Rev Left Radio - Michael Brooks: Meditation, Materialism, and Marxism

Episode Date: July 21, 2020

This is a re-upload of an episode we did with Michael Brooks, who tragically passed away recently at the age of 36.  Michael's impact lives on and we humbly carry on his radical spirit of loving kindness, compassion, proletarian internationalism, and genuine existential decency. More than anything, we honor and carry on his spirit of Revolutionary Love. Rest in Power, Michael. Check out "Honoring Michael Brooks" Outro Song: Drugs with Friends by Car Seat Headrest

So today I learned of the untimely passing of Michael Brooks. He was 36 years old, and he passed away from what is being described as a sudden medical condition. There's really no more information than that. I was taken aback and absolutely heartbroken, brought to tears after hearing his death, not because him and I were incredibly close personally. We had this conversation which you're about to hear, and we had a couple of communications online on social media through email before this episode. And so I'm not, I wasn't somebody that was very close to him in his life,

but somebody that definitely came across him and somebody that worked in the same general field of left-wing media. And all of my interactions with Michael were just indicative of the sort of person he, He is indicative of what everybody else online, who had any interactions with him, are saying that he was, which is a genuinely kind, generous, loving, supportive human being who would lift up voices, trying to find a foothold in left-wing media, who would go out of his way to give advice to young up-and-comers or people who wanted to break on to the left media scene, and just somebody who treated everybody with the respect and dignity and humanity that really flowed through everything that he did. A lot of people are pointing out his hilarious sense of humor and that was certainly an important aspect of him.

He had a sort of brilliant taste for comedy and for political satire specifically. He was also somebody that was very engrossed in meditation who went on silent retreats, who studied the same sort of meditative practices that I study under the Vipasana meditative tradition. And we talk about that in this episode. And he was also somebody that was on the Marxist left, somebody who I think represents the best of the humanist Marxist tradition, somebody who never stopped emphasizing the international scope of what we are trying to do, which is build a better world, who had deep connections to, for example,

Brazilian politics and Lula and just somebody who went out of his way to not only help the world through political education in and of itself, but who acted and treated others in a way that is indicative of the sort of people and the sort of world that we ultimately want to build. And so, again, Rev. Left is heartbroken. I'm personally heartbroken to hear about his passing. His impact on the left will not be forgotten. He will live on through us, through the people he impacted, through the countless people whose political development he helped spur on and educate and give rise to. And I just wanted to re-upload this conversation with Michael as a homage to who he was and paying tribute to him and his legacy. And this is, of course, just one conversation

on one podcast and there are a million other things that he's done and I encourage you to go check them out he's written two books for example but I just wanted to to offer this and re-upload this in a humble and loving spirit and to really you know give a final salute to Michael and his impact on the world my heart goes out to his entire family we're devastated by it I'm sure his family's devastated by it the left on this continent is devastated by it and so I I won't say much more than that. Just know that his death had a profound impact on us here at Rev Left and we'll continue to carry on the spirit that he imbued in everything he did.

A spirit of loving kindness, a spirit of generosity, of support, of lifting up voices. Rather than putting them down, he saw the left media landscape not as some brutal competitive arena where you needed to outdo and out sub your competitors, but as a community of like-minded people who did best when we helped one another, when we raised one another up, when we had one another's backs. And so for that, we'll be grateful for sure, and I know other people are as well. So without further ado, here's the re-uploaded conversation I had with Michael Brooks on meditation, materialism, and Marxism.

Rest in power, Michael. I'm Michael Brooks. I'm a host of the Michael Brooks show. That's sort of the home of my primary projects. I'm also a co-host on the majority report with Sam Cedar. And I do another show which I really passionate about called Woke Bros with my good friend, Waz, Wazni Lombray. Let's see.

Well, I've been provoking people with this stuff recently, so I'll say I'm a Leo. And let's see. I had a lot of different paths in my 20s, and it's all sort of fused together in whatever this space where it is, I guess, is, you know, analyst, entertainer, provocateur. Yeah, so as I was saying before we started recording, and I've been listening to the majority report for a very long time. I was very familiar with you and your work for years before I started Rev Left. And then after I got started, I think I reached out to you or vice versa because we sort of, you know, saw that we had a similar trajectory in our projects and we wanted to get something together, you know, some sort of collaboration going.

And we went back and forth. We had some ideas, but it just never happened. And then recently I heard you on Zero Books talking about psychedelics and meditation. And you talked about how you have your own meditation practice and go on retreats. And this is a topic that I've really wanted to cover on Rev Left, but I really couldn't find any inroads to it because it's sort of outside of the main topic spheres of what I discuss on Rev Left. But, you know, hearing you talk about it and maybe thinking about like politics and some of the contradictions between meditation and Marxism, I thought we could sort of do an

episode on meditation and tie it also into politics to make it sort of firmly in our wheelhouse here. So I really appreciate you coming on and us finally being able to do this collaboration. It's really cool to finally get to talk to you. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. My exact same. feelings, brother. Beautiful. All right. So first and foremost, I just ask this question to most guests, just so people have sort of an orientation towards them. How do you identify politically? That's interesting. And maybe this is a, you know, this is the, I'll answer your question in a second. I will say I've gotten, even though I've been doing this for really a relatively short period of time and definitely things have changed pretty radically in the last couple years and really even

particularly last year in terms of, I think, you know, basically my reach and sort of scope and, you know, still a lot more to do. But I think, you know, even just kind of coming into the space a little bit when I was producing for Sam in 2012, you know, there was a lot of like, I mean, Occupy was a very big deal, regardless of one's feelings about it. And actually, overall, I'm a defender of Occupy for its mistakes and so on. I think it was an incredibly important thing. but you know there was so much of a habit of like so i always used to say that i was you know basically some type of you know either left or progressive or democratic socialist i might say sometimes uh and that i was analytically marxist and what i meant by that was that you know when

i i took capital in college and i was an autodidact i was a countercultural homeschooled kid and I was pretty political high school age very much of the sort of

you know Noam Chomsky you know kind of later end of anti-globalization protests and I think I went through a phase of kind of

wanting I think especially because I was so alienated both in terms of you know this very kind of obscure upbringing in a way and dealing with a lot

of kind of you know serious material deprivation, but also just like a sense of disconnect from, you know, power and institutions. I had a phase where I was, you know, very interested in things like the third way, in Clinton and Blair and Obama and this sort of thing. And while, you know, my politics never strayed that far in that direction, it was also,

frankly, just a reflection then. And up until really recently of just how limited politics were. And it's very, so it's very interesting to me, although, and then as I say, in college, when I actually had to study capital, and that was very much in a phase where I was, you know, I was reading the economist, I was considering, you know, I mean, I both totally temperamentally am not cut for it and really I would have actually hated it. But, you know, it was like so freaked out about growing up with no money and so on that I was almost considering majoring in finance, which, you know, wasn't going to happen. but whatever. But I read Capital and as soon as I, and the basic argument and what was so distinct about reading Marx, and I'm sorry this is a long-winded answer, but I think it's actually important, you know, it was that, yes, of course, I agreed with, you know, Noam Chomsky describing how despicable U.S. foreign policy was or, you know, other, you know, dissenters

talking about, you know, any number of like structural injustices and certainly, you know, particular areas like the civil rights era was something that always was very, very interesting to me and foreign policy in general was something that I always looked at. But when you got that flip economically, which was like, okay, and realizing that it is actually a normative choice, that actually, you know, the economics and capital, of course, it's been updated and developed as a field, both Marxist and non-Marxist, you know, neo-classical Keynesian and Marxist, the kind of three basic options, but that there is actually a really basic, like this isn't math, you know, there is an actual kind of political choice at the

outside of economics, and that political choice is, is something profit, or is it stolen labor that's turned into profit, right? And I, you know, and look, you can complexify that in some ways, and it's something we can have a conversation about that's worthwhile, but as a general presupposition and as a general orientation, as soon as I read that to this day, the idea that, you know, I perceive most work and certainly work in any kind of multinational or anything like that, not, and whether it's incredibly privileged, well-treated work, or the most vicious, you know, vindictive exploitation, whether you are, you know, in the upper echelons of management at Google and

highly compensated and, you know, and so on, or whether you're in the most sort of brutal sweatshop conditions, obviously you're experiencing a totally different reality in terms of your level of oppression, but the structure of economic exploitation is the same. And since that your surplus is getting turned into somebody else's profit, not as a moral thing, but as a structural thing. So I've always, that has been my choice. And so in that sense, I'm very fundamentally Marxist. And so I think, you know, there, I don't, you know, I don't dwell too much on this.

