Good Life Project - Buddhism, Bravery, Love and the Good Life

Episode Date: November 9, 2015

Lodro Rinzler is that increasingly rare Westerner who didn't find Buddhism through a later-in-life quest for answers, he was brought up in the tradition of Shambhala Buddhism and has lived its teachings since he was a child, at one point even exploring the monastic path.That said, he's very much "of this world," deeply connected to the realities, demands, challenges and joys of life in a world that seems to be moving faster and faster and placing less and less emphasis on relationships, compassion and the deepest parts of love.His desire to share his lens on Buddhist wisdom applied to modern life led Lodro to eventually take his seat as a teacher, penning a number of wonderful books, the latest, How to Love Yourself (and Sometimes Other People): Spiritual Advice for Modern Relationships.He's also a co-founder of a very cool new center for meditation in New York City called MNDFL.In today's conversation, we explore Lodro's remarkable personal journey and what it was like being the Buddhist on the block as a kid.We also dive into some of the major ideas, practices and teachings from Buddhism, like meditation (what it is and isn't), Karma (how to really think about it), compassion and love, and discuss a bit of mythology and misunderstanding around each. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mayday, mayday, we've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna die.

Don't shoot him, we need him! Y'all need a pilot? Flight Risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-nest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. If I had to say, why meditate? I'd say meditation, in my experience, is the best way to train in uncertainty. And the other flip side of that is it's the best training in how to love. As some of you guys may have picked up over a period of months or years hanging out together, I'm a little bit interested, okay, actually strike that, maybe even a little bit fascinated with Buddhism. So anytime I get the opportunity to sit down with somebody who really lives that path and has lived it in the real world, I take that opportunity.

This week's guest, my friend Lodro Rinsler, is somebody who actually really came up in the practice and instead of taking a monastic path, has returned to the world and really explored how does the idea of Buddhism, the philosophy, the teachings, how does that intersect with our ability to actually live a really powerful, really engaged, compassionate, alive life in the real world on a day-to-day basis? And how does it affect our relationships both with ourselves and with other people? That's part of the conversation in today's episode. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project.

There is really only one logical jumping off point for this conversation, and that is, you are a longtime devout Buddhist who at one point, I believe, even did the whole monastic vow, shaved head head thing yet you have a cat named justin bieber that is the only jumping off there's really no other yeah that's a good point yes yeah i i actually this is the sort of things that keep me up at night i woke up and i thought are justin bieber and usher still friends is he still mentoring justin bieber and i don't know why i have like as soon as this canadian pop star emerged i happened to be getting a cat and i thought this this guy is somehow

going to be some weird cultural phenomena for better or worse and we're like all right let's let's name the cat justin bieber and it stayed with me but you know what as you said like i do a lot of teaching and sometimes very stuffy places, very religious places sometimes. And then they say all of my various, he wrote these books and taught for this long. And then they say, and he has a cat named Justin Bieber. And at least we open with a laugh every time.

And so it's a perfect line. And it says something about you. It's really funny, too, that you bring that up, about sort of like the seriousness. Because I feel like, and you've been so much deeper into the world of spirituality and faith and just consciousness than I have for a lot of time. But I feel like, you know, I was in the yoga world for a chunk of time and got exposed to that world, to meditation and to teaching. And I feel like there's this perception from the outside looking in that the real, like fill in the blank, the real Buddhists, the real yoginis, the real,

they're serious, they're austere. But the more that I sort of learned, the more that I studied, the more I come in contact with people who I feel are really connected to source. They're so light. They're goofy, silly, funny. They hold life so lightly. Is that just my experience or is that kind of like a broader? I think you nailed it. And you know, you and I met when you had Seokhyung Mipham Rinpoche on your site and we met at his home and you could just see that there's constant celebration happening. Like it was not a serious place, you know. At this point he has three daughters that are all like young daughters

running around acting like young daughters. And there's some sense of constant rejoicing happening in his presence. And, you know, there are times where I'll go and see him and it'll just be some office somewhere and we'll meet for a bit. And it'll feel like I walked into a party, even though it's just him and me. And then I'll walk out and be like, ah, I'm missing the party now. And I think the really advanced practitioners I've met, they have that sense of lightness to their being,

that they are able to celebrate their life in a very basic way. It's not like they have something specific they need to celebrate. They can just have an appreciation for who they are and the environment that they're in. Yeah, I love that. And for those who don't know the Sakyong, who is he? Sakyong Nipam Rinpoche is the head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, and he is the author of about three bazillion books, and a marathon runner, and a wonderful father and husband. And he's a great role model for me as my teacher because he is able to bring together this very deep meditation tradition

and very serious teachings with having this householder being that he is able to show up fully for his family. It's not like the meditation practice is sorted out into one area of his life and then he goes and he's got this other thing on the side. It's like every aspect of his life, his work, his family, his relationship is all part of his practice.

So it's always been wonderful to study with him for the last, at this point it's going on half my lifetime. I'm 103 years old, and no, I'm kidding, I'm only 32, and I started studying with him at a very young age, and it's been an honor to see that develop. So let's take a little step back in time then. Tell me how you first, well, where'd you grow up, actually? Where are you from? You know, so I grew up on 86 between Park and Lex here in New York City.

