Duncan Trussell Family Hour - Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: May 6, 2017

Recorded at the Ram Dass spring retreat in Maui! Duncan is joined by Buddhist teacher and author Sharon Salzberg.  We talk about love, enlightenment and the possibility that anonymous awakened beings are living today and shaping the course of history.

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Hello, my dear sweet, darling, glorious bubbles of sentient meat. It is I, Duncan Trussell, and you are listening to the Duncan Trussell Family Hour Podcast. This episode is a good one, friends. This is a true blazer, and I'm really excited to put it up. We've got Sharon Salzburg here with us today, and Sharon Salzburg is one of the most, I don't know, renowned, as a weird word to put in front of Buddhist teachings because Buddhism is so much about non-ego-related vocabulary, I guess, or not attaching medallions to people, but as an unenlightened person in this world.

I would give Sharon Salzburg multiple trophies because she is such an incredible teacher, and so down to earth, and has such a very simple, yet incredibly powerful surgical approach to getting people unstuck and dealing with just the day-to-day issues that all of us inevitably come into contact with, and that's what most of the really great teachers are good at. People who can levitate fruit, or teleport, or walk through walls, or they're not people who have some kind of extrasensory abilities, they're not people who have the stigmata, they're not people who can do magical acts.

Usually my experience has been that these people are the most down to earth and have dealt with the very things that all of us are dealing with, but have been taught how to approach them from different angles that many of us haven't thought of, and their ability to articulate that approach in a very simple, yet very usable way is what makes them teachers, and Sharon Salzburg, she's at the top of the charts, she blew my mind in this podcast, and it's really, I can't wait for you guys to hear it. I get really blown away by Buddhism, and by Buddhist teachers, because when they're teaching you, what you're experiencing is not just something happening in language,

but you're experiencing this strange ball of healing energy that is emerging from the past and has been transmitted from teacher to student, to teacher to student, to teacher, they call it the disciplic transmission, is one word for it, and whenever you get to come into contact with these beings, whether it's through a conversation, if you're lucky enough to have one with them, or through their writings, or through people who have met them, then you always get this, I can't explain it, but you always get this little magical burst of transcendent energy that they inject into you, and they use language as kind of the box that they store the energy in, as the capsule, or the membrane that surrounds the energy, but the words always become irrelevant

compared to the effect that the energy has on you, and in Buddhism, this is the dharma, the dharmic transmission, I guess is what they call it, I'm sure they have a lot of, I'm not going to, I always pretend like I know the names for this stuff, but I'm sure there's a name that they have for it, it's the very same thing that happens when you come across someone who really loves you, and you get that feeling of being loved for a second, it wakes you up to the realization that the universe isn't such a rough and tumble, dreadful, wretched, muddy, old place where everyone's just trying to get an extra punch in before the grim reaper drags them down into hell, you realize that in fact, in the universe, there are parts of the universe,

human beings, these compassionate spokes, and a whole different set of gears that runs a whole different kind of universe than the one that you might be accustomed to if you're somebody who tends to get lost and self-hate or hatred of others, or if you're someone who tends to feel despair or like you just can't do this shit anymore, and even if you could do this shit anymore, it's a kind of pointless endeavor anyway, because the whole goddamn thing is just a giant mound of festering pointlessness, and human beings are the flies flying around it and dining on the hopelessness as though there were a delicious steak dinner, when in fact, it's just a kind of existential shit that we're all buzzing around on, and that's one universe

you can get stuck in, and these teachers out there, like Sharon Salzburg, they're people who can sort of pull your head out of the toilet bowl, so to speak, and allow you at least momentarily to experience a universe that isn't one where you are soaking in shit water, and that's a very powerful and incredible thing that these people do, and I think that it's a beautiful and wonderful part of the universe, as beautiful and wonderful as sunsets, sunrises, as beautiful and wonderful as the smell of flowers, as beautiful and wonderful as rivers running through mountains, it's the very same kind of, you know what I was looking for there, natural beauty, that's what these people put out, they're human beings who have become possessed with a kind of natural beauty that

comes through their teachings, and whenever you get to catch a little taste of it, whenever you get to catch that smell of it, you get the same feeling that you get when you are out in the woods and everything's quiet, except for the wind blowing through the trees and the sound of the birds singing, and this sort of soaring expansiveness and hopefulness fills up your heart, and it feels like this terrible heaviness that you've been carrying around with you is lifted off momentarily, and in that moment of experiencing that kind of spiritual zero gravity state that these people allow you to or teach you to feel or open up for you, you regain the hope that you might have lost if you've been slogging through the muddy fields of delusion, which are so easy to slot to find