But I mean, clearly my goals are socialist. I want to democratize the economy. I want people to have the same. You know, not they don't really have it, but I think I do see socialism as the idea that, well, if people should have some real strong ownership and governance over themselves and political and civic spheres, then they absolutely should in economic spheres as well. And in fact, if they don't in economic spheres, then obviously the political sphere is not really liberated. And I'm a Marxist because I find Marxist tools to be most. the most effective way of analyzing the world. I mean, that said, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty omnivorous in what I read and how I think and some of the sort of fixation that people have right now in this kind of subculture on, like, specifically labeling themselves.

I frankly find really off-putting, not because I oppose people being clear ideologically, but because I think it becomes a bit of a, you know, kind of an obscureist counterculture game. which I'm not interested in. But, yes, that's how I define myself. So I gave you a lot there. That's good. There's a lot to work with there. I definitely think that the obsession with specific tendencies and then going to war with other tendencies that are not your own is sort of like, one,

it's sort of performative for social media. It's a way of having an identity online. And then it also is sort of a function of the generalized impotence of the left broadly. We have the luxury to sit back. and nitpick about 1917 or make these nuanced divisions that any regular working class people would have no fucking clue what we're talking about. But it becomes an obsession in a way to express oneself in this neoliberal age. And so on that level, I totally agree with you that it's something to be at least entered into with caution

and be suspicious of those pitfalls and what this is actually generating. But one thing about you that I've realized, especially listening to you talk on zero books, is that you are also very much a historical materialist. You take that sort of lends to history and you apply it very well. Am I fair in saying that? To the extent it's possible. Yeah, right? Definitely.

Yes. Definitely. All right. Well, that kind of eases us into this broader discussion about meditation. And the first question I want to ask is sort of related to that, which is what is meditation broadly and out of what historical context did it arise? I know that's a huge question, so you can take that in any direction you want, but I'm just throwing it out there.

So I think meditation broadly is, you know, and obviously this this consumes so much, but I would say in a broad kind of practice sense, like something that maybe you'd have if we were having more to like, you know, what type of meditation do you do kind of conversation? I think that the distinction really globally and really generally generally between, and again, even this gets really problematic because there's a lot of subtleties and distinctions inside this any time you make such a crude distinction. But I do think that the notion that there's some practices that are sort of concentration and immersion practices and then other practices that are more sort of. of awareness focused and I do think that that's a pretty helpful distinction and I noticed like in pop culture or even just in like anecdotally a lot of people if meditation comes up you know people might say like oh I can't do that because I can't turn my thinking off and it's almost like this very and of course like that literally never had I don't know even textually including you know I do think people can get into you know very off all in distinct states meditating, but I don't think that, I don't think that that would ever

correlate with, like, quote, unquote, like, oh, I just don't think, or my mind is blank. Right. In fact, your mind is extremely textured. So, but at any rate, so I think, like, a practice, like, say, like, you know, a lot of people know, like, mantra meditation, the idea that you kind of, like, you focus on a singular object, and you're kind of like, you know, you're, kind of like, you're, you know, you're, keeping your concentration on one thing. And then there's other meditation practices that really are about sort of like,

almost like globalizing your attention in a way that you can get a very sort of continuous, almost like physiological response to your experiences. And again, it, you know, it all, it definitely is a field where, I mean, you know, there is some degree of like how much can you describe what the sensation of like, you know, picking up a racket and hitting a tennis ball is. Like I do think it's a very experiential thing because there are a lot of metaphors and a lot of language that either sounds obscure or not really clear that can kind of click in when you're actually doing a practice. And then the more historical dimension, I mean, one, I know probably, I've done several different kinds of meditation practice and I actually still, when I do meditate, which is not nearly as much as I would like, I do a couple, I do do a couple of different types of practices,

but I've had the most extensive experience in Vipassana meditation, which is where the mindfulness craze comes from and that sort of movement. And that's a, you know, that's a secularized version of Apasana meditation. And that's actually a whole other, you know, separate, worthwhile conversation. But as an example of Apasana, as it's taught now in the West, there's a fascinating history of it that, yes, no doubt textually, you can go back to classic Buddhist texts from the Polycanon, which is where the original teachings of the Buddha. are transcribed and I say transcribed because my understanding is that the tradition was oral and passed on orally for I think actually maybe even a couple hundred years before it was transcribed in written form and that written form is in Polly and that is the you know the oldest

I mean there's there's a massive Buddhist canon that you know compromises much of Asia north and south but the Polly canon is is definitely the sort of most, you know, not as like a value judgment. It's just like the oldest Buddhist texts. And there are teachings in there that, you know, they definitely correlate. Like, okay, yes, like this is a teaching that the Buddha gave on observing breath, observing body sensations, observing mental states. Like, yes, it's, you know, some form of what people are doing today is there, right?

There is a certain continuity. Then there's also the reality that, you know, in Burma, as an example, when, you know, Burma was dealing with its colonial relationship with the British, and there was first, there was, there was a sort of attempt from the colonial administration to sort of disincentivize such a strong relationship between the community and Buddhism, partially because they were freaked out about the Sepoi mutiny that it happened in British Colonially Ministered India, right? And that was a religiously influenced uprising. That was actually, I don't know much about it, but I know that the British put it down. And I mean, this is, I mean, it's countless,

but that's worth looking up. Like the brutality of how they put it down, they shot people out of cannons, I recall. I mean, just a truly vicious, grotesque thing. So what the Burmese did, among other things, was they start. So the monks as an example, and I think this is in the 19th and leading into the 20th century, they started doing it. And it's funny because you can see kind of a correlation to today. So they started to say like, oh, well, somebody's, instead of just kind of like, you know, kind of more general teachings for the public, let's bring out some of these monastic practices. The middle class might be interested in them. There was a thing that was also interesting, which is a lot. of the, and this still actually happens, my understanding is, but a lot of the Burmese teachers

would teach behind a fan, so their faces would be covered. And the idea is actually kind of nice, which is a sort of like a kind of anti-cult, anti-personality sort of notion. Like this is the teaching. It's not the kind of personality that's delivering it. But it's also, you know, it's also can be quite stuffy and conservative in its own form of like mystification. So monks started doing what they called fan down teaching and that was a more you know direct way of engaging in the public anyways to make a long story short by the time we get to the 1950s which is before the you know before military hunts which would take over uh Burma and rename it Myanmar do you have the Vapasana teachings getting steadily updated changed um you know different monks and

different lay teachers actually adding different methods of how to actually teach this practice. And then, you know, a independent government in Burma that actually helps fund, you know, like some of these monks going and teaching overseas in Japan or the United States. And there was actually, I think it was the fourth or fifth Buddhist council held in Burma in the 50s. And so clearly, you know, there's also this no – this Burmese government is seeing Buddhism and Vapasana as a tool of its foreign policy and a tool of its sort of identity in the – basically an Asian post-colonial politics. And, you know, and again, I – and as I say, as I look at this, what I love is that none of this in any way takes from the tradition, the potency of the teaching, the continuity. I like, you know, I like gromchy in the sense of like looking at things

in an integral way. Like when I say historically material, I don't want to reduce it and say, oh, no, it's one thing. It's all of the above. But on the other hand, what historical materialism does that's so rich and so dynamic is instead of, you know, particularly, I think when people deal with stuff that comes from Asia, you know, it's like if it comes from Buddhism, it's positive mystification. It comes

from Islam, it's negative mystification. but it's like oh here are these unbroken chains of these just magical pre-existing things and they're in the text versus like no this is this is economics and sex and psychology and geography like literally everything else and it doesn't detract from it it just means that it's part of the same rich you know human predicament we're all dealing with right yeah exactly thank you that was a very difficult question but you did mention you really focused on vipassana there and that's That's the sort of tradition that I'm most used to. I think that's because the Insight Meditation Society, you know, there are these Americans that were born in like the 40s and 50s that traveled the world and brought these practices back and then explained them. And I think we'll get into that in a bit. So there's this broad, you know, huge historical context.