So a city boy. Yeah, I'm a city boy. We moved upstate when I was 10, but my parents, it's actually sort of a funny story. My mother was doing yoga teacher training back in the late 60s, early 70s. So who was she studying with at that point? Gosh, I don't even know within the yoga world. Because it wasn't like it is now. No, not at all.

It was very serious. And in order for her to graduate from the training, she had to go sit a full weekend meditation retreat with this guy called Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Vermont. So she, this is like sort of an outrageous request, I guess, these days, but she would pack up and she went up and sat this retreat and was like, meh, whatever meditation, this isn't really my thing. She had an interview with him one-on-one at the end. This is a very traditional Tibetan Buddhist teacher who's actually the father of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. And he asked her

what her experience was and she thought, you know, it was okay. And he started laughing, just really laughing. She thought he was laughing at her. She got very angry. She got so angry

that she decided to go back the next weekend and sit another full retreat, have that one-on-one interview at the end again, just to tell him off. And then she fell in love with meditation. And a number of years later, mission accomplished. She moved up there. My father was courting her and would have to go up there. So, they both fell into this Buddhist world and I was raised Buddhist. So, even though they were both raised Jewish, I was raised Buddhist. So even though they were both raised Jewish, I was raised Buddhist within that household. So I've been practicing meditation since I was six years old.

Wow. What's it like? Because you're growing up a kid, upper east side of Manhattan, and then again, eventually up there, but that's not the norm. It's not the norm now. It's much more normal now, and it's completely open. People are actually fascinated and intrigued by it and accept it. But when you're a kid, I'm assuming that this is a very different way for you to be living in the world. Yeah, yes and no. I feel like there's some element of misconception, and maybe this perpetuates to today. I don't think it's as bad as it used to be. It used to be you would say Buddhist, and people would think almost like Shaolin monks in movies fighting each other, something like that.

So there was a lot of explaining growing up, particularly in my teen years. But there's something sort of magical, because within the Buddhist world, there's this underlying belief that, yes, we get confused. Yes, there's suffering. Yes, there's pain. But underneath all that, we're innately peaceful. We're innately good. So the idea that we're basically good, to impart that in a kid,

that they're not basically messed up, that they're not sort of inherently wrong, it was actually a wonderful upbringing. It was like there was the culture, one would say, of no mistake. Like, yes, mistakes would be made, but inherently, I wasn't bad. And I think that's some news we can use in society, particularly as we raise kids. Yeah. So it's really much more on, you know, the behavior wasn't behavior, that would be great. But it's not you are a bad kid. It's this thing that just

happened wasn't the best thing to happen. Yeah, it was confused. It was confused action as opposed to inherently bad, which I think I was very lucky to have been raised with that mindset. Yeah. So when you moved out to, you said at the end, was that related to finding a different community or was that just something totally different? I think my mother thought it was prettier, and it is. It is very pretty. You know, at the time I was like 10 years old

getting ripped away from my city life, and now I can sort of go back and appreciate just how majestic being in nature is. You know, I moved back here to New York after a certain point, but there's something about the environment being a support for one's state of mind. And if we are in a chaotic and aggressive environment, it's harder to find that sense of calm than if you are in nature, I find. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean,

there's a bunch of research now that actually even bolsters that on a physiological level, psychological level. You know, I live in a part of the city where two blocks one way is the river, and then two blocks the other way is, you know, a park, which is the size of your average town. I can't imagine living in the city without those two. But even with that, you feel there's this underlying just heightened stimulation and electricity that you kind of need to be able to step out of on a regular basis to reset. I wonder often how people who just are here 100% full-time, all the time, all in, what does that do to you over time? Yeah, it's a great question.

You know, there's a lot of research around elder communities, and I'm sure you've heard before that if you want to see what an environment does to you, look to your elders. I was actually walking down the street in your neighborhood, and I thought, wow, there are people who are getting a little bit older, and they don't look like they're holding up very well. There's something about particular environments that do wear us down over time, even if we're not conscious of it. So I think, for me, it's been a gradual process of figuring out how to take that space, whatever that means, getting to nature, getting back to the land, so to speak. Yeah. So as you're growing up as a kid and really becoming steeped in Buddhist teachings,

Buddhist philosophy and traditions, I guess it's a difficult question to answer, but, you know, like, which is fundamentally, are you aware of the fact that you're sort of approaching the interactions with your friends, with the world, with everything around you differently than others? Or were you? Or for you, I was just a kid, I was like everybody else, but there was something a little bit different.

