so you can't really not

not pay attention to that either. Well, I can't be that can't be ignored. You know, both I needed, but it's so easy to attach one right here or the other. Well, like, like you were talking beat the town to a spot to the end. It's a chill or cheerio. Yeah. It's, it's, it's spot to the end, it's a chiller theory. Yep. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's just, this is the, I get, you know, they talk about, in the old testament,

God builds some kind of weird gate or something in front of the garden of Eden, you can't get in there. There's paradise right there, but you just know there's no way to get in there. And it reminds me of that. It's like this beautiful, beautiful gate, you know, it's this beautiful or Nate sort of constructed thing that you've built to try to thing that you've built to try to evolve or advance yourself or become enlightened or whatever. And you just get so attached to that beautiful gate that you just don't ever open it. You never go through it. You just sort of remember always adding more gold mangels to it and weird little lightning bolts or whatever you put on your gate.

But you know, you never go through. We got a Bafik, Jean Nannis, Lelke, and I was thinking maybe we might have some comments from others. Should we go in the direction? Let's try it. Let's see if the same thing happens. That's time I'm terrified. Oh, no, I have a plan. Okay, cool last time we got invaded. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. The zoo bomb. Zoom bomb. That's what it's called. I know a real person now. It was wild. It doesn't have anything they want to comment or pay them? You mean Duncan and I could go on for days. I can. Oh my god.

Barely got started here. This is what happens when you're doing. I thank you. I've enjoyed your conversation a lot. I just want to go back to something Duncan said at the very beginning about just practicing your posture for years, you know, going back to the basics. And I immediately thought of the title of the book that we've been referencing, being upright and how that shows up as a metaphor also for the practice of like literally when you're sitting and you're leaning forward too much, you're kind of grasping or clinging or if you're leaning back, there could be some aversion also. And that just sort of pendulum

idea that you are talking about and just that it's impossible to perfectly sit upright or be upright in the metaphorical sense, like do everything right all the time. So the impermanence of kind of moving back and forth, however subtly or drastically that you're doing it, it's just noticing that. And in that moment, noticing where you are on the pendulum and making whatever correction you think you need to make at that time, literally while you're sitting or out in the world trying to follow the precepts. So, yeah, that just occurred to me and wanted to tie those things together. That's so cool. Thank you.

Wow. That is amazing. I love that. I never, you know, I. That is amazing. I love that. I never, you know, I've always thought when I'm slumping forward, I get sleepy. That's what I've noticed. But yeah, I can't, oh yeah, when I'm slumping forward, I'm that sleepiness, I guess, is an attempt to escape

into my sleep, but get out of here, you know? That's a gram of grass, I get that. And then leaning back. Yeah, that's when you're getting too tight. There's some weird aggression in the... Wow, that's so cool. I love that. I've never heard that before.

It made me think of a question for you, Tasia, real quick. What, it's interesting that there, what is the, and what's the part of ourself that knows? How to adjust? You know, how do we know that? How do we know, like, the, ideally, what is that part of yourself? What is that? Where you, you make these adjust, you're making these micro adjustments.

Where's that coming from? I need, it's coming from balance from me for looking for balance. Do you know what I am? Because one of the things that I noticed about posture is at how we, if one thing is a little bit off, down, everything gets off because we're trying to bring the balance, bring ourselves into balance, bring ourselves of the balance. Yeah. And you can see it, and then you look around the road,

too. I chased out the word here in our radio space for wallet. I can see a lot in people's little way that no people are dealing with their bodies. And in my own body, too, you know, we'll do some athletic, man-of-nation 90 valid standard technique. Our sheet change of valid standard technique, which is a body awareness.

I call it body Zen. Yeah. Because the awareness of noticing where we're holding and where we know it is where we're holding, then it can begin to undo it. We call we call that we do retreats at Sattarama and we call it the undoing of doing Wow Nenna now Zenu Jack Nia wrote the same you know and when you start to really know is those things in your body and undo those things in your body You start to see The teachings have more three-dimensional way.

You know, such a song in our head, it's our body lines. And so in Zeng in, so Jo Zan, and Doge in Zeng, he's laying out that he doesn't talk about. And any of them to do on recursion, just sit there, but you know, you're positive. How are you? No, so you're sitting. He gives very, as detailed as he gets about giving instruction, because instructions about how to sit over and that is where the emphasis of So Joe then ends.

I've always been thinking about, he said, just leave thinking alone. All right. Make him now thinking he's up. Wow. Wow. Yeah, I did. Lately, that is where my thinking mind is going. That was posture-related questions. Like, it's gone from these like high-minded questions. It's just sort of like, is my head supposed to be facing like be, you know, I have a Buddhist statue everywhere and they're upright. But then I for the longest time, I was like sort of looking down at an angle. That's not it, right? You're supposed to keep your head up. Like your eyes would face forward, but they're sort of looking down. Is that correct?

Yeah, I'm out of 45 to bring on. 45 to bring on. Yeah, there's not tradition to keep their eyes closed. I know. Yeah, I like the eye open thing, but yeah, this is the sick. It creeps into your over time, these weird things creep into the posture. You know, that's I think why group meditation, like what you're doing must be really good, because you don't even realize that you've you started angling your head down, you know, that you've gotten a weird habit. It's so easy to do. Well, a lot of these habits are things that we bring to our meditation practice.