There's a million different manifestations of this practice we broadly know as meditation. And it takes, you know, blossoms in different ways depending on the culture and the time period that it's blossoming in. but would it be fair to say that the core practices of meditation are sort of transcultural and that sort of like science or mathematics they have very specific cultural beginnings but they can sort of be taken out of any given cultural context and put into different ones sometimes grotesquely sometimes beautifully but you know the practice itself is like the core that can be that's why you know you and i can participate in this practice even though

this practice stems back 2,500 years ago to India and the Asian subcontinent. So is that a good way to think about the practice? Yeah, no, I buy that. And I think even globally, like I, there was a book that came out ages ago called the Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley. And I know it's the type of thing that is very much like, you know, I'm sure you could not cite it if you were taking a comparative religion class. It's, you know, it's not academically precise.

And I understand, you know, this kind of new push right now. And this is actually, to me, is in some ways a very problematic push because obviously, like, and in some ways a really absolutely necessary push. But there's a push that's interesting because in some versions comes from more liberal, quote unquote, identity politics. but actually some of it, like one of the most elegant defenses of cultural difference and distinction was written by Jonathan Sacks that I read. It was called The Dignity of Difference, and he's actually a very conservative ultra-Orthodox rabbi in the UK, and a totally brilliant writer. I mean, I have a really profoundly different worldview from him, but he's a, I mean,

very impressive speaker and writer. So this argument is, you know, is like. no, it's not the perennial philosophy. It's, you know, these are, you know, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, and so on. Like, these are all radically different things. They mean radically different things. They teach radically different things. And then, of course, you know, like the new atheist stuff, you know, came along and was like, you know, no, this is all radically different.

And in fact, of course, we know the goodies and the baddies. And I get all of those points for sure. But I think what actually does hold up, to be honest, is inside all religions, there clearly are people that had a relationship to their religious faith that was experiential, for lack of a better word, quote unquote, spiritual. And it usually correlated with taking on different types of meditative practices that had their own sort of systems that had their own sort of systems that had, some degree of, of, you know, ability to move inside, you know, inside and out of particular context. And I think, you know, honestly, objectively, and this is one where I will, you know, assert a difference. I do think a practice like waphasana, you know, it is a, I mean, it's funny because it's so inseparable from Buddhism. But I do think it's like, it's, you know,

it's obviously a huge advantage that you can sit and do that practice. And it does not require, Like, you know, there's no, like, well, you don't need to visualize any Buddha. You don't need to do anything, you know, with your hands. It's physiological. I mean, it's so I think that's a huge advantage. So I think you're totally right. And I actually think that that's true to some extent across the board, actually. Yeah, interesting.

And, you know, one thing about meditation practice specifically is that it doesn't really require you in and of itself to believe anything metaphysical or ontological about the world. what it is at its core is here is a prescription for you to try, like a sort of experiment for you to run, and here are the results and benefits you will get if you conduct this experiment and this in this way, and then you can go see it for yourself. So it doesn't really require you to believe anything absurd about the world or anything radically different than you were brought up in, and that also allows it to jump between not only different Asian traditions, but you know you have Christian mystics who incorporate meditation. You have complete atheists and scientific materialists who can work with meditation. And so that's sort of

its beauty. But I guess in a basic sense, and I assume a lot of people listening don't know anything or pretty much anything about meditation other than sort of pop cultural chunks here and there. So in a basic sense, what are people actually doing when they are meditating and what are they sort of not doing? There's a lot of different techniques for how this is taught actually. And I want to actually put in a plug, my friend Jesse Vega Frey, who it's so amazing because, you know, he's also, you know, I don't know, maybe he's a year older than me or so, but, you know, another guy in his mid-30s and we've been friends and kind of like brothers in this practice and our friendship now for actually for like 16, 17 years. And I'm seeing, like he's becoming an incredibly, I just did a retreat that he co-led. and he's like emerging as this like really great teacher and somebody who also is very of this moment, you know, with a different kind of cultural trapping than a lot of the kind of, you know, baby boomer ethos that still sort of hangs over so much of this stuff. And he has a new, a book he's working on where he uses manuals from like guerrilla warfare.

like Ho Chi, Min, and Che to re-generate the mindfulness teachings, which is fascinating. Wow. So, because, well, because as an example, like, and this is, this will get into where we're going, because I actually think this is a really important point. And it's certainly influenced my ability. You know, I've been really lucky with some of the teachers that I get to study with. You know, it's, so he, his point is that if you go into the classical Buddhist, literature there's a lot of um war imagery right and it will be a lot and it's you know it's fun it's

kind of like uh you know when the enemy when the enemies of greed hatred and delusion amassed their forces then you you know you counteract with your forces of wisdom love and discernment or so you know it's and it's and in some ways it's very cool because it really is an extremely strategic practice it's very like you know okay go in ease off check this out give that don't check that out right now type of thing his he's that what i love is he's like look but let's be honest and one of the things i love about this that i think is so relevant for the left and us generally is like uh and and also frankly for us being way more forgiving and less toxic with each other is like we're all extremely uh you know we're all very much works in progress to say the least

yeah and what jesse said is like look like let's be honest honest like a lot of times like those forces of like you know greed hatred delusion like they're fucking overwhelming they're they're like a superpower and what we're doing this practice is like we're a little gorilla brand and we come down from the hills and you know maybe like we you know actually now i'm putting words in his mouth because i don't think you take the metaphor at this full but like you know we go in we do a little operation and then we run back up into the hills yeah and and i think it's important because how you frame what you're doing will affect, you know, how you do it. And honestly, you know, there's so many different ways in which this is taught because there's even

an understanding that different personality traits come in, you know, with a different tendency, right? Like, so there's some people where it's like they're going to go in and fucking bulldoze themselves in a way that can be really unhelpful and maybe even counterproductive, right? And there's other people that maybe will approach it in a super lazy way and they need to like get a kick in the ass but i mean generally speaking the typical teaching is that you you actually work initially to establish a certain level of concentration that method of finding concentration is by following the physical sensation of the rising and falling of the breath i've primarily been taught that you focus on your abdomen that your breath is correlated with the rise and fall of your

your abdomen. Other people teach focusing on the sensation of the tip of your nostrils. I'll just say, for me, I've found the abdomen to be a lot more kind of grounding and helpful than the nostrils. Yeah, yeah, you have the same experience. Exactly. Yeah, I kept hearing this, like, you know, follow the tip of your nostrils sort of thing. And it was fine, but then I just eventually, like, sort of settled into my own routine where I would focus on the abdomen and I've got a lot more out of it. So that's just me personally. Yeah, yeah. So exactly. So, then and then from there you kind of first you expand your awareness and this is the sort of typical progression is of your of sensations throughout your body and so you might do so the way i've been

taught usually is you first you kind of do a sweep or you kind of you you place the attention on your face you place the attention on your neck your chest move down your body but then it becomes really just a kind of, you know, again, it's, it's a very dynamic. It's not a static process. But say you're sitting and you're like, okay, I have a little bit of concentration established from kind of focusing on my breath. I, you know, so that basically, and it does not mean, again, going back to the beginning of conversation, doesn't mean you have stopped thinking or anything like that. It doesn't mean you stop making plans. It doesn't mean you've stopped. You know, feeling great about something or feeling guilty about something else, you know, all of the shit that people go through. It just means that you have a certain degree of stability achieved in your concentration so that you can deal with all of that stuff that's rushing at you, but not like go with it. Like, okay, you know, and again, not push it away, but not necessarily go with it, right? So it isn't like that kind of like violent like, you know, that was another big misconception for me in meditation was it was like, it wasn't just like, oh, I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to really go on that ride right now. It was like, no, no, no, that's not happening right now.