yourself stuck in, maybe hope's the wrong word for it, maybe what they do is they show you who you really are, which is you are the same thing that is a river flowing through mountains, you're the same thing that is wind blowing through a forest, you're composed of the identical quantum material that makes up all of nature, and nature is beautiful, nature doesn't make mistakes, nobody looks at a sunset and thinks, God, that sunset really isn't working hard enough today, you just think, wow, that's a beautiful sunset, look at the moon, no one looks at the moon and thinks, God, Jesus, it just really seems to have fallen off lately in the way that it's shining up there through the clouds, it used to be so much more connected with its moon-like

qualities, you just think it's a beautiful moon, and you're made of the same stuff, and these they're healers, I wonder, I don't think there's much of a difference between a teacher and a healer, and the healing that they do is by helping you just for a second come out of the amnesia that has caused you to forget that you are the sunset and the sunrise and the moon and the mountains and the rivers and the flowers and the muskrats, even muskrats, maybe you're not a muskrat, they're not so cute, I guess they're kind of cute, whatever it is out there, you're the same thing, you're just as welcome to this party as the most beautiful mountain and as the most, as the deepest, most refreshing river and as any other component of nature, you're just as welcome

to the party, and instead of moping around in the corner feeling like you don't fit in here, these teachers invite you to start dancing again, and I'm really grateful that they exist, and I'm excited for you to hear this interview, we're going to dive right into it, but first, some quick business. Today's episode of the Dunkin Trussell Family, our podcast is brought to you by Harrys.com. Harrys.com is a company that sells precision engineered razor blades and fancy razor blade handles and super nice shaving cream for about half the price of what you're going to pay if you go to one of those doom drug stores and wait behind a 16-inch plexiglass cage where the overpriced awful razors are sold for a manager to come and with shaking hands unlock it

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go to dunketrustle.com order shirts there also my sweet darling friends I am going on tour if you go to dunketrustle.com you can see that I will be doing live podcasts and these are going to be in Austin and Houston they're supposed to be one in Dallas they haven't I don't know if that's happening for sure but Austin and Houston on the 23rd of January and the 24th of January I'm going to be at the come and take it comedy takeover festival that's in Houston 24th and 25th and I'm going to be at the parish in Austin at the 23rd recording live podcast get tickets now because these shows tend to sell out don't put off getting these tickets um get them now why not dive into it just buy the tickets okay that's it those are the advertisements you don't have to do

any of this stuff I'm just happy that you guys listen at all and if you get annoyed with these advertisements do remember that you can jump right into the interviews you don't have to waste time listening to commercials that's one of the beauties of the internet which is allowing us to escape from the tyrannical corporate hypnotism that we all must inflict upon ourselves if we want to watch an episode of any tv show without downloading it or buying it from itunes so blah blah blah I love you guys I'm excited for you to hear this podcast uh today's guest uh is a renowned buddhist teacher she's the co-founder of the insight meditation society in massachusetts she's been a student of meditation since 1971 she's written numerous books the most recent being real happiness

at work meditations for accomplishment achievement and peace if you're somebody who is uh in entangled in a job and you're experiencing the the conflict and anxiety that goes along with being in any job this is a great book to read uh she is a contributor to the huffington post she's uh written other books such as real happiness the power of meditation a 28 day program love your enemies faith trusting your own deepest experience and loving kindness the revolutionary art of happiness you can find out more about her by going to Sharon Salisberg.com I'm going to have all the links at dunkintressel.com including the link to her latest book real happiness at work so now everybody please open up your heart heart chakras and send as much love as you possibly can

to wherever Sharon Salisberg happens to be existing in the time space continuum welcome to the Dunkin Trussell family our podcast Sharon Salisberg hi Sharon welcome to the Dunkin Trussell family our podcast thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to be on the show well thank you for having me um well it's a it's a real honor that you're here you're one of the uh most renowned buddhist teachers in the west I would say and uh it's very exciting for me to get to talk with you um just to get right into it I want to talk with you about dealing with anger because it seems like you have a real deep understanding of what anger is and how to handle it when it pops into your life okay well in uh in Tibetan buddhism

they say that anger is that which we pick up when we feel weak because we want to feel strong we think it's going to make us strong and uh within buddhist teaching in general there is a strength to anger that's admitted and spoken about um it's an energy and as an energy plays a very positive role sometimes it helps us make boundaries and have a sense of integrity like this is a violation this is beyond what I can tolerate um sometimes you know how sometimes the angriest people in the room are the most honest it's like everyone else is looking the other way or trying to pretend something isn't wrong and that angry person is saying look there you know yeah uh you know so there's just there could be an honesty to it and certainly an energy we're not

passive we're not complacent but it also can be so phenomenally self-destructive as well as of course destructive to relationships and so on they say that anger is like a forest fire which burns up its own support so it can leave us devastated and like a forest fire it can range really wild and and can leave us very far from where we actually want to be because there's also a sort of delusion in anger sometimes it's like if you think about the last time you're really angry at yourself however long ago that might have been and it's not usually a time where you're also thinking you know I made that terrible mistake and I did five great things that very same morning usually those five great things they are gone they have disappeared all we can remember what we actually obsess about