And so we've already developed certain habits as we're growing up. Now when I used to teach, I used to teach my husband at a last-suring elementary school, so I had everything from preschool all the ways for junior high. And I noticed with the four-year-olds and five-year-olds that when they walk with their parents, you could see that they carry their bodies in the same way. The closest to your body is in the same way as their mothers and the boys carry their bodies in the same way as their daughters. So, you know, we pick up those habits at a very young age, carry them into our adults so that and we don't even know we've got cerebral body habits. Right. I'm going to deal with a lot of my body

doubts in order to be able to continue sitting because I was putting my back out from the way I was holding my body. Yeah, right. I could see that. Yeah, you know, like with my my lame meditation practice of 20 minutes or whatever, I could get away with a lot. But if you're doing the kind of sitting that you, you zen people are doing my goodness, you can't really mess around. You have to have a good posture. You're going to throw your back out. Yeah.

You mess up your body. If people do it by forcing their bodies to lean saying, rather than trying to figure out how to make the adjustment, we do the poor care of our bodies. You know, it's kind of a lot. Not just a cultural thing here. I mean, I think we're some chief fans.

Really? But anyway, and do you have something you were going to ask or say, yeah, I think a question, but I just want to say before I ask my question, that I've had the experience of doing those retreats with Tizhou and Meredith. And before doing that in my life, I've never done a long sashimi without coming out feeling really wrecked, you know, physically. And when Meredith was there, you know, noticing, he pins on time and helping them undo the band posture, that was going to give them problems. I came through the five or six days, and I felt fine. It was a real awakening. So my question was just a simple one.

You mentioned something about the fourth moment. Yeah. I never heard of that. So can you talk about what that is? Oh, OK. I'll try. And again, I'm not going to keep doing this, like beating myself up here, but it will, I mean,

I just feel ethically, I have to say, I misunderstand a lot of these things. And then I'm happy. And I feel like I speak with some confidence that makes this theme my day. And I know what I'm talking about. So please look into it. So yes, David was telling me about something Trump was talking about, which is sort of the three, three moments and I don't know if this is something Trump came up with or if this has its roots into betting Buddhism, but first moment passed

Second moment, future third moment present and so You're all you most people are hanging out, you know, first moment, second moment. You're thinking about something, you're up in your head, day dreaming about the past, or you're thinking about something that's around the corner and getting all anxious over that. And then, you know, when you first start practicing, you start learning about this third moment, the present moment, this is Ram Das, be here now. It's this, let's, and it's a almost a cult. These days,

you know, like being the moment, just being the now. But then if you've been hanging out in either the first moment or the second moment for most of your life and you do find the present moment, it's the best. Wow. You know, of course, your anxiety is going to go down your heart rates going to go down because you're not freaking out over something that Happen that you have you can't do anything about or something that you think is coming that Probably isn't and so there's this relief. That's what Trump starts talking about is this Where where you start thinking that the third moment. Well, that's it. I'm here. I've arrived This is what it is just right here. I've arrived. This is what

it is, just right here, and this moment. And he talks about this is actually it can be a kind of sand trap. The present moment can be a sand trap. It's the I think the description was like, it's so colorful. It's so bright. It's just this, you know, vivid. But then the fourth moment You know, vivid. But then the fourth moment is something that I think the present moment is hanging out in. And the fourth moment is just pure awareness. You're not in the present moment, you know, the first or the third. And then because I think the present moment, you get attached to that.

That's another thing you get super attached to it. You know, I even read, I don't know if this is true, Tejo, maybe you know if this is true, it's some monastery, there was a rule about going into somebody, like because the monks were getting addicted to that this nirvana state that I think it must be related to the present moment.

They were figured out, I don how to like have these extreme bliss moments and they were like, no, don't do you, you're, that's another trap. There's a, there's, there's another place that is not present moment first, first, second, third moment related. You know, Jack Cornfield, I heard him say, and, in Buddhism, God is lists. There's so many lists, man. But do you, that's how I understand it. It's something that isn't tethered to you, any of those first three moments. And so there's something liberating about it. Thanks for asking that, I still don't know what it is, but I didn't expect thinking about it.

Yeah, I never heard, you know, I, that's the first I'd heard of this. Maybe there's a fifth moment we don't know about. Maybe when it was still discovering. One of the things I was thinking was may in a, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a sense, you're a little, you wrote something called being time. And in that sense, the first and third of all wins were all B. Good saying. Well, yeah, right, because they had to be. And that, I mean, not so much than by the fourth

of the longings of that. There is no first and third of all, and it's all a say, it's all being down. I think that is a much better answer than the one I gave. Thank you. I don't know. Anyway, we're at the hour and thank you, Tom Ping.

Let's do it. Thank you. I thank you, everyone. I great your time. Well, thanks for the DTF, HF folks that are here. I just love these so much, Sager. Thank you so much. I can't believe I get to have personal conversation with you like this. I feel so lucky and grateful and thank you. I really

appreciate it. Yeah, well, thank you. You're the most famous person I know personally. You gotta get by. I'd spell. Well, I asked you about Marin. Man and Marin of this practice. Well, I asked you back, Aaron. May the merit of his practice, men who in their grudges, that all be belleted all be and bring peace on to bring peace.

Thank you. Thank you. My everybody, have a great day. You did. That was T-Show. Munich, again, it's great tree Bye everybody have a great day. You too. That was T-Show Munich again. It's great tree women's temple in Asheville, North Carolina. I hope you'll check them out.

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