Like, fuck that. Get back to the breath. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, exactly. Very violent actually. It sort of re-entrenches the ego a little bit, you know? Yeah, especially if you think of the ego is just like habit in a way.

you know it's like all like just that that those those reflect and then you really start to realize I mean yeah I mean it's it's it is terrifying if you kind of realize in a certain way that like your relationship to yourself in this very dynamic way is a mirror of your reflection of your relationship to everybody else and you can both see the ways in which like you are so terrible and also other ways in which you allow yourself to be treated so terribly and you know it and in both ways and again I think it's another really important kind of check on you know the the the just the sort of you know the the the the the sticks that people get into in the political space because they're you know they're not really being real with themselves and I and I'm you know I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I the reason I

say this is because I'm trying in my own incredibly, you know, I'm on my own journey to say the least. And I'm so I'm trying to, I'm even trying to talk about more of this stuff because I think that we all need to be a little bit more humble and a little bit more forgiving and a little bit more real about, about, you know, the difficulties that we all have, right? The mistakes we all make and so on so anyways um then it's like i love i'm going to say this and like five minutes later i'm going to be like uh doing an impression of like dave reuben but anyways uh but but actually that's great and that doesn't contradict what i'm saying at all so then and then okay so then there's body sensations and you're kind of like okay i i'm focusing on my breath and then i'm going to

check out a body sensation then there's the next level uh or i shouldn't say the level the next phase might be thoughts you know all right like what's going on at the thought process then it might be and then it's emotions and then of course you kind of realize like you know there's a progression right so you realize like okay an emotion is usually some kind of fusion of a physical sensation and a thought right you can kind of get it's very funny because it's like the stereotype of these practices is almost that they like zone you out and what you really get is almost like is it is like a huge amount of precision in your sort of actual experience i mean it's it's it's very like heightening it's it's not uh i mean you don't want it to be overheightening either that's actually

you know an imbalance but it's it's definitely not like a kind of wide-eyed smile kind of like controlled fake bliss that I think people associate with this stuff a lot in pop culture. Yeah, I think when you see pictures of people meditating or like Mad Men at the end of that series where he's sitting there sort of blissed out, it can seem like a form of escapism. You know, my sort of thinking is what you're doing when you're meditating and, you know, you hear a lot of teachers say this a lot is like you're not adding anything to your experience. You're not actually doing anything. What you're technically doing, quote unquote, is just becoming aware.

of the sort of shifting, constantly shifting, sensations, noises, feelings, emotions, moods, and thoughts that go through, you know, a human being multiple times a day. You're sitting back and sort of watching those processes happen. And through that awareness, through that systematic and methodical watching of how your mind and body actually operate and change constantly, you start to detach from this hyper association with those thoughts and feelings, right? Like instead of starting to think like you author all your thoughts and you become sort of a slave to your thoughts and your feelings, you can stand back from them, create a little distance and view them dispassionately almost, you know, I would I always say like watching clouds go by. You know, you're not swept up in the chaos of your constantly changing thoughts and emotions, but you actually get to have some distance and become aware of how they operate.

And the awareness is really doing all of the work, you know, you're not doing anything outside of just being aware ideally. Yep, yeah, totally. That's beautiful. Yeah, so I guess let's just go into the misunderstandings because this is definitely related. So what are some of the most common misunderstandings about meditation that you've come across, specifically here in the West, because we're largely talking to a Western audience? The misunderstandings, as I said, are one that, you know, I can't do meditation because I can't shut my brain off. You know, first of all, for a practice like Vapasana, that's not at all what you're doing. because you're bringing a certain attention and bearing to like everything across the board.

And then, you know, I think even practices where I could see where that misconception would come from, you're not doing that either. You know what I mean? Like in a way you're certainly like using your brain if you're doing a mantra practice, right? Like I actually, I do a mantra practice sometimes for, for Kali. and you know that's not like emptying your brain you know more globally i think that there is a whole of really interesting conversation to be had which again i'll mention my friend jesse fray big fray where it's like on one hand i think a lot of people like in the political space now

well i just i'll be blunt in general i mean i think in general they're just way too rejecting of any form of spirituality, right? And so I'm somebody that, again, I just, and to me also, ironically, a lot of my defense is as a materialist, right? I'm like, yeah, you know, in fact, like liberation theology is a significant thing, right? Yeah, in America, you can like it or not, but that is the reality of that political configuration. So that's part of it.

But that being said, there's definitely some accurate criticisms of, you know, certainly, if we take it back just specifically in meditation, the way these, you know, practices have been deployed and the rhetoric around them. And what's interesting to me, though, is that somebody like Jesse, he wrote a great piece on genetically, called it genetically martified Dharma or the or the Buddhist, bourgeoisie blues his point was like you know there's so much quote unquote science validating meditation right now and i'm not like opposed to that i think actually a lot of people doing that stuff have very good intentions and they really do actually have a really strong and i get it you know like it's funny like as ridiculous as cultish almost as it can sound frankly there is a part of me that's like you know you do a 10-day meditation retreat and i don't think everybody should do the same meditation practice i certainly don't think that everybody should be a buddhist

or what i don't care about any of that but you do get a feeling of like jesus if everybody could get a dose of this experience it wouldn't like solve all of our problems by any stretch but it that would be very nice definitely it would be very nice if every human being could you know have an opportunity to access this right so so but but jesse's point is like you know to be honest like if you really dive into Buddhism or into certain like vipassana like it could be really counterproductive like it could increase your stress you might like he he talked about this funny example of of struggling with uh with a i forget what it was but like a real health thing and one of in the same essay and he had just gotten back from intensive practice in burma and his doctor's like

God, you should meditate more. You should lessen your stress. It's kind of like, sort of like in the phase of this practice where it can get actually really stressful because you're dealing with mortality. You're dealing with, you know, and there's also structural contradictions. Like it's, you know, it's not to say that, well, again,

because I think we can, you know, program things to be anything they are. You can have a fascist Buddhism. You can have a communist Buddhism, whatever. But one thing that is very clear about it is like, There is an interesting and weird contradiction between a practice that is primarily marketed right now as it will increase your efficiency and your ability to succeed when textually, and this is, again, this is the flip side. I mean, this is what a lot of the people on the left don't like, and I understand it because it definitely is not necessarily intervening in politics, but it's also kind of not intervening in anything. I mean, it is a pretty monastic world-renouncing tradition to a degree. There's an endless teachings on why, like, you know, building your empire won't get you fulfillment

or that, you know, if you are a householder, you should, like, take care of your business and live a good life, but that that isn't like, you know, that's not where, like, that's not ultimately where it's at, basically. So I think that, you know, so there's kind of, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's broad kind of pop culture misconceptions that you know you just bliss out turn your brain off then there's the misconception i think from the left that these practices and holding any type of spiritual religious context is innately contradictory of of uh of politics or a material's viewpoint i have to say for me i find that particularly ironic because i you know i'm i've blunt I've been in conversations where I'm the one sort of batting for spirituality, but on the other hand, I definitely am bringing the most historical materials point to bear in the argument.

And particularly, you know, when you talk, I'll be really specific when you're talking around people who are sort of, I mean, they're better because they have a bit more left politics, but they're really coming from that kind of new atheist place, which ironically is a, is a, it's not a materialist role. worldview. It's a totally ideational worldview. Deeply. Yeah. So they're idolists. Oh, my God, exactly. Sam Harris, I always say Sam Harris, Sam Harris's take on Islam is like a great example of trying to understand regional conflict through a purely idealist lens where he boils it all down to the beliefs inherent in Islam and not the socio-cultural, historical context that these conflicts erupt in, et cetera. So I totally agree with that.

Exactly. And so, and it's funny because even as I, you know, again, I keep saying. I'm on I think it's I think a lot of the spiritual stuff is even I'll even go so far as say it's actually really important but you know I think I at one way of I think described being like the materialist worldview versus an idealistic one is that people like you and I we look at the world and actually Doug Lane helped really articulate this for me was you know that we look and we say what do people do all day like what do they drive or they work What are their relationships? And then how does that inform how they think?

Now, obviously, it's a feedback loop because then how you think is going to reinforce, you know, I think ultimately it is an integral thing. But the starting point is what do you literally do all day and then how does that affect how you think? I mean, people like, whether it's Sam Harris or even, you know, frankly, plenty of people in the New Age movement. They think, what do you think? And then what happens after that? Yep. I tend to think in completely the opposite direction. Absolutely.

So, you know, so then there's, so, yeah, so there's that. And then there's the other, not the kind of old, you know, hippie pop culture thing, but the, but that meditation is like the ultimate killer app of success. I watch this show billions, you know, it's kind of a fun show. And it's just so funny because, like, these characters are just, like assholes and you know they meditate and they you know because that's part of like i got to go to the meditation chamber and like really figure out like you know fuck somebody in some deal yeah that's so wonderfully said and i think it really displays all those things you

said display on your end a sort of dialectical thinking right nothing is purely black or white Nothing is purely good or bad. You know, trying to take this more conciliatory path, understanding both sides of things can really help sort of a rigid leftist, put down their defenses a little bit and engage with this topic more meaningfully. I just want to reiterate some of the common misunderstandings that you said quickly. You keep saying that people, and I get this all the time when I recommend it to my friends, I even have a buddy who is a neuroscientist and a postdoctoral work in neuroscience,

and I, you know, constantly telling him to try this meditation thing because he would benefit from it. And one of the big things I hear all across the board is, you know, I'm just not the type. I can't meditate. I sit down. My mind is too chaotic. And they give up and walk away from the practice. But that actually is the first revelation of the practice, right?