is that terrible mistake well they don't you the and that is true and you you know one thing that you uh mentioned in a talk that you gave is that thinking about those five things is like nails on a chalkboard it's a it does there's no emotional resonance especially compared to the overwhelming energy and frequency that comes from uh from from anger because it's such a powerful thing but the thing I this the thing that I'm confused about is anger comes that I I can't really do anything about the initial emotional burst that happens and from my rather lazy approach to meditation and mindfulness I can do a thing where the anger comes and I don't react to it immediately and I think oh look you're you're getting angry so now we're not going to react but it's that place I want

to talk with you about because in that kind of liminal spot between the feeling and when you decide how you're going to act this is the place that seems to give birth in in my life to not a compassionate place but more of a kind of phony place where uh it's like I'm angry but I'm going to act like I'm not and so I'm curious what what's the how do you authentically react to an emotion that and I know you you mentioned all these wonderful things that can come from anger my experience with it has been 95 percent of the time it's destructive so I well it is it is very destructive and I think that's an important point the reason I started with the kind of positive parts of it is because it's not that useful to condemn ourselves

and to think you know this is all completely screwed up there is an energy there and what we want to do is to be able to utilize that energy without being lost in either the the fixation of the anger like I'm just that mistake or you are just that person who did that thing or get get lost in obsession you know how we like to go over the list of somebody's faults and we just go over it and over it and over it and over it we don't even think of a new fault it's just like the same list yes but we go over it and over it and over it uh so a lot of our life's energy is is kind of wasted in in grudges and resentments and you know it's a very debilitating state so um it's really important to understand we want to capture that energy without condemning

ourselves for what we're feeling and without getting lost in the anger so that's the very delicate dance of my phone so I want to say what you described yourself as doing I think is very good and powerful it's not like a it's not like second best because we we cannot control what arises in our minds we cannot and it doesn't mean that when you get really good at meditation that anger will never arise it becomes more porous you know less solid seeming more like the cloud moving through the sky um but it still may arise and the kind of despair that we feel and the self-blame that we feel is really extra because uh you're not going to be able to control it but it's not going to matter in the same way so the first thing is to know what we're feeling

as we're feeling it not like 15 consequential actions later you know not after you've gone off to the computer and typed out the email and pressed send and not after you've um you know one of my favorite definitions of mindfulness is uh came from an article in the New York Times many years ago about a private program bringing mindfulness to a fourth grade classroom in Oakland California and uh there were two quotations in it that I especially liked one was they talked to one of the researchers and he said all day long we tell kids to pay attention but we never teach them how and then they asked one of the kids so the kids like in fourth grade he's like nine or ten years old they said to him what is mindfulness

what is mindfulness and he said mindfulness means not hitting someone in the mouth that's what mindfulness means and I thought great definition you know because what does that imply it means knowing you're starting to feel angry when you're starting to feel angry right you're that in touch you're that in tune with what's going on within and it also implies actually a kind of balanced relationship to that anger because if you just fall into it you get swallowed up you have no center you have no space from what the varying emotions that come and go are doing then you're going to probably hit a lot of people in the mouth and on the other hand if you hate the anger and you fear it and you you can't stand that it's there and you just get tighter and

tighter and tighter and then you explode and anything can happen so we talked about mindfulness is that place in the middle where you know what's happening you can recognize it you're not sucked into it you're also not pushing against it that's like the sweet spot right there yes it's quite magic so every time we feel that anger and we do not act on it it's a conscious choice it's not second best it's saying maybe you know that kid had a moment it's like you created some space with his mindfulness and what you could reflect you know I hit someone in the mouth last week didn't work out that well yes you know yeah let me try this let me try that but but I don't you know it's it's like what you're talking about and what many buddhist teachers are talking about

reminds me of the difference between fossil fuel and solar power and most many of us have learned to be fueled by anger and by despair and by the that either hating the self or loathing the self for not being able to control this stuff or loathing the people around us for the very same crime and so it's kind of like you're saying just install solar panels into your into your factory that used to burn the blackest of coal but it's the problem is is once I get the solar panels in I don't know how to run the gears I don't know how to work the machine I don't know how to in that space I don't know how to what to do after that because if I'm so addicted to either you know pointing out what someone has done that's wrong or or thinking oh Duncan you're just an

erotic asshole that I don't know the length this length I I don't understand how to do the dance that you're talking I can kind of hear the music I don't know the dance moves and to put it into concrete terms if I'm with somebody and they're doing doing something that's clearly obnoxious or threatening or or whatever and I don't let anger dictate the way that I respond to them then I feel completely lost at sea well that's why we haven't practiced right yeah that's that's why we have a path really truly because I mean of course everything you're saying I think is is totally accurate and it's why in a way it also takes a lot of courage to want to be different and sometimes that courage comes because we've really suffered you know it's like