You know, it's like I didn't have anything to compare it to. It's not like we were Christian and then we were Buddhist. There wasn't a big shift. There was no contrast. As far as I was concerned, you know, mindful speech was something that was just talked about and we would try and be careful if we were talking negatively about other people

and things like that. That was just sort of part of the framework of the household. And my parents were never explicitly like, here's the five precepts. You need to go study this you know it's really on me to explore buddhism and and what i wanted to do in terms of my own spirituality which meant that i had my teenage rebellious years where i like wore a cross for no reason and went to temple to you know this is like my great rebellion i would go to temple black eye shadow right died i don't think I even had like permanent dyed hair. I had like something that you would

like put in your hair that would make it blue for until you'd wash it again. Yeah, exactly. Those were my big rebellions. And then when I was 17, my parents knocked on my door and they said, you know, what are you doing this summer? I said, I don't know. They said, well, you know, there's this monastery in Nova Scotia called Gampo Abbey, and they've got a summer program. Maybe you should go up there. And I was like, I don't have anything else to do. And I think in their mind, it was, it would make for a great college essay. You know, like our son went to the monastery, and it did, you know, but it totally backfired because I fell in love with the Buddhist practices. And that is when I shaved my head, took the robes, the whole nine yards,

and spent the summer primarily in silence and eating in contemplative meals and all these sorts of things. And I came back, went to college, and all I did was Buddhism and meditation. So it really, like very expensive religious studies degree that I'm still paying off for meditation. Well, you know, to a certain extent, I guess we have to go through the experiences we have to go through and pay what we have to pay to end up where we are. Were you ever tempted to make monastic life your life? Briefly.

Yeah. to make monastic life your life? Briefly, yeah. I think because it was such a simple existence, and as a teenager, how ideal is it that everything's sort of taken care of? It's an enclosed community. You don't have to do much but meditate. It was very appealing. At this point, I realize that my path is more of a householder, and I'm open to that.

But there's something about the simplicity of that lifestyle that I greatly admire. And I think for people who are hearing this and thinking, maybe I should run off to a monastery, give it a try. You know, like, why not? I think people should have the experience of really being with themselves, alone with themselves in that way, even if they're in a monastic community. Yeah, I mean, I haven't done that. In the back of my mind, there is a point in my life where I do expect to do it. I don't know for what period of time.

But it's interesting also because you use a couple of different words now, like the life of a householder. And so my really rudimentary understanding of Buddhism is that one of the really unique elements is that there are these two distinct paths. You know, there's the monastic path, and then there's the householder path. Talk me through that a little bit. Yeah. You know, within my particular tradition, it stems from two of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism, without getting, like, too jargony.

One, the Nyingma path, was a bunch of wandering mendicants, basically. These yogis that were just sort of going about, studying with various teachers, practicing here and there, hanging out. Some people had families, some people didn't. And then there was the Kagyu lineage that was like, you know what, we should all get together, and the way that we're going to get together

is we should probably build a monastery. And then it became a monastic tradition for many, many years. So I sort of feel like there's both of that running through my blood, just in terms of my own lineage, family and spiritual. I don't think one is better or worse. We're at a really interesting time, where it took several hundred years for Buddhism, for example, to go from India to Tibet. And it took on those various flavors. Some people would go householder and practice, and they would have a family and all of these things. And some people would get shipped off to the monastery at a very young age and just live there. And then we had this incredible disruption with the communist invasion, and many people fled to India and elsewhere. And now we have the great resources that we Kadampa Center, I could go to the Shambhala Center, I could go to the Zen Center, all within an hour, because they're within a couple blocks of each other.

It used to be you'd have to travel ridiculous amounts of time and distances to do that. And here they all are. So there are these big overarching, yes, there's monastic, yes, there's householder. But within that, there's so many different yes, there's householder. But within that, there's so many different ways that Buddhism is spread, that it's like we have the most beautiful sampler plate available to us in America right now. Yeah, which also brings up this question. Well, there are a couple of questions it brings up, but I want to know how you answer this, what is Buddhism? It's like, do you have nine days to talk about the answer?

Because you just sort of rattled off. We've got two different distinctions of classification. We've got different types of Buddhism coming out of different countries. Is there some sort of unifying, like this is really what it's all about? Yeah. I remember not so long ago I was invited to give a talk at a friend's school up in Harlem. And it was a bunch of third grade classes brought together for an assembly. And we were talking about various work.

Tough room. Yeah, tough room. I mean, really, like in terms of the attention span. And about halfway through, we were doing Q&A, and one kid raised his hand and goes, what's a bosom? And I just thought, this is not the normal question I get. But I said, you know, I don't know if we should talk about that here. And then it came out that he was saying, what's Buddhism? And he was like, okay, this is a really good exercise.

How can I explain this for a third grader? And the very short form is, it's a religious tradition where when you look to the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama is an example for someone who is able to wake up in a really big way to his personal suffering and societal suffering overall. When we talk about the Buddha getting enlightened or attaining nirvana, that's it.