It's known as the monkey mind that once you sit down and try to concentrate, you'll find just how chaotic your mind is. Try to sit down right now and put this on pause. Sit down and try not to think a thought for 10 seconds. And you'll find out that you are utterly unable to do that. And that should not be the cause of you turning away from the practice. That, at least for me, is like, that's the first revelation. That's exactly why I need to keep up with the practice to get beyond that. And then the second misunderstanding, which you touched on a little bit,

is that it's pretty much just a breath exercise. When in reality in this tradition, the breath exercise is what you will always start out with because it's precisely the way for you to build that concentration, that ability to focus your attention on an object for a long period of time that will allow you to take the deeper steps later on when you're talking about open awareness and you're talking about turning that concentration inward for insights into the nature of impermanence and selflessness, et cetera. So, you know, these are like really the first potholes that I think people step in and I would just urge them to to contextualize those things and keep moving forward.

If you sit down and realize that your mind is just pure chaos all the time, good. You're doing the right thing. Continue with the practice and you will deepen that understanding, you know. no that's so beautifully put and that actually really gets to like you know and it's it's a problematic translation but like the four noble truths of buddhism and like the first insight that life is suffering or i would say i i think i think translations like this sad like unsatisfying or or kind of or like even almost even just like frustrating or filled with agita because even you know it's like good experiences are followed by bad experiences you have good you have good things but then you're attached to them so then they become a source of stress you know and again you know i i think it's tricky because i i don't want to obviously i think there's a tremendous amount of joy and pleasure in life and i think people should you know engage in that and you know it's it's it's good to be here too right like i i think that that could be balanced by some other really important perceptions but there's such a fundamental

truth to it and you get that fundamental truth if you sit down and right exactly your friend that's so perfect like oh i'm just not the type it's like well first of all you're like the human type i mean i don't know maybe there's like a fraction of people on earth who don't have like you know sure i'm sure some people are slightly more obviously you know certain people have different temperaments or whatever but like you know everybody's incredibly mentally agitated and you sit down and you're like, oh, this person did that, and I got to do this, and oh, fuck. And, oh, man, do you remember, like, in the second season of peeky blinders or, oh, shit, I want to go to a Knit game or, you know, it's like, yeah, it's fucking disaster.

Right. That's the first, that's literally, you know, all the stuff is very systemic and very strategic. That's the first step. It's like, see, it's not looking so good. Yeah. and talking talking about that that unsatisfactoriness you need it's duca it's translated as suffering but really you're getting at this more nuanced take where it's like you're this constant unsatisfactoriness and one way to understand that is that we all have this this constant flow of desires whether this desire

out of boredom to get up and go look in the fridge or this desire to pursue some career or life goal but but what we find and we especially see this when the when the contradictions intensified in the form of hyper famous, hyper rich people is you see that once they obtain the thing that they're constantly desiring, this unsatisfactoriness sets back in and they go crazy because their whole culture has told them amass fame and wealth, consume and express yourself and become famous and rich, and that is the sort of way towards happiness. And once you get there, you realize that no, even with everything that society conventionally tells me is the things that I should be pursuing, I'm still stuck with this fundamentally, this,

fundamental sense of not quite ever being satisfied. I'm always reaching for the next moment. I'm always looking for something external to me for me to finally be happy. And what the Buddha said is, you know, this is the sort of fundamental dysfunction of the mind. And you will never get that thing. You pursue and pursue and pursue and then you die. And, you know, so to be in that frame of mind is a sort of cause of suffering. And even when you are happy, by wanting to hold on to that joyful moment and never let it go, it already starts to slip through your fingers like sand, you know? And so even in the best moments, they're, they're impermanent, they're temporary, and then you will go back down to bad moments. And so, yeah, just trying to stand back and watch the river

pass as opposed to constantly being shoved and bobbed inside the river is sort of one metaphor way to look at this problem and how to address it. I just want to add really quick to that, two quick things. I mean, one, this is actually one of the reasons that I'm pretty, I'm basically like very much pro-Russell brand overall. Me too. I've come around to that, yeah. Yeah, I just think, you know, in addition to the fact that I think he does, I think he has done some things that are actually really great politically. And I think he's genuinely open. I think his, if you look at the way he talks about his spiritual interests and pursuits,

It's very, it's fascinating because he's really, he's very self-aware and he's actually giving you a dose of what you're talking about. And again, he's not doing it in a way that's like, you know, bullshit because let's be honest, like he's created a life that, you know, this is the other part where it's like being real. Like, yeah, that's a very enjoyable life. There's a lot of great benefits to it that he's achieved and acquired. And, you know, he's not pretending that he's going to get rid of it. But then he's also very openly basically saying, like, through various addictions, through career accomplishments, like, yeah, there's still a huge amount here that feels fucking awful. And so I'm kind of sincerely engaging in these pursuits. And I, you know, I think that's cool.

Like to me, you know, that's my just sort of like 30,000 feet view of that is like that is a positive model in the world. And I also just want to say really quickly, too, that like the funny result, like I think there's plenty of people, frankly, that, you know, and I had a whole period of time where I needed to definitely step away from these practices and even like the culture of them, which I think it's some extent a separate thing, that people can interpret these things whether or not it's in the focus of, you know, a lot of our work as like, oh, well, I'm not going to engage in the world or I'm not going to, you know, deal with. with the ecological crisis or the, you know, the political dimension, but even also like, oh, well, I meditate, so I'm kind of like a purse-lipped boar. I do think some people have, you know, and I will say on the flip side, the people that I've been around that are like the real models in terms of teachers, you know, that I've been around. And again, and they're not perfect. And this is another important thing is I don't, you know, I don't think there's any process that totalizes anybody we're all still products of our conditions and you know nobody

nobody nobody is perfect by any stretch but people who really have cultivated something here to the point where you could say like oh these are you know these are human beings that are super admirable and they're living in a way that is definitely significantly better than the average they have extremely full and dynamic and engaged and very alive personalities. So it actually does not lead you to this sort of like, you know, the kind of like the college kid who's like misread like, you know, the stoics and is like frustrated that like the dating life isn't going that way. And it's like, well, I'm not tempted by the senses. It's not that at all. Yeah, exactly.

It does not produce. And, you know, I've been fascinated with, like, the highest achievers in this realm. And for a long time, I've sought them out and tried to see how do they live their lives, how do they talk? And that was sort of a concern early on in my life, too, is like, if I do this practice, right, this whole idea of, like, getting rid of the self, is that going to just sort of turn me into some drone, some soulless conformed, you know, thing that's not really me? And you're exactly right.

It's the exact opposite. It lets all of the weirdest parts and the most interesting parts of your personality take really beautiful form. And you see, like, with a Joseph Goldstein, for example, who is a big, you know, leader and teacher in Vipasana, just like the sort of effortless way that he laughs and he can sit in any conversation and be totally present. That is, I think, where a lot of this cash is out. And it doesn't make him dull. It doesn't make him anything other than a really unique individual person. And the higher you climb this ladder, I think, the more unique you get because whatever is inside of every individual human being that makes them different from everybody else that's really allowed to grow and blossom in an interesting way. And you're right. It's never finished. You can even, in Buddhist tradition, you can talk about multiple lives and like the pursuit of enlightenment happens over hundreds or thousands of lives. And whether or not you want to take that literally or not, the idea it's getting at is that you're going to be constantly in a process of development. You don't reach an end point. And insofar as you can get enlightened, it's not like

everything stops for you. It's a matter of deepening that enlightenment, deepening that insight, that understanding even in that context. So, you know, this notion that it's a perpetually unfolding process and not just like a thing that you climb the ladder and get to the top rung of, I think is an important thing to keep in mind as well. Definitely. Let's talk about benefits, right? We hear a lot of the benefits and you gestured earlier towards the scientific approach where they're trying to scientifically pin down, you know, the benefits of people. But personally, what have the benefits been for you in your life? And maybe after you talk about the many benefits, maybe talk about like the single most impactful aspect that this practice has had on your life.