there are anger is a very consequential emotion not the feeling of it but the acting on it you know people destroy a lot through uh through their anger you know the expression of their anger because it's very there's a quality in anger when we're lost in it not just feeling it but lost in it that's also kind of diluted you know we forget so much in that moment it's like um I sometimes tell this story about years and years ago uh when I was first doing email like the very first time and I was trying to do something and something went wrong in the relationship between my computer and my printer and just before then I was online and I actually got an email from somebody who said which was always very exciting and said something like can you tell me something about

what the problem with anger was being lost in anger and and I wrote to him and I said you know one of the problems with being lost in anger is that when we're lost in it we just put people in a box and then I got offline I was trying to do this project and that's when something went terribly wrong in the relationship between my my computer my printer and I got really angry and the first person I was angry at was my uh we called them we didn't even have the phrase it then like my computer assistant and I was really angry because I thought well uh you know he was in Hawaii on vacation and I thought he's never here when I need him he's like totally betrayed me he's gone off to Hawaii and then and I forgot in that moment well it was literally true which was that the reason he

was on vacation is because I had decided he needed a vacation and the reason he was in Hawaii was because I had gone to the airport and used my frequent flyer miles to get him a ticket to Hawaii it's like I forgot that yes in and just being lost in the moment and I also was really angry at myself like why can't you be the kind of person who can fix these things you never do these kind of things you know why can't you fix it and it was like in the meantime I fixed it you know but I hardly even took a moment to uh appreciate it you know and because I was just so locked in so then I got back up I fixed it I got back up into my chair and I wrote you know my thing and then I went back online and I saw that there was an email from my original

correspondent and he said I don't understand what you mean when you say that when you're lost in anger you just put people in a box so then I read to him and I said this is what I just did I put that guy in a box I put myself in a box and so that's the learning you know this is what anger really feels like it's not as strong we don't get as strong as we think we're going to get we don't have as many options when we're lost there that's the learning and we have to learn that again and again and again because then what happens is that you know someone is being obnoxious and there's all this stuff happening and you remind yourself I'm not wrong to feel what I'm feeling but I'm not gonna act on it right now I'm gonna take a breath I'm gonna maybe write out the email

and not press send right away but I'm gonna say to somebody I'll get back to you something like that but what if you're sitting in front of them or living with them or what if they're there is no so I'm good at that I'll get back to you thing I can really pull that off and if there was a way when I started feeling angry that I could vanish into some alternate universe and just look at flowers for a few hours and then appear back in the same second I'd be great but man you just you're you're right across from the person you're in that moment with the person in the small scale was someone in your family or someone you live with but in the big scale you know you're somebody in Ferguson staring at police officers dressed like Darth Vader who are

statistically very likely to kill you or at least more likely to kill you than most other things in your environment what about those moments because there's no nothing nothing's changing with the with them no matter how peaceful you get well that's true and you know I don't want to be glib about these things it's just that we suffer so much from not realizing we might have alternatives so with your family member you know a lot would depend on what the contract what's the understanding you know do you want to stretch the boundaries there are ways I mean it also depends how vulnerable do you want to be how much do you want to reveal because sometimes underneath the anger is sadness it's disappointment it's frustration it's grief it's guilt whatever and

fear and you might perhaps be in a relationship with that person where it's certainly a more authentic form of communication to say I feel uh really disappointed I was hoping for that card you know uh or you know because I wrote this book Real Happiness at Work it comes up a lot in terms of work you know and even though it's a little bit formulaic or feels weird you know to actually it's actually more useful to say you know I really needed that memo to come in by Friday and because it didn't um you know I'm not able to go on vacation and these 15 people are gonna have to work harder you know so I'm really disappointed I think this can't go on it tends to be more useful than you're an idiot you know yes you never get anything done you know but you may not in every

relationship want to be that vulnerable and reveal more of what's going on so that's a decision you know like uh in terms of family and sometimes there are a lot of surprises that happen in a really good way when uh you know when we can be more authentic in in those ways and at least we feel you know we don't feel that kind of regret afterwards like I just tried to destroy them I tried to damage them in in some way you know I said what I had to say I was clear and then in terms of Ferguson or some awful situation you know we don't have many models but we have some of people who with enormous courage um really got out there and it's the mistake that people perpetually make that non-violence means passivity and that you're just gonna uh you know take it

and it's really not I think if you ask many an activist um kind of living in perpetual outrage is too much you know it's too exhausting it's too debilitating it's like maybe we need the fuel of that outrage um to be active that's the energy right the energy of the anger but you can't just constantly abide in that environment because you're burnt out and so how is the sustained action really really performed you know how do we hang in there um it's like how can you be uh steady how can you be compassionate in a situation where it's not obvious you're gonna be able to fix it yes you know that it can make it all better exactly that is so that what you just said that's the root of the thing for me where where and I guess it