He was able to see past his layers of confusion and just tune into reality as it is, without filter. And so we look to him as an example and say, well, if we do the practices that he laid out, like the meditation practice that I often teach, this is a way we could do that. We could actually be more present in our life, be kinder to others, and then ultimately become more awake overall. So it's a bunch of schools that have followed that example and the teachings that he laid out. And yes, there's the very traditional stuff

that people might have studied in high school, like Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path and all of that. But that's sort of the most straightforward way I can think of it. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're gonna to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Use the word religion, which is interesting, because my experience with it, my exposure to it,

that word doesn't, that word feels weird to me when I think about my experience with Buddhism. Because when I think about my experience with Buddhism. Because when I think about religion, I think about identifying some deity at the heart of it. And then some sort of very strict set of dogma that says, this is what's been passed down from the all-knowing being. Follow this. And my experience has been almost the exact opposite. The heads of you know the different lineages that i'm aware basically all say i'm just i'm just a guy i'm a uh i'm a person and

you know and the fundamental teachings are kind of like look this is what worked for me kick the tires i don't if you can come up with something better awesome that's exactly it i think not to correct you we'd have to go back and replay the tape, but I think I said religious tradition. Ah, okay. And this is because I'm with you. I don't necessarily think of it as a capital R religion. Sometimes people say, well, isn't it just a way of life that you're talking about? And yeah, I mean, this is why I call it religious tradition, because it's a tradition of people who have come up with specific teachings that we can study, and we can see if they mesh with our experience. And if they don't, then we shouldn't do them.

Like, it is that kick-the-tire mentality. And this is something that the Buddha himself said. Like, try this. See if this is your own experience. It's my experience. But if it's not yours, then don't take my word for it. It's not dogmatic in that way. But there is a long tradition of religious figures.

You know, I do think of the Buddha as a religious figure. We have statues of him, even though he said, don't make a statue of me. So there's definitely been stuff like that around it. But it's a long lineage or tradition of people who have just been like, I'm just a guy. Exactly like you said. The more exalted I've seen them, the more humble they are, which is such a wonderful tradition to look to. Yeah, it really is. What do you think is driving? Because it really seems like there's an incredible surge of interest, at least,

you know, we have a lot of listeners around the world, but we're US-based. It seems like where we are. There's been this tremendous resurgence in interest in Buddhism. What's your sense of what's driving that these days? Well, there's two things. In my mind, there's the tremendous interest in Buddhism, and then there's a tremendous interest in meditation. Those are two somewhat related, but not necessarily the same thing. So let's talk about that.

Okay. So after I graduated from college, I served as the executive director of the Boston Shambhala Center. And I would see all sorts of people from all walks of life. And that would be, for those who don't know, the main center for Shambhala Buddhism. Yeah, it's a Shambhala meditation center in Boston. It's got about 200 members and lots of people coming through its doors for big events and things like that. And I thought, what do these people have in common?

And I was like, well, when I talk to them, they tell me a story which sounds like they're suffering. They're going through a divorce. They're going through their quarter life or midlife crisis. They're in recovery from something or someone. And I thought, well, it seems like it's a bunch of people that have just figured out that they're suffering. And that's the Buddha's first truth was they're suffering.

We can look at that. We should look at that. And I'm guessing that everyone that came through those doors had another thing in common, which is they had tried everything else. They had tried drinking a lot and online shopping and dating and lots of different vices. Those aren't all just different schools of Buddhism? No, I mean, not yet. Maybe someday.

We'll kick the tires and see what works. But in my experience, it's like those are somewhat temporary distractions. And they say, okay, if I'm suffering, maybe I should, if I've tried everything else, maybe I should at least try this Buddhist stuff. Now, as you said, there's also like people, this weird upswing of people who are interested in meditation specifically. And they may not necessarily say Buddhist meditation. They may not even know that there's like mindful meditation is like a Buddhist thing. But, you know, we've got the cover of Time magazine being about mindfulness. We've got Huffington Post declaring 2015 the year of mindfulness. It's such an interesting time where, as far as I'm concerned, having studied it all my life, it's the rough equivalent of someone tapping me on the shoulder and saying, you know how you used to read X-Men comic books growing up? Like, now everyone's really into x-men you know it's like why are you guys all of a sudden into this thing i've been doing this for a while it's actually quite boring when you get into it

but um it's it's as you said probably where yoga was 20 30 years ago the sense of well now maybe we can make this accessible and it's sometimes even being divorced from buddhist teachings which you know i have mixed feelings about but it's wonderful that people want to work with their minds, and I think that's great. What's the source of the mixed feelings about separating meditation and Buddhist teachings? Well, when we're talking about how I grew up, you know, there are some basic principles involved,

like the notion of basic goodness, or that I'm inherently not a flawed human being. We talked about mindful speech. So these are sort of the ethics components. If we divorce the meditation practice from any sort of teachings whatsoever, I feel like we're just taking almost like an exercise regimen and saying it's a religion,

or a religious tradition, I should say. And it's not. It's different. If someone just meditates, they will become extremely familiar with their minds. They will become kinder. They will become more productive. All of these things that science has now told us

that the Buddhists have been saying for 2,600 years. But if they don't study any of the other stuff, it's almost like a stool with one leg. You sort of need a couple of extra legs around the ethics to actually really have a strong foundation. I mean, it's interesting to look at it that way. My experience, I've had a pretty dedicated daily mindfulness sitting practice on and off for years, but actually consistently daily for probably about five years now. And one of the things that became really clear to me is that the meditation practice is, you know, it's like that

famous analogy. It's sort of like, you know, the mind normally would just be a water with a lot of waves and ripples. So if you looked at it, you couldn't see through it. Meditation practice for me, sort of like it calms the surface and that becomes glassy. So you can actually see through it and see what's there, what's inside, but that doesn't change what's inside, you know? And so stuff that was veiled to you becomes, you get a sense of clarity. It rises up. You can see it more clearly, but without the ethic side, without the, you know, the next question then becomes, okay, now what do I do with that? And my sense is it's the ethic side that helps you process what comes up. To me, I've always looked at the sitting practice more as it's the thing that creates the stillness