I mean, that's just a really interesting. I mean, to me in some ways, like, and it feels so weird because, you know, I just, you don't ever want to be in a position of like, I just keep saying, I just still have just so much to work on but i would say um you know it in those moments that it gives you the capacity to really not be at the circumstance of passing thoughts and emotions no matter how intense it give it it it it's there's a there's a state of freedom or reset and ability to do things that is just so radically better. I don't, you know, and I, and I also have no doubt that like, you know, I do think on some level, like I don't, again, I don't think it's because of it, but even in a really

broad way, I think that like having had some periods of my life where I've done a decent amount of somewhat intensive practice, I think it actually has helped. me in terms of hosting in terms of creativity comedy it in some ways as a because everything is kind of opened up and you're less contracted it does allow things to go a lot more sort of naturally and elegantly because you're just not constantly getting tripped up um you know and And then look, I think I've had some other experiences where, again, it's like, I don't want to, I don't want to scare people, but I mean, I've had some experiences where it's like, I think in the immediate circumstances of doing some of these things, it has not been helpful in a conventional sense, which has been like, oh, shit, that was really fucking intense. I'm going to process that. And, and, and of course, maybe even led to, you know, I'm realizing now, you know, now it's getting too personal. but I think that I'm sort of looping back to this stuff.

I mean, I think I had the period of several years of the kind of like disillusioned, like, oh, man, whatever, you know, and then really realizing, like, how painful that cynicism and that hardening is, in a more relative sense, I mean, look, if I'm in a schedule where I'm meditating and working out, with some regularity, life is just better. I don't, you know, I don't really know how to kind of put it better than that. Like, you're, you're definitely less stressed. You're probably being less than an asshole.

You're probably, you know, it's probably undermining and contradicting whatever your addictions and habits are. And I'm using that in a really broad sense. So I don't want to, you know, I don't want to dismiss. I'm definitely not trying to diminish anybody who's, like, actually dealing with, like, a capital A addiction. Yeah. But I do think in a vernacular sense, we are, like, I am addicted to my phone.

I am. Yeah. Right? Like, it's not good. You know what I'm saying? So, no, of course, it's not the same thing as, you know, an actual, like, substance area. But it is actually not a good thing that diminishes life and, you know, decreases quality and connection and so on. You know, people have all sorts of compulsive areas.

And I think that it definitely makes you calm or happy. As much as I sort of resist the sort of scientism, it's like, look, it does. It makes you calmer. It makes you happier. Almost certainly you will deal with your circumstances better. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And insofar as it helps with like sort of habits like that or bad habits, is that, you know,

it's exactly what we're talking about with awareness is if you can cultivate this level of awareness then when that first little urge, that first little desire to do the habit crops up. If you can maintain some awareness, you can see it arise. And in that sense, you can sort of veto it in a way, right? You can say, oh, I see this thing coming up. This is where I go to the fridge and pull out the food. But, you know, this time I'm going to check that impulse because I know that it's just this ultimately bad thing. And that little distance, that that little sliver of awareness that gives you that second to veto that, I think is important. So some of the benefits for me, and I definitely don't want to oversell these.

It's not some radical transformation. I'm very fucking human. And as Michael's said many times, I'm much closer to the never having meditated at all side of the spectrum than the I'm literally a Buddha side of the spectrum. So I don't want to come up as anything but just a genuinely curious amateur who's been doing this off and on for a very long time. But one of the best benefits for me is in the same way that you can sort of check a bad habit, you can check negative emotion. And when I have anger or anxiety or jealousy, when I'm, you know, actually putting this stuff into practice, a lot of times this shit sneaks through and I'm an asshole about it. But once in a blue moon, when you can get that awareness, you can feel that anger or that anxiety or that jealousy or that negative emotion, not as some cerebral story you're telling yourself that sort of continues to fuel the flames of that emotion, but you drop that conceptual apparatus and feel it as a physical sensation in the body. And when I'm able to do that, I am literally, at the best times, able to kill anger or anxiety or jealousy right in its tracks.

And you just spot it, you see the energy form and dissolve. And you're not thinking, so you're not feeding that energy, that emotional feeling. You're not feeding it with an inner narrative that keeps it going. And that's one of the things that's really helped out in my interpersonal life and my family life. I don't dwell on things. I try not to hold grudges. And then the other thing that I really want to focus on, and this is something I want to get your thoughts on, is the sort of brightening or the expansion of aesthetic appreciation.

So I find that when I'm meditating and I take this meditation out in the nature specifically, and I quiet down the internal dialogue, I quiet down the chatter constantly going on in my mind for a little bit, that my mind starts to default to a deeply aesthetic place. the wind through the leaves the sun on a puddle in the middle of the street everything sort of brightens and becomes more beautiful and you know i've had peak experiences of sort of being brought to tears over the joy or beauty that that this practice has led me to sort of see because when you're not interpreting your world through this thick veil of constant inner dialogue you can sort of see the beauty of everything more precisely and yeah and so i i think like what are your thoughts on the aesthetic dimension of it because it almost seems to me that you know outside of the internal chatter the the quote unquote default setting of the human mind is sort of a beauty appreciating machine and that's something i've gotten out of this practice what are your thoughts on that oh i think that that's totally beautiful uh i love that i think and and i haven't you know i i want to actually be more mindful of that my own practice now that you put that so well it's inspiring um but yeah there's no doubt that when you i mean I just got off of, I hadn't sat a retreat in quite some time and I actually just did a retreat about a month ago and like walking on the property by Insight Meditation Society, which is where I did this retreat, there's a lot of, I mean, there's a lot of land that the center owns and then there's it. There's some like state owned. So there's some very beautiful like central Massachusetts, New England. England ecology. And it's like, yes, you can walk and it's like, you know, sure, you know always, yes, that's

beautiful, that's lovely, but you can really get into a state of like, wow, like, let's really take in like how green those leaves are, the texture, how, you know, how the smell is hitting you. And I think, and it's absolutely the same, you know, in a totally different way of like, you know, filling your senses in the middle of New York City. know, like, because that's actually one of the things that, you know, for all of the fucking, well, you know, the politics of how, of, you know, all of the problems of this city and then not wanting to actually romanticize, you know, the pre gentrification, pre oligarchic, but at the, but where, you know, New York is cool on some level is just like if you like it, some people don't, but it's just like the, the, the just rush of impressions you know it's like there's cab there's this there's that like sometimes that's actually exhilarating and and you can actually apply the same uh the same energy to it

i want to just also loop i mean just really briefly too everything you said about the sort of how you relate to emotions 100% there's an experience of things being less sticky i want to add you know there's a there's a woman that is all also like a important. I've actually had the privilege of studying personally with Joseph Goldstein. And then the woman Michelle McDonald's is another incredibly, I mean, she's probably my, you know, she, she and Joseph were my main Vaphasana teachers. And I've had others that are really important in that tradition. But there's a woman Susan Green that I've been doing a lot of work with the last couple of years. And she's, um, you know, more like in that, you know, very much in the sort of like, I guess like basically, Hindu tradition. And she's actually gotten like, yeah, I mean, jealousy is not a good one, but she's super, she's, uh, she's kind of down with anger. She thinks anger can be extremely healthy and powerful.

Uh, and, you know, and when you get into this like, uh, you know, like collie imagery, this idea, you know, collie's like portrayed in this incredibly melodramatic and violent way, she's got like skull necklaces and everything, but there's one version of, teaching that she's basically like the destroyer of all of that that threatens innocence which is really interesting sort of like this machine against you know all of the forces that are you know poisoning earth or whatever uh so i i think there's also a way but but i think where they correlate i mean the the traditions and the way they speak about energy and stuff is extremely different but they but they think that where they correlate in some ways is that like the the anger itself you know it's like it could be super appropriate like this is a trivial example but it's like I that well it's not actually I'm not even going to do that it's it's a somewhat good example when I'm on air or you're doing your podcast right it this happened the other night I wasn't planned yeah I sound like Alex Jones totally unprompted but like it's talking about

you know, Ilan Omar and all of this, you know, this fucking travesty with Trump and the four congresswoman and so on. And, you know, I got pissed off. And I, and I did a, you know, and I, and I spoke.

And I spoke from a place of, of passion and hopefully clarity. And I know some people, it, you know, it means a lot when any of us speak like that authentically, right? And that really can't be plans or put on. Now,

that's another reason, by the way, I know I'm obsessed. I'll do the reference. That's another reason. I mean, Lula is just such an unbelievable political leader. It's just that the realness that comes across in his speeches and his communication, I was unparalleled. But so it's like when I do that and I'm expressing anger, I'm expressing disgust, but I'm actually also expressing a lot of admiration and solidarity, a lot of different things.

