Good Life Project - How to Transform Suffering Into Freedom | Spotlight Convo

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Trapped by thoughts and beliefs? Anger, grief keeping you stuck? Inspiring teachers Byron Katie and Lama Rod Owens overcame suffering through radical self-inquiry. Learn Katie's "The Work" method and Owens' "Radical Dharma" approach blending Buddhism and his Black, queer identity. Find clarity and freedom in every moment.Episode TranscriptYou can find Byron Katie at: Website | Instagram | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with Byron KatieYou can find Lama Rod Owens at: Website | Instagram | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with Lama RodCheck out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The work is really just about transforming our relationship to the world. When we transform our relationship, it's not that the world just instantly changes. It means that I have an agency in how I'm choosing to react to the world, to the forces around me. Your concern for others deepens because you begin to realize that not a lot of people have reached this level that you've reached, I choose to return back to places to help people come out of the same kinds of suffering that I was able to come out of. I only did that because there were people who came back and got me. And because I realized what has been done for me, then I also am ethically mandated to offer that same help to others. So have you ever felt trapped by the weight of your own thoughts and beliefs or maybe struggle

to find freedom from difficult emotions like anger, grief, or heartbreak? In today's Deep Dive Conversation, we explore two powerful practices for untangling the roots of our suffering and unlocking our truest, most liberated selves. So my guests today are Byron Katie and Lama Rod Owens, two deeply inspiring teachers who have walked the path of radical self-inquiry and transformation. Byron Katie's profound awakening in 1986 sparked the development of The Work, her simple yet life-changing method that really helps question the thoughts that cause our suffering that I often turn to myself and reference.

Lama Rod Owens is a Buddhist teacher who weaves together his experiences as a black queer man with Buddhist teachings on spiritual liberation. So from the intersection of identities, he's created this approach called radical dharma that shows how to tenderly hold our anger and heartbreak as fuel for awakening. And then they're powerful and contrasting journeys. Both Byron Katie and Lama Rod have discovered how to radically question the beliefs and narratives that keep us trapped in cycles of pain. And they're sharing insights and practices and deeply personal stories to help you find clarity amidst life's confusions and choose

freedom in every present moment. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. 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 going to be fun. 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. Hey, our first guest today is Byron Katie, whose profound awakening in 1986 showed her a way to liberate herself from the suffering caused by her thoughts.

At the bottom of a decade-long spiral into depression and self-loathing, Byron woke up one morning in a state of profound joy and clarity, and she realized that when she believed her stressful thoughts, she suffered. But when she questioned them in a very particular way, the suffering dissolved. This realization sparked the development of her simple yet powerful process of self-inquiry called The Work, which consists of four questions and a technique called The Turnaround that allows us to experience the opposite of what we believe. For over 30 years, Byron has been sharing the work with millions worldwide, empowering them to question the thoughts that cause their suffering and find freedom in the present moment. Her bestselling books, including Loving What Is and A Mind at

Home With Itself, have introduced countless readers to this transformative practice. In this conversation, we dive deep into Byron's personal journey and explore the life-changing insights at the heart of the work. Here's Byron. Let's kind of dip a little bit back into your personal story. And I think it probably makes sense to go all the way back to 86. And maybe if you could paint a bit of a picture of what life was like before 86 for you. It was a world full of depression, you know, my own depression. The depression was so deep, it was more than a decade. And it was so deep, I didn't believe I could even live. Very suicidal. And then one morning as I lay sleeping on the floor, because I didn't believe I was worth even a bed to sleep in.

That's depressed. Very paranoid as well. Just blind fear. And three children that I was trying to raise at the same time and make the house payment, etc. And, you know, a life ended. And I was still breathing. But one day as I lay sleeping on the floor, actually, a cockroach crawled over my foot, and it opened my eyes. And it's as though I was just witnessing, you know, I was just witnessing.

I was just, you know, I don't have a description for that yet. I don't know how to speak of it.. I don't know how to speak of it. Maybe I'll never understand how to speak of it. But what I did see is that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered. And when I didn't believe my thoughts, I didn't suffer. And I saw that on the floor. I more than thought I experienced it. Because it's like this witness,

this unspeakable witness was just seen. And it was like a birth into the world of just consciousness and just pure consciousness. And then I saw that as thoughts began to hit my head, everything began to have a name like window and sky and ceiling and floor and even Katie. It was, you know, everything had an end. At that point, I began to laugh. And it's like I just got some kind of great joke that had been played on all of us. You know, I've seen that all of us in the world, we believe our thoughts, we suffer. But to question them, you know, that's the way out of this maze for me. And so, of course, I invite people to identify their judgments and assumptions when they're hurt and or suffering in any way, that they just identify those judgments and assumptions and question them.