that allows the deeper stuff to become more apparent. But it doesn't necessarily help me know what to do with that once it becomes so. That's spot on. That's exactly my experience as well. And I'd be really curious to hear what people who are listening to this, what their experience is with it. Because ethics sometimes might even be a scary word. Maybe it's just like supportive teachings. It's like when you get to that what next question question that there's something that you read or a teacher you talk to that can say well now that we've seen through some self-deception here's something that might be helpful in terms of bringing out the teachings around an open heart and compassion so we can actually empathize with others it's one thing to look at

our own suffering but i found that you know it's hard for people to meditate for a period of time without realizing that it's not just about them, that it's actually about connection with others. Yeah. And then I guess I think I understand better now that you're mixed feelings about teaching one without the other, because if you provide a tool to create clarity, and what emerges from that clarity is something that may not be easy to process without other tools. Exactly. I mean, do you think there's actually a risk of, I don't want to use the word creating harm, phrase it of sort of you know like giving a practice that creates clarity where pain may

arise without simultaneously creating a vehicle to process it well it's interesting because we have so many ways of receiving meditation these days we have apps you know and people can sit there and do their app and that's great and maybe they do have that sense of seeing through the various layers of water and actually understanding what's beneath. But then who do they talk to about it? So I think the role of a teacher or an instructor is actually really important and starting to emerge in meditation today. And I will admit that the thing that terrifies me the most

in terms of meditation and Buddhism today is that there are a number of people who teach that shouldn't necessarily be teaching. In my mind, it's the rough equivalent of going to therapy for a year or two and then being like, I'm a therapist now. People that have been meditating for a year or went on a one-week retreat and say, well, this is easy enough to tell people how to do it. I should just do it. And maybe they can even repeat the words that they heard, but the groundwork to really work with people in a way that is helpful. In fact, it can be harmful. Because if someone says, well, I see colors while I meditate, they would say, oh, that's weird. You shouldn't do that. As opposed to sort of being trained in how this is something that

can happen to people. Yeah, which is funny because probably in the not-too-distant past, if you had said that to me, I would have said, well, this is an elitist philosophy trying to keep it elitist. But I think having developed my own practice over a period of years now, I get, I think, on a deeper level what can emerge and the need to actually be able to handle that differently and the need to want a teacher who's actually experienced and skilled in helping you process it. But at the same time, I don't want those listening to this conversation saying, well, I'm not

going to start a practice unless I can find a local teacher in the center right by me because I don't want to do harm. That's not what we're saying here. No, not in the center right by me because I don't want to do harm. That's not what we're saying here. No, not in the least. I think if someone's interested in exploring meditation, they should try everything that they want. They should try the apps. They should try...

I run something called the Daily Dharma Gathering with our friend Susan Piper, and that's live-streamed meditation online. Every single day, different teachers coming online. And, you know, there's different ways that people can connect, either in person, online, through apps, etc. I think people should try everything. My work, if you had me put it in a nutshell, I do like 12 different things, but it comes down to how accessible can I make meditation? That's what I do. So I think it's an interesting experimental time and people should kick the tires. I think it's a great analogy. They need to kick the tires and see what works for them and trust their own wisdom that if someone's a little

sketchy, maybe that's not an authorized and trained meditation teacher. And that doesn't mean the meditation practice is bad. It just might mean that it's not the best person to work with. Yeah. You used the word d Dharma. Talk me through that. So Dharma is, I always try and avoid jargon, but we do call the online meditation teachings that we do the daily Dharma gathering. Dharma is just a word for the Buddhist teachings or sometimes way, the way. In this particular context, it's Buddhist teachers. You know, there's many different types of meditation. There's Vedic meditation, there's Kundalini meditation.

I come from a Buddhist background, and this particular group of teachers, it's about 25 people from Zen, Vipassana, Tibetan traditions, all sorts of traditions, really. And every day they offer a talk, Dharma, teachings of the Buddha, and a guided practice. So that's basically pretty straightforward. That's pretty straightforward.

Because it's just, you know, you hear, there are a couple of words that always get massively thrown around in popularism. Dharma is one of them. Karma is the other. Can we go there? We can very briefly. I mean, you know, I have a great honor of- You can't deconstruct the entire concept. Yeah, I am giving a talk at the Rubin Museum next month on karma and climate change.