illuminates the fact that my whole practice is based on manipulation of my external environment which is pretty but because if it's not gonna get the thing I want then it's like well then why am I doing it really what's the point and yeah well it's not incredible like to have a really big picture of time and and not to be lost in the kind of ordinary frustrations that come because of our impatience like it's got to work out now yes not like not like if I'm gonna do this pause between reacting to whatever the thing is that you did then within the next 10 minutes I want you to transform into a completely different person there you go so it's it's actually it seems like what I'm really doing is just another form of aggression it's not even the thing it's just

I'm tricking myself into thinking that this pause that I'm doing is of any merit at all when it really is just uh waiting for someone else to be different well I you know uh let me try to cheer you up I think you're doing better than you think you're doing thank you I mean I wouldn't just miss it you know out of hand in that way because we you know it's step by step and even coming to the pause is a is a very big thing you know to understand the difference between what we feel and and how we respond how we act um that is a very big thing and then we just get wiser and and we have it's one of the reasons we actually need one another we need usually a sense of community um because these things are not always that easy to figure out all alone and like that moment and that pause

you know for somebody to say you know like you just said I thought I was really being cool and I you know I thought it was the kind of pause that opened up all this space but really there was a lot of expectation and there allows someone else to notice that about themselves and it's good right yeah it's a I understand the right I love the aspect of buddhism that invites you to not be in a hurry and I've heard various ways of describing how long we're here in this thing and that trying to suddenly become this ideal is just creating more of the same kind of reactions but sometimes it just seems so imperative to make decisive moves decisive actions I I know what you're talking about what what you're saying I can I recognize how powerful it is because it

when I really contemplate that idea of of uh not reacting to anger and and being in the moment and not for any other reason than to for my not to change the people around me it makes me feel like when I was a kid sitting at the edge of a high dive or something you know like this that it's terrifying it's terrifying and I know and I want to keep saying not just for me just because I don't want to seem sound like a coward I guess but I'm a comedian I'm friends with comedians and again and again and again I've heard from comedians if I stop being angry I'm done I won't be funny anymore I'm not going to have anything to talk about on stage I'm not going to be able to express myself

artistically and something about this it creates the same kind of feeling in me which is it makes me feel powerless I don't understand how power how to be powerful while feeling love I don't know how to how to or compassion it's hard for me to imagine that when I feel love or compassion I feel so desperately vulnerable and so terrified and so it's prone to instantly shutting down and being like well I open myself up to you and you are an asshole so this is what you get I'll never do it again well isn't there I mean uh there are different kinds of humor right and they're not necessarily all fueled by anger they may all be or many of them are fueled by stepping away right by by having another kind of vision and not being caught you know by the ordinary day-to-day kind of obsessive

consumerism of life yes and and just the the values of you know that might run our world we have to step away I mean that's what art is right it's it's moving away it's being on the edge in some sense and yes as looking back or looking differently but with a much bigger bigger vision but I mean there's a kind of humor in in just the human predicament right and um and and you know maybe it's ironic humor more than kind of brutal humor but but the irony of being a human being and and this life is pretty funny yes in some way yeah but you know I think maybe what you're saying is also like it's a reflection or something people have asked for a long time which is is like well if I uh a lot of people believe great art comes from anguish

and has to come from this tremendous internal suffering and turmoil and yes uh not always so nice for the artist but um right that's right you know and that is a very western way of thinking in the east of course you know you'd have uh you know calligraphy or something you know that you'd have forms of art that really came from a sense of internal harmony and balance and compassion and it wasn't at all felt that states of wisdom and compassion left you not creative you know that's where creativity came from but but Sharon there's no calligraphy channel there's no no one compared to the comedy channel yeah compared to any other walking dead or you know any of the great shows or movies or you know these are like so much of them you

could just tell they're so fueled by that anguish that you're talking about it's a very real thing and I you know I was just around a comedian who I consider to be uh one of the one of the funniest comedians working right now I won't say his name uh but he in this weird quick moment uh he uh he said you know if I I just I I just always have to be busy because I'm afraid if I sit still just for a second I'm gonna have to deal with all the shit inside of me and and I I thought yeah yeah you what you did you don't know that you just said you know you just described having a spiritual practice and but but uh you know that moment you look at him and realize how sad this guy is crucifying himself and the result of this crucifixion is truly brilliant comedy that is

you know making him not just making him a ton of money but making people laugh so hard so it's that's the fear you know is is there's a real sacrifice in giving up the addiction to the anguish the anger the the negative mood states is is fuel for the way that you behave well I mean it may be a sacrifice it's certainly a transformation yes you know and you don't know what you lose and what you gain until you have that that sense of adventure first of all in buddhist psychology anger and fear can be considered the same mind state they're just two different forms and you know we the angers the outflowing expressive energized form the