That's a totally different and cleaner expression. than when I go on Twitter and call somebody an asshole. Exactly. And I think the difference is that, you know, one is super separate, super mental, super repetitive. And the other is just kind of like, oh, like, you know, I got that out. That was really important, right? Like it's not that sticky, repetitive, like, well, they said this, they did that, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, all that bullshit.

the actual expression of like something like anger can be totally clean yeah you know that's super interesting and i i deeply agree with that and i'm sort of thinking as you're talking like where is this distinction right because anger is a big word and there's lots of emotions packed into that one big word we call anger and so on on that side because i also am very emotive and i think part of the reason i'm so emotive and can be so quickly emotive is because of my meditation practice it sort of makes me more raw to the injustices of the world it makes me more raw to the injustices of the world it makes me more sort of like heart broke when it comes to other people's, especially innocent people's suffering. And so there's an anger that stems out of compassion for innocent people

that is more properly called probably righteous indignation, where, you know, you're moved to speak out vociferously against a deep injustice and to speak out with not holding any bars or, you know, taking the NPR democracy now sort of civility tone and just speaking the truth to power sort of thing. And then there's the other sort of anger. which often is rooted in insecurity, egoism, and oftentimes fear even. Like Joseph Goldstein said, you know, one time I heard him in his talk that a lot of times anger is really just fear coming out in a different way. And I realize that this is a little anecdote for my life, but when my fiancé was pregnant

with our son, we were driving at night. And she was in the passenger seat. And my daughter, who must have been five or six at the time, was in her car seat in the back. And we were stopped at this intersection, getting ready to take a turn, waiting for the cars to pass and just got fucking back slammed by a car who didn't even touch the brakes, right?

Boom! I look over and my daughter's screaming in fear when all the metal stopped clanging and were off the side of the road. My fiancé's bawling, holding her stomach, and I don't have time to think. What I did is I jumped out of my car and I was fucking furious. I was going to

whoever was in that other driver's seat, I was going to pull them out and beat them to death. And as I'm walking and I'm lurching and I'm screaming, mother fog you know like top of my lungs yeah an old lady pops out of the driver's side and in a moment in a moment every aspect of machismo violence that was surging through my blood fell the fuck away and I realized my legs are shaking I'm just scared I'm not angry at this lady and I rush back to my family and you know helping them out and getting my daughter out and holding her and I realized

everything was fine nobody was ultimately hurt and it was just this old lady who had bad vision fucked up, basically. And I was very apologetic to her later. But I saw in that moment how my anger was really just my deep-seated fear expressing itself violently through anger. And so there's interesting distinctions there, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, it is. And I think some of it is just a, you know, I guess because I'm so, I am, you know, biased with this teaching of getting really comfortable with the idea that, you know, a certain kind of clean anger. And anger. Because also I think it's, you know, again, I don't think it necessarily means I'm, I am totally not of the school that, you know, I frank that maybe you can call it conservative. I'm kind of, I think that there's some real lack of health, frankly, and like the fact that the culture has gotten so like everybody always needs to express their feelings all the time. Like I think actually a lot of time it's totally unnecessary and counterproductive. I don't want to, you know, get back to like people repressing themselves. But I don't think, like, you know, just because you, you know, feel and are clear about something, and, you know, again, the right move out of that might be like, oh, well, this is something I need to be really tactical about.

You know what I mean? One move, like, it could be like, yes, I feel terrified. I also feel absolutely justifiably enraged. But actually, let me take a beat. and the most important thing right now is to A, protect my family and attend to them And B, you know, if that was like a stoned kid in a car Yeah.

You actually wouldn't want to catch a bid for beating the shit out of them Even if they deserved it, frankly. Right. But I think it's like, I think that it's that, you know, again, the reason I'd use that Lula example is, again, it's like there is this incredible, comfort with a really wide range of expression, but it's not, and it is bigger, you know, and it's not, you know, it's on behalf of other people, can be on behalf of yourself if it needs

to be. But it isn't, you know, it isn't that kind of stuck clingy, I'm mad, and you know, and they get this and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually think, like, because to me, that's so much of what that practice is kind of busting up it's all that like second order bullshit you know like and that and you know and that is where I do think like it's a conversation for another day but you know I I am I'm a you know I think everybody does need to read exiting the vampire castle and I think part of it you know I think that there's real critiques that need to happen in the left and I think people need to think in much more critical

and creative ways about a variety of issues. But I also just think that like that's a consequence of the fact that while there is a correct revulsion at like the conservatism of much of religious new age and therapeutic culture,

you're also turning away and throwing away the idea that like human capacity building in terms of emotion, psychology, like any culture that dedicates itself to disregarding those domains is going to produce really unhealthy culture. Yeah, absolutely. And I do think sort of the social media chaos that everybody calling each other out, the one-upmanship, it's sort of deeply counterproductive and it's a manifestation of a sort of, I hesitate to say neoliberal postmodernism, but in a way it's kind of true because there is like this.

infinite array of singular narratives and there's no way to connect those narratives up in any meaningful sense and so it's just you know your identity becomes a bludgeon by which to beat somebody else over the head with or to it's really performative right you're performing your ego and you're showing how smart you are to everybody else and that really disallows nuance and humanity and humility so the platforms of course tend to this because it gets engagement and they incentivize That, yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that's another actual perfect dialectic, right, of like, that's a perfect example of how the tendencies are incentivized through the actual material, the platform itself, the actions that it incentivizes, and the practices that it triggers. So, and then, you know, yeah, and then you have like, you know, a conception of like being on the left, which. means like sitting on predatory tech company platforms and trying to, you know,

tear down other people in a subculture. Right. It's like, okay, if that's your version of the left, I think if I'm, you know, if I'm Peter Thiel, I'm definitely not worried about it. So I think that, you know, yeah, but, but more broadly, there, there has to be, you know, I, you know, Marian, one of the things I found, I really was enjoying watching Marianne Williamson deal with Dave Rubin and partially to me it was just because you know Dave and it's hilarious I mean Dave shouldn't be arrogant going up against

anybody but I think it's funny because I think he had the same perception that I see so many people you know in my in my crew you know tweet oh you know here's this like you know new age whatever get the fuck out of here you know and meanwhile she's of course infinitely more well read and informed than he is But it was very interesting to me to watch her, like, even just say, like, as an example, like, he was like, ooh, like, if I take collective responsibility for racism, isn't that like, I'm going to be guilty for something I didn't do? And she's just like, no, it's not about guilt. It's about collective responsibility. I mean, that is such an elegant and obvious distinction, which both neutralizes a narcissistic, racist talking point of the right and then.

also, frankly, counteracts against this ridiculous, performative, like, you know, toxic emotional nonsense on the left of really actually trying to, like, personalize all of these things and to, like, interpersonal acts of, like, weird repentance plays instead of, like, serious, you know, combination of, like, you know, obviously, like, you know, of taking on things structurally, right? And so what's so funny to me is, like, that's one of the reasons I've been defending Marianne Williamson. It's like, in a way, it's like, no, she's...

And on the flip side, she's actually also rebuking the new age culture that birthed her and she was a success in because she is saying it's clearly not just sufficient to individually think positively because we have all of these social problems. We need to take care of collectively. So, you know, here's someone, and again, she's not perfect and blah,

blah, blah, blah, but here's somebody who's like, so many people are dismissing or like turning into a meme. And it's like, you know, guys, she's actually more elegantly handling a lot of these dynamics than a lot of people who have a lot more credentials and maybe in some way sophistication than her. Yeah, I think I even, I even tweeted about her and some of the cynicism surrounding her, obviously, you know, in a lot of ways she's an idealist and her political project is not one that I as a Marxist am on board with. But what she does, what she does bring to this entire political sphere that people underestimate and I think exactly what you're gesturing at is a genuine sincerity and authenticity that you just never see.