I was like, let's just, apparently we're just going to do two giant scary topics. Fine by me. Let's do it. Maybe that's to neutralize each other. Right. People walk out with just shaking their head. No.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche has the most delightful description of karma, that if you plant a peach tree, you're going to get peaches. If you plant pears, you're going to get pears. And there's something about that. Within the Buddhist world, there's an understanding that there's many lifetimes. So it's not like a one-to-one equation where I trip someone by accident and then someone accidentally trips me three weeks later. It's not that straightforward. It's like it's got all these other ramifications and a lot of it does revolve actually not just about unintentionally tripping someone, but actually intentionally doing stuff that is either harmful, meritorious,

or not meritorious, virtuous or non-virtuous. And at the same time, if we're kicking the tires, and I'll say something very controversial, I don't know if I have many lifetimes. I have not experienced many lifetimes. I don't have memories of them. So within this lifetime, there's ways to look at karma and say, well, what seeds am I planting on a day by day basis? If I'm sitting around fuming and jealous of someone and slandering him or her behind their back and all of these things, that's planting pretty specific seeds in terms of how I manifest, how I'm perceived, what communities I take part in, all of it. It's just creating our world in some sense. Whereas if I actually engage in a lot of practice and I try and use my speech skillfully, then maybe that's a different sort of company I keep,

different sort of actions I take part in, et cetera, et cetera. So it's just in some sense, what are we planting in terms of our day-to-day life? Yeah. I think that's the lens that I've seen it through. But then there's the next layer, which at the risk of opening up a deeper, more nuanced conversation, if you buy into the idea of karma and you buy into the idea of potential past lives, what of the concept of free will? And does that also, does that on the one hand inspire you to write action, but at the same time inspire a certain sense of utility?

Because you're telling me I'm bound by the actions, like good or bad. I know we shouldn't use those words to label it, but just for really simplicity's sake of, you know, something that has happened in a lifetime before and I'm now going to pay penance. You know, you look at the child who's born with AIDS. You look at, you know, and then you also look at if a certain amount of what happens in this lifetime

is bound by, you know, a past one, do I actually have free will? I struggle with stuff like that a lot when I start to think about it. You know, if we buy into this first noble truth of the Buddha that everyone suffers, it's just the way things are. And it doesn't have to be, it's like once we acknowledge that, we can then move on. So if someone experiences a lot of loss in their life, you know, when I was 18, I lost 18 people within a year. Oh, my God. That were my uncle, my grandmother, a kid I babysat, a school teacher. It goes on and on and on. And, you know, I thought, gosh, you know, if this is right when I was really getting deep into the Buddhist teachings, I thought, this must be karma, right?

Like all these negative things are happening to me. But the flip side of karma, it was Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the person my parents studied with, that said this. He said, everything is predetermined until now. So I could make my life about how I am suffering. I could make my life about complaining. I can make my life about wallowing. And I can do that to some degree, right? Like I can feel the Buddhism is not like, don't feel your emotions. You should feel your emotions. In fact, if you're meditating, you feel them all that more strongly. But at some point, you look up and you say, what do I do now?

And I run something called the Institute for Compassionate Leadership. And it's been interesting because it's a nonprofit that works with young people. And they're trying to find, ultimately, their purpose in terms of their career. And a lot of it's social. We focus on people that want to do social change work, whatever that might mean. It could be working with kids. It could be working in government, anything. But in this class in particular that we currently have, there's people who have suffered tremendously, people who were born into very difficult households, people who are cancer survivors, people who are former sex workers, people who either through birth or through various situations in their life

ended up in very difficult situations and have suffered tremendously. And then they said, well, what am I going to do about this? So if everything is predetermined until now, they had this moment where they're like, now I want to help others. Now I don't want people to suffer the same domestic abuse I suffered when I was growing up. And there's something so incredibly moving about working with these people, because they are going to do tremendous work. They have the inspiration, they have the fuel having gone through the hells of the fires of these hells that they've lived. And now they want to make sure that they can be of benefit.

So there's always, yes, we can say, okay, this is my life. I'm suffering. This is horrible. And really stay in that vein of karmically, I'm screwed. Or karmically, things have gone this direction this far. How can I actually do something different that might take it in a different direction? How can I look at my own mind, my own heart, and use the tools that I do have in this life to really be of benefit? Yeah.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required,

charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what's the difference between me and you? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. We're both authors and I want to talk about some of the stuff that you've worked on and actually your forthcoming book soon. My last book was fundamentally trying to do exactly what you just said. So I don't know about you, but very often when I write, I write to answer a question I have.

It's like a blessing that I actually get somebody to actually pay me to spend time figuring out my own questions, and then write it out in a way that I hope helps other people simultaneously. It's not a bad gig. But my fundamental question was, I kind of feel like creativity and creation breathe me. Whether it's painting, whether it's building businesses, I'm always creating something from nothing,

which means that I am sort of constantly putting myself in a state of enduring and long-term uncertainty. And for years, as much as I love building stuff and creating things, I would experience that as, you know, there's blood in the water. And I would just kind of feel like, well, that's the way I'm wired. It's the way my mom's wired. And at one point when I was younger, my mom and I actually had a short conversation about it.

We're like, hey, we always get what we want, but there's always a lot of blood in the water by the time we get it. It's just our lot. That's the way we are. And I kind of hit a point where I said, really? Does it have to be that way? Really, really? Because I see a lot of other people building big stuff, creating bodies of work, and taking big risks and living in this place for a sustained period

of time, there is a lot of suffering. There is a lot of pain that goes along with it. Physiologically, what the research shows is we're not wired to be okay there for the most part. But then there's this thin slice of people where they're okay. So the question became, is that genetic or is it trainable?