fears the held in frozen imploding form of wanting to separate from what's happening wanting to strike out against what's happening and and you know we we probably tend to romanticize anger we don't tend to romanticize fear so the way you just described your friend saying I'm afraid of stopping I'm afraid of looking inside you know I'm afraid of really knowing what I'm feeling that's not that inviting you know right uh you know then you think well what would happen if you were in touch if you weren't so afraid if you weren't so bound to the fear you know all kinds of things might happen as a result and and and they don't make you bland you know and just kind of like oh I'm just gonna be conventional and like everyone else I don't see that being overcome

by fear by fear is that greatest thing no no I don't either I don't even know what it I mean outside of the times I get to chat with people like you or Jack cornfield or you know people who actually are doing the work you don't come into contact with with it that often I it is fear that is the root of it I know it isn't me for sure there's no question but that the reason I get pissed off if I'm mad at my someone in my family it's because I'm afraid you know generally it's because I'm afraid of the way they're gonna act if I tell them how I really feel or if I'm you know in a relationship and I'm angry it's always because I'm afraid of losing them and I don't I don't want to be alone it's always fear it really is pathetic it because you don't you know

anger you get you get a you get angry and it's like yeah that's the angry guy don't mess with him but you never want to be like oh yeah man don't make him don't don't don't do anything that bothers him because he'll just start crying and run they run away in terror or he's just a frightened man no one wants to be a a frightened man is the worst thing to be compared to an angry man you know archetypically there's no frightened men who are heroes the archetypical masculine form is an angry god angry god there's no jahova if we take if we take what you're saying to the to into the into the uh into the into the new old testament this angry god jahova if we're saying that anger is the outflow of fear then that means that jahova the god in the garden of eden obviously

prime myth but that means he's a scared god yeah that's wild indeed but you know I understand that that um that way of thinking you know that the uh the loss of that anger that anguish is gonna have us lose our creative edge I just don't happen to think it's true you know oh no I know I you're right you're totally right yeah I get it it just popped into my head now it's so nice to be chatting with you I totally get it of course not of course it wouldn't do any it's just it's just it's a way to avoid dealing with a fear that's all it is bottom line nobody wants to jump into that's I should have told you in the see if I knew what I was talking about in the beginning of this thing I've been like let's talk about fear yeah well that's

good let's talk about compassion for oneself okay because that's the other side in a way you know it's like um when I teach meditation which of course is what I do yes uh I emphasize over and over and over and over and over again uh the moment after you've been distracted because let's say let's just say you're using a method like settling your attention on the feeling of the breath it's likely not going to be 9000 breaths before your mind wanders you know it's going to be one can you can you say that again only because it fuzzed out a little bit you said it's settling your attention yeah if you're settling if your method the method of practice that you're using yes is settling your attention on the feeling of the breath something like that or

could be a mantra but let's say it's the breath um it's likely not going to be 9000 breaths before your mind wanders it's likely going to be like one or two or maybe four or five and then your mind's going to jump to the past or jump to the future judgment or speculation and then comes a magic moment when you realize oh it's been quite some time since I last felt the breath and that's actually considered the most important moment in the whole process because that's the moment we have the chance to be really different so instead of judging ourselves or blaming ourselves or feeling like we failed we practice letting go and with some compassion for ourselves we practice beginning again and so you might have to let go and begin again 10 billion times in a meditation

session and that's not considered a problem that's the actual training but we we're so down on ourselves as a general rule you know oh no my mind wandered I'm so bad you know yesterday I could only be with two breaths today I can only be with two breaths I'm not making any progress and usually people that's one of the hardest things to believe that it actually doesn't matter that we're learning how to forgive ourselves and come back we're learning how to start over it's like a resilience practice in some way and um and we take that or it follows us we're not even conscious sometimes of it but it follows us right into life you know you make a mistake you can bounce back and um you have a big aspiration you lose sight of it you can start over

you know that's what we really need because nothing in life is a straight shot you know we're always having to adjust and start over and remember and recover and repair and that's the worst see yeah exactly because eventually you're just like that's it I'm you know I'm just not gonna do it again I'm not starting over anymore because every time I start over the whole thing inevitably collapses that's it I'm just not gonna write I'm not gonna try anything I'm not gonna exercise I'm done exercise or whatever the thing is because every time I get moving just a little bit personally me anytime I get going sure as shit I'm gonna be looking back two months later thinking you might remember when you are meditating every day well you failed again trussle it's and so