And I also, Jay, love to say that the way to question, there are only four questions, and the work, I call it the work, it's always free at thework.com. Everything I have that has any value is free there and how to do it. And it's anyone with an open mind can do this. I think of other people suffering unnecessarily, which was my case. And I think anyone that suffers, once we learn how to question the cause of suffering, we begin to experience a life worth living. I was speaking with a friend a while back. It was interesting because his lens on depression was, so many people would say the opposite of depression is happiness. He had an interesting lens, which I'm curious what your thoughts are,

which is that he felt the opposite of depression was curiosity. Exactly so. And I think a questioned mind, an inquiring mind is a curious mind because without what we're believing, you know, everything opens up. So it really is that. I love that. When you were in your darkest time, you mentioned you had three kids. Have you talked with them over the years about how they were experiencing you during that window? And then upon this awakening, how that shifted for them? Just over and over and over and over. You know, anytime we're together, this shows up.

And, you know, in one way or another, even in just very small, minor ways now. But actually, every year on my birthday, we all get together, my three children and me. We spend three days together. And, oh, it is marvelous. And now there's just not a lot to talk about. Everyone's so respectful and understanding and kind. It's as though one person gets free, and it changes the entire family dynamic. But originally, as you asked the question, where my mind also went was my daughter, for one thing,

said she had so much fear that the old mother would return again, that it took her quite a while, all three of them, to adjust that I wasn't going to flip into this world of depression that they were so used to. And rage, you know, confusion is, it's not a friendly, it's not a friendly world. When you started to sort of live this new life, essentially, how did others around you receive that and receive you? Well, distrustful at first, for sure. And then, you know, I've been sharing this lately. I was, I noticed one day I was sitting on a park bench and then people would come sit down, of course. And then the next day I noticed sitting on that park bench that maybe one or two of the same people would show up again.

And then I noticed one day sitting on the park bench that there was a queue, a line of people standing up to wait to sit there with me. So it was, for one thing, I became a listener. Because when you really have no, as we say, no life sounds a bit strange, but no self, we might say. Like no self. It's like I don't have a self I'm interested in. So that leaves me just fascinated by other people and connected to other people. It's such a beautiful thing to be connected to the world when I was distant from it for so many years. It took me a while to balance, not to be more or less, but just in the center, that balance, an unrecognizable balance, even though after seeing what I said, it may sound a little strange. But at first, it was quite an adjustment. As word began to pass around from one to the other, then people were calling me from literally all over the world.

And I had no idea what they wanted, but I did know what peace is. And I do know what suffering is, and I know what peace is. And it's really difficult for people, we'll say suffering, people that are confused in their lives. It's really difficult to have a good life. It's really difficult to, even decisions, the simplest decisions sometimes are just, can be difficult. Do you have a sense for people who are coming to you because there was something about you that they wanted or they wanted to feel? Do you have a sense for what that was, what that is? Well, I'm immovable in what I recognize. And so I can't be swayed, and that may sound like a stubbornness, and yet it's the extreme opposite. But I guess you could say that people trust that.

I trust that. I trust it. And I think that is, you know, I don't have a mind that anticipates or remembers. I have a mind that's present. And I can talk out of the past and future, but I don't have a way of attaching to it, because I can see that that's not reality. That's imaging. That's not really a past. Like, we drove over here in a car, we were driven over here in a car, and I see that clearly, but I can see me in that car, but that's not myself. And then Stephen and I talked about getting a coffee after our time with you together. And I can see me at a coffee shop, you know, in my mind's eye, that future. But it doesn't mean that we're going to a coffee shop. It really doesn't mean anything.

And I see me at the coffee shop, but that's not me. So when people are talking out of what I'm describing now, but once we become aware of that is not self in the past, and that is not self I see in the future, then we're no longer confused about, you know, false identity, false worlds. And it's so easy just to be just right here, right now. It's so simple. I think the depression I came out of, I'm just so grateful that this is all there is. And there's no worry in my life because I don't anticipate, even though my mind can see what we would call past future, there's nothing concrete about it. So therefore, nothing to worry over. And so my life is about just saying yes and moving inquiry to as many people as possible. The end of suffering, the absence of suffering,

because we make better choices that way. We're kinder, we're connected, we're wiser, because we're in touch with wisdom. And as you mentioned earlier, one of my favorites, curious. One of the things that came to me when I first heard your story and sort of like the moment and how it's changed you since then is that often when you hear a story of somebody who's awakened in some way and in some level there is, along with that, some sort of almost dissociative experience. The sort of Western world, the modern lens and medicine wants to label that. They want to label that as something wrong, as disease, as a condition. I'm curious whether that was part of your early journey, sort of like whether those labels were

sort of thrust upon you or people wanting to say that this was something other than what you feel you experienced. Yeah, it seemed great. I can see how people can see it that way, certainly in the beginning. So it was difficult to step into and seemed, I'm sure, crazy to a lot of people. I had to learn all over again. What we do here on Earth was kind of my experience. You know, I'm new. I'm new. And now I'm not.