And what I realized is for a really small sliver, it's likely their brains are different. But for most of the ones that were actually relatively okay there, it's trained very often without even realizing they're doing things to train it. And that became this moment for me where it was kind of like, huh, well, then maybe I don't have to suffer that much. Maybe it's not actually my lot. Maybe there doesn't have to be blood in the water.

It's all I've known up until now. And in fact, my practice has been a huge part of allowing me to keep leaning into this deep, uncertain, creative space and being much more okay there. You know, I don't think I've ever articulated this before, but just in response to that, if I had to say, why meditate? I'd say meditation, in my experience, is the best way to train in uncertainty. I totally agree.

And the other flip side of that is it's the best training in how to love. Because I think just one of the crucial areas of our life is actually being in relationship to others and opening our heart to them and so i think there's flip sides of this that you know i'm at a point right now and i'll be brutally honest where i am facing probably the most uncertainty in my career thus far you know i'm opening this meditation studio. I actually have this running joke that I'm just like, I'm a simple meditation teacher.

But it's like all of a sudden these giant projects are sprouting up. And this one is deeply terrifying because it's so big. It's so big. We've got this beautiful space on 8th Street between University and 5th, and there's all these things around architects and contractors, and I'm just a simple meditation teacher. I do not understand. But it looks like it's going to be this beautiful space that houses 20 teachers who teach different types of meditation. Buddhist teachers, Vedic teachers, Kundalini teachers,

all sorts of people who have that knack for making their traditions really accessible. And we're offering it in this drop-in yoga studio format that, as far as I know, hasn't really been done before, where people can take 25-minute, 45-minute classes with that goal. I just want a taste of what this is. I want a taste of that meditation. And the thing that's terrifying is meditation takes a little while for people to figure it out. So in the same way that people might jump on the treadmill and be like, I ran for a day and now I'm not 10 pounds thinner. What's running's wrong. I'm doing running wrong. It doesn't work for me. Meditation's like that. So it's sort of a

terrifying business model, but I'm also excited and it's also opening my heart in a big way. Yeah. It is a model fundamentally steeped in delayed gratification. Yes. Isn't that funny? I was like, why don't I do some delayed gratification? It's like, let me figure out what's the business I can build that will scare me most. And this is exactly it. This is like the biggest experiment I can think of in terms of taking those traditional teachings off the mountain and making them accessible to anyone that wants to do it. Our whole thing is we want to make meditation accessible to everyone in New York City. Anyone that wants to try meditation, this is the space for it.

That's our idea. The other thing that you brought up is love, is meditation's role in love. Take me deeper into that. This has been my fundamental discovery, and it's in the same vein of what you were talking about in writing a book. So the book that is coming out is called How to Love Yourself and Sometimes Other People.

And I had been bombarded. I don't know if you get bombarded in this way, but people write me and 90% of the time it's like, here's my relationship thing. As if like I'm a relationship expert. I'm not, I'm a Buddhist teacher. You know, like this is. What's funny is the emails I get most often are,

here's my business problem. And the moment you look at it, you realize this isn't a business problem. It's a personal problem. Oh yeah. Yeah. Very often it's like, it's a hard problem. It's a soul problem. It's a hard problem. And the moment you look at it, you realize, this isn't a business problem. It's a personal problem. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Very often, it's like it's a heart problem. It's a soul problem.

It's a heart problem. Yeah. So I get a lot of heart problems. And I thought, all right, I've got to sit down and do this. But in order to do it, it's me asking my question of like, what does meditation do to you? And meditation allows you to become really familiar with yourself. And the way that people spin out and stop meditating

because it's too much is because they start beating themselves they think they should be better at it they try it and they're sitting there being like oh i'm the worst i can't even stay with the breath everyone else looks like they're totally still i'm the one that's like getting it wrong and then they leave but if people can actually make it to that point of gentleness where it's like oh you know what i'm sure everyone else is struggling my mind goes at 100 miles an hour. Maybe I can just get it down to 80, 60 miles an hour. Maybe that's progress. Maybe that's okay to just settle a little bit. If we can actually do that gentleness aspect, meditation becomes a path of befriending ourself. It's just a path of getting to know

ourselves better. And the more we get to know ourselves, the more we're actually able to love. Both loving ourselves, and then that lays the foundation for actually loving others. And that's the fundamental thing about this book. You know, it's written with this wonderful woman, Megan Watterson, who comes from a Christian theological background. And when I read her first book, Reveal, I was like, oh, she's talking about basic goodness. You know, she uses words like divine worth, divine feminine. And the words might be different, but we're talking about this basic, intrinsic wellspring of love that is within us. When I talk about basic goodness,

and I say, oh, we're basically good, we're basically kind, what I'm saying is we're basically loving. And to keep referring back to my teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, in one of his books, he says, you know, we love love. This is innately who we are, that we are innately loving beings. And we often struggle with that uncertainty. We often get scared and want to hide that. But if we can actually do some of the meditation practice, we would discover we don't have to do it. We don't have to do that habitual thing. And if everything is predetermined until now, this very moment, if we can actually look at ourselves,

we can befriend ourselves, love ourselves, and be more loving of others. And I think also, it's funny, because when I had the opportunity to sit down with Zachary McBurn, that was one of the questions that I was curious about, because he is a big defender of the assumption that people are innately good. And I had this question for him.