eventually I get to the place where I'm like well I'm not even gonna fool myself into thinking that I do this anymore because every time I get going I stop and what you're saying is that is actually the practice too that's right that is the path right there because uh it's true for everybody it's just not going to be a straight shot and so um being able to realize that that's normal it's what one of my teachers once called exercising the letting go muscle say that exercising the um you know we let go we start over we we say sometimes the healing is that we exercise the letting go muscle and the healing is in the what the healing is in the return oh wild that is wild wow that is so sweet that's the answer for sure oh that is the answer

wow I just get so frustrated that I wow that is really cool yeah because I just you know I end up just wanting to give up because I know I know well people do end up wanting to give up but that's why uh I think we need a different perspective because it's not just comforting it's true yeah yes no of course yeah no it is it is very true but it just just hearing it just it makes me feel this like it just it's really I can't even describe how good that feels huh yeah because it's exhausting though I mean the mindset that I have is exhausting because you you sort of just start looking at this like you know ladder that you're supposed to be

climbing or you're the some path the process whatever it is and you always get up to a certain rung and then sure enough you just slip back down and you're screaming at somebody or you're you know just like exactly what you you're saying you're just lost you're not even not even anywhere just sort of just this swirl of static this thing that's just this kind of state of like not a nausea not to get too existential there's this sense of like ugh you're just gone and what you're saying is that that moment where you're back just for a second yeah sorry I don't mean to just be sort of stammering but you definitely just blew my mind well I mean I think that that is the moment and we give very little appreciation to it the moment we come back we don't recognize

that's a big deal to be able to come back that's a huge transformation for most of us right yeah right and that's compassion yes that's compassion and it's essential because that's the way to get something done that's the way to make a change that's the way to uh really have an endeavor you know like make something happen because it's always going to be up and down it just is and and you know we feel so much like we failed when we have it it's just a natural part of the process it's like it's like there's this you're a there's a room in your house where you that you know you need to clean and you keep shutting the door in that room because you don't even want to look in there because the amount of work that you know that you've got to do

and anytime you start if you don't know that thing that happens where you like start cleaning I don't know if this happens to you it happens to me I smoke too much marijuana so when I'm clean when I'm cleaning inevitably you'll find like an old letter from somebody and then you pick up the letter you start reading the letter and and feeling all this emotion for that person and then that will lead you to um going to find a picture of them or some other sentiment the next thing you know four hours is past you're playing video games because you didn't want to feel why you were cleaning you know and then by then it's like you know I'll just leave the place a mess and this this thing that you're talking about reminds me of that and instead of

just being the idea is that once you come once you are oh shit I'm playing video games I'll just get back to cleaning you don't you don't then think like what's wrong with me why can't I just clean the damn house what's my problem I'm distracted I've ADD or something you actually realize like oh no this moment of realizing that I got lost again is that's the experience of the healing energy of the universe mm-hmm exactly hmm how often do you get lost well I get lost a lot I don't smoke any mirror whenever but there are a lot of reasons we get lost I mean really uh but that's the I mean if I was gonna say people will ask all the time because I've been meditating over 40 years now and people say you know what's changed what's different

and the truth is that that's what's different is that there's so much more kindness toward myself and toward others and and I can just see yes you know like we all make mistakes we all uh can recover we can come back and that's the that's the miracle yeah that that yeah if somebody comes out of a coma just for a second the people aren't going to be like you are asleep you lazy asshole you sleep too much exactly so why do that to yourself it's that's a very good point just the fact that you even get these brief moments of waking up for a second that's glorious because you're it's just probably very is is is enlightenment the state of not falling asleep

anymore like that of not going not losing your footing on reality or is that what in light an awakened person is that's my guess if you ever come in contact with an enlightened being I feel like I have I mean they they would say no no you know but um I feel like I have that being certainly the more enlightened than I you know or they would say more than light than they used to be so I trust that and I think that's um you know it's it's very genuine and you know people are extraordinary made extraordinarily loving and compassionate and wise people when did you realize that you were going to be a teacher well I realized I was going to be a teacher uh I'm not sure I even realized it I had one of

those extraordinarily loving wise enlightened compassionate teachers who was a woman named Deepa Ma which is a kind of nickname for Deepa's mother and um she was a person she was like a model both for me because uh I'm sorry you fade it out for one second she was like a what she was like she was like a model for me okay because she um uh she had a life of tremendous personal suffering and she emerged from it with this amazing kind of compassion for everybody like she's been she was a Bengali woman she'd been placed in an arranged marriage when she was 12 years old and uh she and her husband actually fell very deeply in love which didn't always happen but um then they they didn't have children for about 18 years and then

they had three children and two of her children died um and then uh they were living in Burma she and her family at that point her husband was in a civil service and he wasn't feeling well one afternoon and came home and died by that night so she was completely overcome by grief and they said she developed a heart condition too so um just overcome and she went to bed she couldn't get that she didn't have the strength to get out of bed uh the doctor came and he said to her you're actually gonna die of a broken heart unless you do something about your mind she said you should learn how to meditate and so she still had Deepa the the one daughter to raise so she got out of bed and she went to the meditation center to learn how to meditate and he said that