Now I'm very comfortable. It was just a little learning process along the way. So I had this little book, this little book, yeah, 12-page, very small pamphlet, like a tiny little book. And in fact, I called it The Little Book. But it's still free on thework.com today, and it's in 36 or 39 different languages. And it pretty much guides people into their own suffering and then just a way to walk people out of it. It's just pure inquiry. For example, let's say I'm a little four or five-year-old child.

I'm playing, I'm happy. I have this amazing life. And my mother says, Byron Kathleen, you are unlovable. And I don't love you. And what I can see today is that is absolutely not a problem. There's no cruelty in it. There's no way to blame her for it. Because I've come to see that when we believe our thoughts, we suffer and we say things that we are so sorry for and feel so guilty over. But when we believe our thoughts, we live out of that thought process. And so she said,

I don't love you. And so that is complete. If I'm not experiencing compassion and connection with her, because it's painful to see someone that way. If I'm not seeing that, then there's something way off in me. So I'm just this little girl. She says, I don't love you. There is zero problem until the moment I believed it. Now, that's my part. I believed it. Just imagine she says that and I don't believe it. So where was the damage done? I'm using that word loosely. I'm the unlovable one. And so I have introducing to people, you know, as my job,

the simplicity of how to wake ourselves up from the dream of I am that identity. I am unlovable, in other words. So a person that feels that way might just ask themselves, is it true? And then meditate on, I'm unlovable, is it true? And just to develop a practice, let's say in the morning, to get up early and just sit in that practice and contemplate that, that I'm unlovable. Is it true? And then to just witness in that meditation how you react and what happens to your life when you believe the thought you're unlovable. And just to witness what goes on when you, the moment I believed it, That became my identification. So it gives everyone opportunity to see that for themselves. And then that last question, who would you be without the thought? So I can go back

and see my mother saying that. Who would I be without the thought? Who would I be without the thought? I'm unlovable. And there it is, connected to my mother, compassionate, as opposed to living a life of trying to convince her all my life that I'm lovable. And the torture of that, and not just my mother, but other people. So, you know, we're all in this world of seeking love, approval, and appreciation for what we already are. And it's just a matter of waking up to that. And inquiry, it does wake us up to it.

And then the next thing I invite people to is to take that assumption or judgment that we've been believing and then to turn it around and try it on as though you were trying on a new pair of shoes or something. But I'm unlovable. The opposite of that is I'm lovable. Now, for some of us, that's very difficult to hear because it's new. We've never even considered such a thing. So to get very still and close your eyes and just meditate on those loving, caring acts of kindness that are common for us that we're not even aware of because we're holding this identity of

I'm unlovable so tightly, for example. But then when we get still and I'm lovable and I can just, you know, look back and where was I caring toward myself? You know, where was I caring towards someone else? And, you know, where have I said and done things that I find connect me to other human beings? And in other words, loving, lovable, things I do that I would love me for, basically. So it is like coming out of hell, you know, just coming back into a world that we're really living in, but because we're believing our thoughts, we're unaware of that beautiful world. And I've come to see that, you know, beyond my own doubt, that the universe is friendly. And there is no opposite to that. But what I'm thinking and believing could lead me to believe otherwise. And I have a word

for that. It's called suffering. And another word, confusion. Another word, war. So this new book, A Mind at Home with Itself, it's the entire book. Stephen introduced me to this book. I'd never heard of the Diamond Sutra. And it's all about gratitude. And when we are living out of our kindest nature, then that sense of gratitude comes with it. And we wouldn't even name it gratitude. It is just a sense of right living and joy. And it's a fearless state of mind and life where we know what our talents are. They're clear to us and there's nothing to stop us because we're living out of what is right and a mind that is no longer confused, in other words, fearful, to stop us. No one and nothing can stop us from doing the right thing when our mind is clear. And I really love that for people listening to this podcast

to know that there is a way out of suffering, but the world can't give that to me. It's it really, I don't call it the work for nothing. Yeah. And just to sort of create a little bit of structure around what you just offered, the work is you just navigated us through a really beautiful example of the process of inquiry that came to you, which is this asking of these four questions and these things that you identify as turnarounds as a way to, would it be accurate to say, to develop the habit of testing the thoughts and assumptions that constantly come in and lead to suffering when you grasp onto them as truth? Socrates said an unquestioned life isn't worth living, and I am of that school. It was interesting with the example that you just shared, which was that your experience as a child? Yes.