I was like, really? And the way he deconstructed it was kind of similar to what you said. But it is a leap for a lot of people, I think, to actually buy into that. Huge leap. And it comes from what we were talking about earlier. I think a lot of us were raised in a culture of you're not good enough. And you need something external to you in order to be whole. You need this sort of job or this sort of spouse or this iPad, and then you'll be fine. But then of course, what happens is, you know, you get that job and there's somewhere else

up the ladder that you should go instead. You get that spouse, but isn't that person over there actually much more attractive? You get that iPad and it's outdated in six months. You know, there's always something more we could do. So the idea of looking inward and saying, maybe I'm immediately whole as is, maybe I can develop confidence in that, and then maybe I can offer a sense of confidence in our loving nature to others. That's pretty, you're right, it's a huge leap. But what's the alternative? Like buying lots of iPads?

Filling our space with lots of mindless entertainment? I think this is a meaningful leap to make. I completely agree. The other sort of thing that I was, the other question is, are we good enough is one part of it. But even more stripped down, are we innately good? Because I think my sense is that a lot of the experience of growing up in the Western world is people are actually innately bad. They're innately selfish selfish and we live in a

scarce world so your job is to win you know because they're trying to win by taking from you because it's all about you know it's not a compassionate abundant oriented world it's like the fundamentally you know like left without, we are innately bad and destructive and self-centered, and it will end up in mayhem and death and insanity. And thank God we have laws and rules of order to stop that and force a baseline level of goodness and respect and sort of like ethical propriety to exist. I think that's the fundamental assumption that sort of most of us grow up in. And someone sitting here being like,

yes, that's the way things are. I would just like to ask, how's that working out for you? I think a lot of us, I've had times in my life where i've given into that you know people are fundamentally horrible you know who's really looking out for other people really and those were really difficult times for me because there was a lot of struggle there's a lot of me trying to like throw elbows and put myself first and it's just it's exhausting it's absolutely exhausting to live that way so the the sense of vulnerability, which is ultimately what we're talking about,

the sense of willing to put ourselves out there and get hurt and sometimes connect with another human being in an authentic way and not get hurt, I mean, it's a grand experiment. It's an absolute experiment. So that's sort of the invitation in this book, how to love yourself and sometimes other people. It's like, can we make ourselves vulnerable?

Can we live our lives in a way that's based in opening up as opposed to shutting down? Yeah, it seems like the world needs that more than ever right now. Yeah, which is, you know, I joke that there's some of us Buddhist teachers, we're really busy running around like crazy trying to get people to slow down. But this is, I think the world does need this basic tool of self-examination, looking, befriending, and loving ourself. And that's why, you know, we're opening Mindful, the meditation studio. That's why we've got the Institute for Compassionate Leadership. That's why we do the

daily Dharma gathering. That's why we've got this book, you know, it's just, can we please, please, please start to look at our suffering, but also look past that to the fact that maybe we can have an experience of peace. Maybe we can have an experience of space and develop confidence in that instead of struggle which is i think a good place to come full circle and it's interesting also in this frame because to justin bieber yeah pretty much i mean is there really any way to wrap it moving beyond the bieber cat um i always wrap these conversations by asking one question which is what does it mean to you to live a good life?

And what's interesting is when I asked that question of Sekamipham, his answer first, you know, he went deeper into it, but the first words out of his mouth were to be brave. And it seems like that bravery, the frame for that was underlying to take the actions that you've just been talking about. Be brave enough to step outside of your assumptions that we're all bad. Be brave enough to step into a place of vulnerability and to do something that moves beyond the confines of just you. So if I offer that same question now to you, what comes up? Well, when you initially asked it, I thought to show up for others authentically.

And it's very much connected to that sense of bravery, or flipping it around, that sense of willingness and vulnerability to just be with what's going on. So yes, there might be painful situations. Yes, it might be pleasurable. But can we actually just show up when we're in a conversation with someone? Listen to them.

When we're on an awkward first date, be with that awkwardness. Be with that human being. When we're holding a loved one's hand in the hospital, just be there instead of trying to fix everything all the time. So giving up that sense of struggle and relaxing into the present moment, which is why we do the meditation practice. Why I'm such a, I was going to say Bible-thumping Buddhist,

but some sense of wanting to make this accessible, because it's such a beautiful tool for allowing us to relax into our life and show up authentically without those guards around our heart. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much for joining in this week's conversation. You know, if you've actually stayed till this point in the conversation, I'm guessing there's a pretty good bet that you've gotten something out of this episode,

some nugget, some idea. If that is right, and you feel like sharing, then by all means, go ahead. We love when you share these conversations and get the word out. And if you wouldn't mind, I would so appreciate if you would just take a few seconds, jump onto iTunes or use your app and just give us a quick rating or review. When you do that, it helps get the word out, helps let more people know about the conversations we're hosting here. And it gives us all the ability to spread the word and make a bigger difference in more people's lives. As always, thank you so much for your kindness, your wisdom and your attention. Wishing you a fantastic rest of the week. I'm Jonathan compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th.

Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.