she was so weak that she actually couldn't get up the stairs to go into the actual meditation room so she crawled to get up into that room and she she learned how to meditate and she she used her meditation practice both to experience a state of peace and uh she just emerged with this enormous enormous compassion for everybody and so she was one of my teachers so in 19 i'd gone to india in 1970 i did my first meditation retreat in january of 1971 that's where i met like krishadas and ramdas and all these people and um in 19 and then i came back i'd gone to school i came back finished school went back to india and in 1974 i was leaving india for i was totally convinced was going to be a very very brief period of uh coming back to the states and just doing things

i needed to do before i could go back to india and live there for the entire rest of my life wow so i went to see deeper march was living in calcutta uh to say goodbye and get her blessing for what i was sure was this extremely extremely brief period and and uh she said to me when you go back you'll be teaching my friend joseph ghost you had already come back maybe six months before so she said you'll be teaching with joseph and i said no i won't and she said yes you will and i said no i won't and she said yes you will and i said no i won't and then she said two things that were really amazing one was she said you really understand suffering that's why you should teach and it's true i'd had you know life not like hers but you know like a childhood certainly

a lot of turmoil and uh difficulty and and i never really thought of it as kind of a credential for helping others but of course it is yeah um she said you really understand suffering that's why you should teach and then she said you can do anything you want to do it's just you're thinking you can't do it that's going to stop you and i left her her room thinking no i won't and i came back to the states and um joseph was at that point europe institute just opened up in bolder colorado and joseph was there with rhombus and a bunch of people and uh i ended up in bolder and joseph and i started teaching together and every time i thought oh you know it's the jack you know that's where i met jack was in bolder and um jack cornfield jack cornfield yeah so i thought oh it's just

just for a little while then i'll go back and it's just for a little while and i'll go back and then hello one day i realized oh i'm not actually my life now so i'm sorry sharon you're fading out a little bit okay so where did you lose me um well you i let i lost you right when you were thinking i'll just be i'll be going back what you know i'll be going back soon and then it faded out yeah so i you know joseph and jack and i would would respond to these invitations and i would teach and every time i thought i'll go back to india soon yes uh and then one day i kind of woke up and i thought oh i'm not going back you know i'll go back to visit but this is really my life now and that's how i became a teacher it's kind of the the very old fashioned way you know through my own

teachers yes yeah and that's probably that's got to be the right way um uh and and when you're doing kind of what you just did with me is there that what is coming through what is that is that considered the dharma that's coming what are they what are they what would your teacher say is coming through a person when they open somebody up or help a person get a little unstuck yeah sure it's a total blessing for me to be able to do it and it's the dharma coming through and do you feel like a conduit when that's happening do you feel something or is is there i do yeah i do can you just it's not about me you know i don't feel like what clever thing can i say that will make a difference it's it's not like conscious you know it's not even strategic it's just uh

getting more open where is that energy coming from that's coming through you when you when you do things like that what what is that i think of it as the dharma you know i don't think of it so much in personal terms though i suppose i could think of it in terms of lineage or you know generations of teachers but mostly i just think of it as is a kind of truth that's available to all of us and sometimes we're in a box and we can't quite access it all on our own that's why we all you know we we do i'll come back to we all kind of need one another uh well you are i'm very glad that you did not stay in india sharing and i'm very thankful uh for you for for giving me this interview and uh it's just such a it's so wonderful to get to chat with you um and uh and to get to

share you with the people who listen to this podcast is there a way that people can find you who have um who listen to this and want to uh read your books or come to one of your teachings uh definitely will i have a a website which is Sharon Salisberg.com got it um and you're on twitter too i am i'm at Sharon Salisberg we follow each other we do yeah it was a very exciting moment when you followed me on twitter i'm not gonna lie um well Sharon thank you so much it's really incredible to get to chat with you um and uh i i really hope we could do it again soon or sooner yes i hope so too thank you so much thanks so much for listening that was Sharon Salisberg if you like what you heard go to

SharonSalsberg.com order one of her books or sign up for one of her retreats or seminars also big thanks to Harry's Shave Club for sponsoring this podcast if you go to harrys.com and put in promo code family hour holiday you're gonna get five dollars off their winter winston package so go do that help support this podcast give us a nice rating on itunes massage your dogs they love it their shoulders get so tight you don't think those poor little guys are gonna get stressed out but they really do suspend at least 20 minutes to four hours each day rubbing your dogs poor tight shoulders they're gonna appreciate it and you're going to get a lot of benefit from having relaxed dogs around the house have an excellent beginning of your December

or whatever point the time space continuum you happen to be floating down and i will see you soon harry christina