When I think about, you know, as an adult, okay, so I can listen to this, I can receive the process of the work, and it makes sense to me. And I say, okay, I'm open to this. They're suffering in my life. They're thoughts that I have that I'm not okay with. Let me at least, I'm open to it. Let me try it. Four-year-old Byron Kathleen, in your mind, is there a gateway to introduce this process, the work, to somebody much younger in life to create that lens long before the depth of suffering builds up. Yeah, it's just happening. It's happening all over. You know, parents, they're doing this work, and it's shifting their children's lives. And I watch my grandchildren, and it's radical, because my daughter has the work in her life, witnessing my grandchildren. The beauty of it is the simplicity of the process.

This is not a big, heavy, complex dogma. It's not layered with things or ideologies. It's just a simple, straightforward process that you can almost look at it and say, well, yeah, it just kind of makes sense. What I love about it is there's no teacher involved. It's just me with myself or just anyone doing the work. It's just that person with themself and the opportunity to just get still and be shown what meets those questions when we ask with sincerity. I feel like this is actually a good place for us to come full circle. So as we sit here, I always end with one final question with everyone. It's a simple question with maybe a not so simple answer, which is in your experience,

what does it mean to live a good life? To be present and recognize what is at hand to do and to do that without hesitation. And two, because it's just recognized as a good thing to do. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we'll be right back after a good thing to do. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. 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 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. So I love how Byron really reminds us of the simplicity and power in questioning our thoughts, that this act alone can liberate us from so much suffering. And our next guest is Lama Rod Owens, a spiritual teacher whose powerful approach called Radical Dharma really shows how to transform challenges like anger and grief and heartbreak into a path of healing and liberation. From his

intersecting identities as a black queer Southern man, Lama Rod creates an authentic, inclusive platform that meets people where they are with a blend of directness and lightness. With a master's from Harvard and over a decade of experience, he has emerged as a leading voice for a new generation seeking personal and societal transformation. In this conversation, we'll explore how Lama Rod integrated his upbringing in the black prophetic tradition with Buddhist

teachings on spiritual liberation. And you'll gain insights into how we can tenderly hold our anger and heartbreak as we work to free ourselves from trauma and self-sabotaging patterns. He shares practical guidance for choosing clarity over confusion, light over darkness, as we strive to live our most authentic, liberated lives. Here's Lama Rod. of literature, you know, primarily back then because of my dad, you know, who had also been exposed to that literature and wanted me to read it. So I was reading W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. Booker T. Washington isn't necessarily an example of, like, Black radical prophetic, but he was still a thought leader. He was still someone whose views are still held, you know, in value even now.

But reading those two thinkers, then moving into Malcolm X, you know, and into these, you know, the Black Panther movement, the Black Power movement, you know, and studying the Haitian Revolution. And I had to do that study outside of school because I, you know, we weren't being assigned Malcolm X, you know, and the Panthers in our history class, right? You know, so I did that study on my own and that really began to form, you know, this belief that, like, if I want to be free and happy, but back then it was more about free. If I wanted to be free, then I needed to do something to get free. And that wasn't necessarily about praying to God. It was about getting active and organizing, taking stances, you know, getting educated, joining others, you know, and working towards a goal, you know, associated with liberation and freedom. And that was my first dharma, if you will. The Black radical tradition, Black prophetic tradition, it was something that helped me to channel my anger.

You know, it gave my anger somewhere to live. And it's really because of my study in the Black radical tradition that I began to understand the power of the Black church as well. What I was given didn't really resonate with me, but when I was able to step back and to apply this lens of Black agency, for instance, I began to say, oh, the Black church was actually functioning in a certain way that I was not able to identify moving through the church as a practitioner. And then, you know, earlier you spoke of this kind of Black heartbreak, right? And the heartbreak is palpable and evident in the Black church. And I saw it, you know, that was very, it was very present, but like, it was so hard for us to talk about. And I knew that so much of my path as I got older was to talk about the heartbreak. And to talk about the heartbreak in a way that I framed that narrative of the heartbreak around freedom.

Not around overwhelm, not around continued suffering, but what it meant to articulate the heartbreak and then that articulation actually opening the door to a kind of openness and deeper vulnerability and an experience of letting go. You know, being through with certain heartbreaks and then just offering this back. You know, just saying, yeah, I'm through with this. Now I'm going to choose happiness. I've mourned enough. Yeah, which is, you know, on paper, just it's time to choose happiness. In reality, it is a much more complex

and often long and deep and studied unfolding if we ever get to that place. And of course, it also depends on a certain level how we even define happiness. Yeah. We're not talking about just getting to a place where life is good and everything's happy-go-lucky, but it's a different context. Yeah, you know, choosing happiness means that at some point I accept what's happening. When I say accept, it doesn't mean agreeing with or condoning. I'm saying this is happening. But to make that step, to take that step means that I have to contend with the heartbreak that comes with acceptance. I can no longer live within a fantasy of what the world is.

I can't continue to hang out in my hoping for things to be different. Hope is still very important for me. I have to be realistic and say, at this moment, right now, this is what's happening. And there's a kind of soberness that arises. And that soberness comes, again, from having to hold space for the heartbreak that arises. That, oh, like I have to, I have to touch into this reality. Like I have to touch the ground. Because Like I have to touch the ground because I've been afraid of the ground. Like we're afraid of touching the ground because the ground is dirty. You know, when I

touch the ground, I'm touching into reality. And then I move into the heartbreak and I let the heartbreak be there. And the heartbreak doesn't have to be overwhelming because actually the nature of my mind is much greater than a heartbreak, right? If I use my tantric language, you know, I would say, yeah, and the heartbreak is actually just an expression of my mind itself. itself and if i can realize that then there's a freedom that begins to arise i'm no longer reacting to this energy because i realize that the essence of this is just this essence of of spaciousness and emptiness and just like this energy that's moving and taking shape in different ways and i can just watch it and let it be there right and my reality begins to shift it changes right and then i'm sitting in reality and when i when i get through that heartbreak and not i want to you know also say that heartbreak doesn't just disappear it just stays there i'm still holding it it's just there right and then there's a soberness and then a contentment that arises, right?

And where you say, yeah, this is the world, right? And now how can I choose the best way to take care of myself and to do the work and getting myself free and getting others around me free? Yeah, I mean, part of my curiosity, I have a lot of curiosities around this. Part of it is when we aspire to step into this state, this place, so often what leads to it is action fueled by, as you've shared, anger, rage. And because there is pain, there's suffering, there's physical violence that has often led to this psychic and emotional violence that has led to a certain place. So I'm fascinated by this notion of, I don't know if the right language is letting go of that or transmuting it or the process of moving from there and saying, this still matters to me. My external world is still largely the same, but I need to change my internal world in a way and still take action and be in the world around me and be a part of shifting. The journey from that place where there is a certain anger and a certain rage to the place that you've just sort of described,

it feels like a brutally hard transition. Well, yeah. Well, absolutely. It took me about 15 years to do that. And that was heavy labor on my part. That wasn't casual, informal, weekend work. It was every day and giving up a lot to go deeper into those experiences. But the work is really just about transforming our relationship to the world., you know, when we transform our relationship, it's not that the world just instantly changes. It means that I have an agency in how I'm choosing to react to the world,

to the forces around me, right? And it feels natural to assume that if you get to that space, then you just stop giving a shit. But in fact, I think that your concern you to help others because you know what the experience of being lost deeply fixated on the trauma feels like right you know and so we're not trying to bypass anything you know um you know but there is you know when i think about anything. But there is, when I think about Buddhism, there is this path of what we call solitary realizers, where it's like people get free and then they're

like, okay, great. I'm getting the hell out of here. And I think that's legit. That's also a part of my belief system. It's like, yeah, you get free. I'm talking about awakening. You awaken to the nature of reality, and then you just head on.

You're like, bye. I think that's fine. But for me, I choose to, with whatever realization I experience, I choose to return back to places to help people come out of the same kinds of suffering that I was able to come out of. were people who came back and got me. Right? So I had teachers who did this for me. They had teachers who did that for them. That's what's called lineage. You know, there are people who have come back over and over and over again and have sacrificed

immensely in order to pull people out of the trauma, of the violence. And because I realize what has been done for me, then I also am ethically mandated to offer that same hope to others. Yeah. Interestingly, I mean, it's also, you described this impulse towards service and teaching from a very young age, and it's also returning to that impulse for you.

It's sort of like if there's a script that has run in your head for as long as you can remember that says, this is part of why I'm here, then that's sort of like it's part of the path. For you, the 15 years or so that you've described and that you're still within, it sounds like it really does begin with this introduction to Buddhism. You move through the traditional church upbringing. To a certain extent, black radicalism and prophetic tradition becomes your church in a certain way for a certain window of your life but there's still a lot of pain there's still a lot of suffering it's not processing that through and it sounds like buddhism was the thing that allowed that kind of start to open the release valve to a certain extent well buddhism named suffering and that was that's that sold me off the bat it was the first teaching of suffering. For a lot of people, that's a turnoff. For me, I just think that's one of the kindest things that I had ever encountered was for this profound path to say, oh, you're suffering. Like, you're not imagining this. Right? Well, relatively.

On a relative level, this is happening. Ultimately, not so much. But relatively, you are definitely moving through a lot of discomfort. And you have to start there. You know? And I think there are certain paths who

invite us to start with the happiness. You know? But I don't know how to do that, you know, but being encouraged to start where it hurts was this profound, profound permission for me. That was the language that I was looking for, that I was like, oh, I am really uncomfortable. I'm suffering. Right? And it's okay because everyone else is as well, especially the ones who claim that they're not suffering. They're in the most suffering. Right?

And so that took me from that basic truth into a deep relationship with what discomfort was and how discomfort arose, you know, and that the mind was the root of liberation. And for me, you know, coming up in this kind of Black radical tradition, Black power work, I'd never come across any discourse around the mind, you know, that was so intricate and defined in detail as Dharma and Buddhism offered it, that the mind had to be awakened

in order for social liberation to happen. And here's the pedagogy to do that. And that was the next thing that sold me. Here's a pedagogy. And you're instructed to take these teachings and work them. You just work them out. Working the teachings out produces more insight, more wisdom, and you begin to feed off of that, that me to study some of these great leaders, you know, that I idolize and how many of them had a secret practice of meditation or prayer, yoga.

You know, Rosa Parks was a, you know, a yogi. Oh, no kidding. I'd never heard that. Yeah. There were pictures, you know, there are pictures of her doing yoga, actually, which is so profound when you think about that. But I thought, okay, how can I do more work to bridge this liberatory mind teaching with these liberatory teachings of the relative world together. And that was just something that started naturally happening without, I mean, I didn't sit down and say one day, okay, I'm going to bring this together. But again, it was the hunger,

you know, for me to bridge all these parts of who and what I was. And that has made, you know, for me, all the difference. I mean, well, that has shaped the way that I teach and offer instruction. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like that becomes really the foundation of this, the notion of radical dharma, right? You know, spiritual liberation is bound to social liberation, to societal liberation, and that you can't just do the work outside with the external circumstances. You've got to work on the outside world and also the inside world. Exactly.

And there's no way to unbind them. Absolutely. And I was kind of wandering through the world, you know, until I met Reverend Angel, you know, and we got together and we started like creating this kind of notion of radical Dharma. And that for me was a way to ground all of these things that I was thinking about that didn't really have a foundation at all, nor a container, you know, to kind of place them in. And Radical Dormant became that container for me. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. 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 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-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 eight 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. You mentioned the pedagogy that is built into the Buddhist path. This effectively becomes your pedagogy in terms of how do we relate these two things, spiritual and social and ethical liberation. It's interesting. You pose the question in the work, how do we tend to the wound beneath the anger? I think the word specifically you wrote, if we don't wrestle with the anger, we never get to the heartbreak.

And if we don't get to the heartbreak, we don't get to the healing. Yeah. So many people are so, they're bypassing the heartbreak and you can't, you have to go to the wound. How do you heal if you're not dealing with the wound itself? I know absolutely that it's terrifying. Absolutely. I go to these places regularly, actually. But I know that healing can only happen if I go and if I show up and offer a lot of space,

the woundedness, right? And that over time, we begin to see that the woundedness is just a teacher for us. But even the woundedness is trying to love us, right? And it's loving us because it's showing us you know where it is you know and it's being vulnerable and open if we can just pay attention and of course the whole process paying attention holding space letting go over and over again you know that's like a really basic contemplative practice over and over but the letting go, that's the trick. Well, I mean, Reverend Angel adds to, I think, the way that you phrased it and I think introduces the notion of grief. Part of that letting go is also a process of grieving a certain state that has in no small way defined your daily existence. Yeah. a certain state that has in no small way defined your daily existence.

Yeah. You know, and it's the ways in which we also, we have used things to create a sense of self. And when those things are disrupted, then our sense of self is disrupted and that's where the loss arises you know as in Stevie Nicks

you know and says in Landslide you know I've built my whole life around you you know I've been afraid of changing you know and it's just one of my favorite songs actually that's a that's a song that like i am often reflecting on you know like because it's like

a lot of us get stuck because we've used things around us in relationships and people to define a sense of who we are and we don't want to disrupt that, but it will be disrupted because things change. Things die. Things are destroyed. Things dissipate. We're always changing, even if we choose not to show up to that change.

There's the grieving there. We have to choose the grieving in order to negotiate the energy of loss. The the energy of loss the energy well the energy specifically of longing for permanence yeah i mean that makes a lot of sense it part of what i'm wondering also as I hear you share that is when, on the one hand, you feel the weight of current and present harm, you see the systems all around you that continue to create that. And there's a deep wounding underneath, but this this rage and anger on on the surface and if you view the anger as the source fuel for change then

choosing to step away from that can be conflated with choosing to step away from a commitment to change. And rather than saying, well, is there another source of fuel? Well, that's the misconception. Anger isn't fueling our work of liberation. It's love that fuels the work of liberation. Tell me more. You know, love is something that many of us have been beat over the head with. Again, I grew up in the South. I live in Atlanta now.

And I live a mile from Dr. King's, the MLK National Memorial site. So it's like, oh, you know, and growing up with Dr. King, you know, my whole life in Georgia was love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love. I was being loved and cared for. I just didn't get that. I didn't understand love until I began this really intense work of loving myself. Then that's where love actually came into focus. I said, oh, this is not this romantic,

idealized thing. This is this hard work of learning how to accept myself into a whole space for all of the woundedness. And going through that and saying, you know what, it's okay, and I'm not the only one, you know, over and over again. And so understanding that and coming back out into liberation struggle, the struggle for me or my work in the struggle is fueled by my deep wish for people to be safe and happy. That's what fuels the work.

That's what makes the work sustainable. Because I believe all beings, regardless of who you are, regardless of how much you hurt me, you deserve to be free, safe, and happy. Right? And that's what motivates the work. Now, the anger is still there. Right? And the anger actually helps me to understand what's wrong and how things are wrong. It reminds me that I'm still connected to the world and to the welfare of

beings and to the welfare of myself. It reminds me that there's hurt still present, you know, and that I can use that energy of anger as I take care of myself. I can use that energy and channel it back into the work of anger, as I take care of myself, I can use that energy and channel it back into the work of liberation, you know, because it keeps me sensitive to the world around me. It keeps me sensitive to the realities of others around me as well, particularly, right? It always tells me that they're still in balance.

And of course, yeah, there are all kinds of different angers, righteous anger, for instance, right? Which is still legitimate, right? Yeah, we've been hurt in really significant ways because of injustice. Anger arises from that. I have a right to be with that, right? And I have a right to be heard. You know, I have a right to be with that. And I have a right to be heard. I have a right for my anger to be held and witnessed. And the wounding that comes, for many of us, comes from the ways in which our anger has been erased, sidetracked, invalidated.

Your anger isn't important. Who cares? Or in my case, my anger is dangerous because my anger actually highlights the fact that there's a debt that's owed. It's so powerful in a lot of ways. My curiosity around it also is the shift where you're not entirely letting go of the anger because you can't. And it's important not to, to the extent that it is a signal of the work still yet to be done and the existence of harm and sources of harm in the world still

to this day. And yet, if that remains, tell me if I'm getting this right, if that remains the central source fuel of what motivates you, it may motivate action, but it simultaneously consumes you. So it's almost like letting, shifting anger to this signal that tells you, almost like your compass and shifting love or these indicia, the way you described love, rather than the sort of holiday card notion of that we're talking about.

It's not an offering to other people. It is an act of self-care, of self-preservation, of saying that I matter and this is the way that I can still do the work in the world and be able to take care of myself along the way. I think that's absolutely right and that also

that love is the container for the anger. My anger expresses itself within the energy of love. Love is what helps me to remember

that people are human and suffer just like me. No matter if you're being violent towards me, you're still human. You're not evil. You're not all the things that we like to say about people, but you're still human. Someone loves you and you love someone else.

My early teacher around love used to always say that no matter how vile someone seems, someone loves them and that they love someone. And that's evidence that love can be cultivated for them, even if they're choosing not to embrace that and express that in the moment that they're expressing violence towards you. And this isn't, you know, I know people listen to this and they'll say, oh, this is so, you know, whatever. Right. Love, whatever.

And I come from that. I come from a place where I was like, fuck love. Let's just go and burn everything down. Right. You know, and then getting older, deepening the practice. It was important for me to understand that no, actually I want to be sustainable like I want to create

instead of destroying things like I don't think it's cool for the world to become an object of my anger or a target for my anger. You know, like because I struggle,

it doesn't mean the whole world should be burned down. But I mean, it's easy. I don't want to say that, but when you say, because I struggle, it doesn't mean the whole world should be burned down. And yet, if you perceive the world as the source of your struggle, it's complicated. suffering world what's the world right to begin with the world isn't this like one solid thing the world is a complex eco you know ecological system of these different parts you know creating different realities for different people so you know part of that is stepping back and holding space for our suffering and then world, this idea of the world changes significantly.

For me, early on, yeah, my practice, the world was this huge antagonist. The world was just this antagonist that was trying to kill me. And then once I started the practice, I began to see that actually, I was trying to be loved by different aspects of the world. There were people trying to love me. Right. And I never realized that. And that expression of love was experiences that I started hooking onto and holding onto that people were

trying to get me free through kindness, through emotional labor, through service for me, you know, my mother, my family, they were trying to get me free. I just didn't get that. The church was trying to get me free in a specific way that I didn't get. Right? You know, and so I began to see that and I began to say, oh, okay, the world is actually full of love. But my hurt, my

trauma blocks that because trauma becomes a lens that we view everything out of if we're not taking care of the trauma. The wind blowing becomes a traumatic experience. The sunshine. I mean, puppies and kittens can be. I mean, that's just kind of the reality of trauma itself. You know, for many of us, yeah, we can't help that. Like, we get triggered.

We can't help that. Right? But that's also the nature of trauma itself. You know, and for many of us, yeah, we can't help that. Like we get triggered. We can't help that, right? But that's also the nature of trauma. Everything is colored by this, you know, this energy that we're trying to move through, that's stuck in our experience. You know, that's creating these obstacles

of perception and experience. Yeah, and not all of us are going to make it. That's a big part of it. I, you know, this sounds really great, you know, and I say, oh, all you have to do is pay attention and do this and that and read my book and you'll be fine. It's just really not the reality either. It's not all of us will have the capacity to embrace love in this life and this

body. Yeah. I mean, there's a huge part of the process is, and I guess this is what a lot of the practices that you speak to and that you write about and that you teach revolve around, I think, seeing more clearly, not welcoming, but acknowledging discomfort, unease, allowing yourself to experience it rather than doing everything possible to push it away. And that doesn't mean being complacent in your circumstance. It means acknowledging that this is my reality in this moment in time, rather than sort of like living in a delusional state and then embracing the practices that say, well, like, how can I be okay in this moment in time without saying I'm not going to take action externally? I'm not going to walk away from this, but at the same time, how can I be okay,

you know, through my own experience, through my own practices, through my own intentions? Yeah. I mean, whether we are talking about in the context of race, in the context of trauma that has happened in any other part of life, in the context of the source of any suffering that is deep and sustained, these are the questions. And they're brutally hard ones to grapple with. I think the American mindset, the Western mindset is so pill-based. Like, where's the switch that I can flip to make this all, to fix it? You know, rather than, oh, what if the answer is a sustained and long commitment to a series of actions and practices and ways of being without immediate gratification? Right.

Well, that's called work. Yeah. You know, that's the work, right? And we can't always expect to be comfortable in the work. And it's not just this lifetime. In my belief system, it's multiple lifetimes that we're working. You know, we do pieces at a time, life after life. We get a piece, we do what we can.

We go to the next one, you know, and that's, you know, that's something that I have found to be very true for my experiences, you know, birth and rebirth and so forth, you know, that like, I have a clear sense of what my work is in this life, you know, we talked about this earlier, like when I was younger, I already knew what I was going to be doing, you know, at a young age. I just didn't know how that was going to happen. Nor did I know that I knew. Like I just had these vague impressions

of what I thought I would do. You know, the teaching, the religion, the service, right? The mental health, like all those things were really important to me. And I tried to get into these things in really different ways. And all of a sudden this happens. It's like, no, actually, who doesn't? It's actually how you're going to get into this door of doing all of this. You know, there's a lot, you know, even there, even then there's a lot you know even there even then there's a lot of of teaching around

again the black prophetic tradition how do we read the times like how do we show up and pay attention to what's happening now because what's happening now is just a pattern that's going to keep repeating itself over and over and over again. If I can just learn the pattern and I enter into this kind of profound path where I'm actually being taken care of, when we enter the pattern, we're being cared for because the pattern is just the energy that we've created that's actually propelling us towards freedom towards liberation some virtue some virtuous path that we enter into right and to to acknowledge that means that like

we get swept up into something that is leading us towards freedom feels like a good place for us to come full circle in our conversation as well so sitting in this container of good life project if i offer up the phrase to live a good life what comes up for me to live a good life means that i'm living a life that is as clear and conscious as possible but i know as much as I can about how I'm showing up and how I'm impacting the world around me. Thank you. So I love being able to learn from Byron Katie and Lamorado.

It's two humble teachers who have courageously walked the path of radical self-inquiry and liberation by really learning to question our thoughts and beliefs with unwavering honesty and also tenderly holding even our most difficult emotions, they show us how to find freedom from suffering right here, right now. So may their insights ignite a spark within you

to just keep questioning, keep exploring, and keep awakening to your truest self. And if you loved this episode, be sure to catch the full conversations with today's guests. You can find a link to those episodes in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Dell for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life

Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you wanna help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy.

Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

Mayday, mayday, we've been 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 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.