I mean, think of the Ted Cruz's and the Trumps and the Bidens of the world. Everybody and the Kamala Harris is these careerists. They're so cynical that everything is like PR tested and then pushed out to the population. And she's just being so fully sincere in an age of hyper irony and cynicism that that in and of itself, is sort of a breath of fresh air in our politic. Absolutely. And I think also genuinely synthesizing some of these things that, and, you know, again, I just thought that distinction that she made about collective responsibility and structure,

you know, and it's so funny because I could totally see Dave Rubin making that, you know, again, just a totally appalling, immoral, a historic. you know anything you could put on him I will put on him point like I don't want to feel guilty but the but then the answer being well you should feel guilty you know like this this whole and then all of a sudden it's just this like performance piece about and look I'm not saying it's the same look you know somebody who is

acknowledging in this instance the reality of structural racism is inherently on higher ground than somebody who denies it. But at the same time, I don't like, I know that as a manner of political and material practice, you know, one's personal guilt and performance is not going to do the trick. And I also know that outside of a very narrow left-wing subculture, most people across the board of backgrounds have no interest in these kind of performances. They do care about the actual delivery of real things. And so the fact that she managed to just totally bypass that bullshit and take it back to a collective problem,

and in that case, actually get to some material solutions, I was like, wow, look like she's doing a better job than almost anybody in that instance. Yeah, yeah. And you know, like you maybe think too about this whole concept of guilt, and especially in a hyper-individual. society like our own what what all these like when you're looking at let's say structural white supremacy right what what the what the status quo the sort of ideology of our time wants to do is sort of invert that awareness into something personal and individualistic and that can only be sort of internalized as a personal sensation of guilt which is not productive and can only ever be sort of a performance of showing others how guilty you feel you know and the other side of that is and this is is what our society does not want is to realize now fuck guilt fuck my individual personal feelings about this or that i have an obligation to other human beings we have a responsibility to every other person on this planet and that gives rise to a structural and collectivist approach to solving these problems that does not get sort of filtered through the prism of hyperindividualism

and become another feeling that you have but can actually result in collective struggle which is the only way forward you know yeah no i i i think that that's that's really it and And then I think the other paradoxes, I actually think from, you know, I think from that place of actually honesty and openness, then I actually, there is actually more room for the dimension of that sort of like, you know, transformative work and change and atonement, like all of those things. But if it's just from a place of turning it into micro, you know, performance art and, like, toxic relationships and performance across social media space, then it both is not going to do the job that it needs to do. And it's also, and again, this is this is where I'm, you know, just really objective. Like, I don't want to be part, like, I don't want to be part of an ongoing political subculture. I want us I want people to actually gain power and I want to actually do things and I know that a lot of like and that's why so much of my politics like you know again it rests on like yes I think that there are things that would be overwhelmingly popular with people across the board and the reason we don't have them is definitely because of like just you know concentrations of wealth and power and then I think there's other areas where the Distinction is actually really simple, which is like, you know, would I, like, as an example, if you told me, hey, like, you know, we could, we could get a left-wing agenda, but we have to endorse, you know, concentration camps. No, that's the moral, right? Like, no, absolutely not. But then, but then conversely, you know, like, you know, we aren't going to do this until everybody shares all of our, you know, cultural habits and language and agrees with.

every single opinion that people may or may not have on various, you know, social trends or controversies. It's like, first of all, a lot of us disagree with ourselves about those things. And most normal people are absolutely don't give a fuck. And, you know, I think a lot of people can actually be persuaded on really basic moral stuff across the board. But they are not interested in being, you know, forced to conform to a subculture and be enlisted in that. And I, and I, you know, and so, and again, I think it does relate somewhat to the practices we've been talking about, which is, and again, even just like discerning those distinctions, you know, as we actually engage with a, hopefully a much broader set of people in the real

world. Yeah, and insofar as this practice cultivates a sense of, of humility and works a against narcissism and ego-centered, you know, traits in an individual, you start to lose that narcissistic that says everybody should, you know, talk and think and behave like me, and you start realizing, actually, I have to go out and I have to do the work of trying to educate people. I have to educate myself on these topics, and I have to go out and communicate these ideas in a way that people actually care about and are meaningful in their world. And when you do that, you're surprised to see just how progressive a lot of

regular working class people's instincts and intuitions really are. It's just a matter of meeting them where they are and doing that work of education, which is much harder than posting something online for a bunch of likes and shitting on everybody who disagrees with you, you know? And so that easiness, that laziness is part of the problem. And also as part of that process too, I would say like, you know, again, without, you know, with with the clear, you know, just the lines of clarity, obviously, but there's other times where it's like, oh, this person's actually right about something. Like, I'm wrong. Oh, yeah, all the time. You know what I mean?

That's like the other thing that it's like, because I even get, because I even get wary that other discourse of people is like, no, no, absolutely. We need to like have humility and go out there and realize that, you know, everybody's great and they're, you know, and they're on board for our project. I don't know. And that's why I do think that, you know, for me that, you know, the politics, and maybe this loops back to the first question is like, I think that there needs, like, power over your economic life and absolute security and things like housing and health care are just

like indivisible like i just don't know a human being that doesn't need those things and then there's the and then there's like the broader which is like you know can the category of your identity be used to block your civic rights and this is where i think of it frankly i do think in a pretty liberal way like it's like no it can't be and people's rights and expression an ability to safely kind of exercise who they are needs to be insured. But then beyond that, it's like, there's going to be a ton of people who are still like,

you know, they want to have like eight kids and go to baseball games. You know, like, there's going to be other people who want to like generally be in like a more narrow cultural subset. Like, you know, these, and my kind of test is like, Well, are you on board for, like, you know, co-owning and co-managing your business across all of these lines in a democratized economy? You know, do you understand that we need to get rid of police violence against certain, you know, populations?

If you're down for that, then, like, I don't give a fuck what comedy you listen to, what, you know, what cultural habits you have, what beliefs you have, frankly. And I think that there needs to be a lot less kind of focus on sort of socially engineering imagined people that you probably don't even know to begin with. Exactly right. Exactly right. I think it was Lenin that talked about that as like, you know, some of these, you know, utopians or idealists on the left, they wanted to create a world out of people that don't yet exist. And he's like, as Marxists, we have to go with people as they actually are and work from there. And I thought that was always sort of interesting. No, that's beautiful. Yeah, let's go ahead and two more questions. I know we skipped a bunch of questions. That's just inevitable. I have two more, and then we'll go into the conclusion.

How does your meditation practice inform your politics and vice versa, right? How do you view that relationship personally inside yourself? Well, I don't, I mean, I don't want to cop out, but I've been kind of, I've been spelling it out. I think that to me, it's ineffable, and I don't necessarily, I mean, look, One of the things, again, it's a whole other topic. I'll go so far as to say a slightly traumatic experience for me has been looking at Burma. You know, when I grew up in the context of doing this spiritual practice, and the reason I call it Burma is that when I first was exposed to Myanmar,

it was primarily through people that traveled frequently to Burma, both because they did serious intensive Buddhist practice and because they usually had some connections to what at that point was the anti-Hawks, junta movement, and the anti-Hunta movement did not call the country Myanmar. They called it Burma. And that was a political signifier at that time. So, you know, I understand it is Myanmar in that sort of general consensus now, but I grew up in the, you call it Burma, and that means you're against the junta. So anyways, that's part of the habit I have. But the, you know, Aung-Sung-Sukee coming into power, and my first experience of her, you know, my first thing,

actually, honestly, with some of the compromises she made, I even co-wrote a piece, actually, in 2013 called The Politics of Sainthood, where I kind of, my co-author and I were sort of arguing, like, you know, Aung-Sung-Sukee, yes, this is an incredible leader with a lot of physical courage, and she's also a politician. And, you know, she's not going to come out of the gate in a democratic transition and do everything we want her to do. And now, of course, you know,

a couple years later, what is beyond abundantly clear is like, no, her politics have actually always been. Yes, there is this physical courage, but she is a narrow Buddhist and ethnic nationalist and chauvinist.

And she harbors horrific politics. And, you know, there is a Rohingen genocide happening right now, part of the engine of which is a form of, you know, Buddhist fascism, frankly. So I, you know, I am under zero illusions of the idea that, like, I, like, I, there's also a really fascinating book called Zen at war about, you know, very sophisticated Zen teachers that help provide, like, context and propaganda for Japanese imperial adventures.

I don't think that, you know, I guess the way my politics, you know, I guess the way my politics, politics informs it is I don't think that there's some magical technique that can make everybody love each other and, you know, deal with all of our problems. Now, on the other hands, I, there is not a single moment in left-wing politics or in media or even in our national life where I don't think like, you know, I like Cornell West language. like yeah we're incredibly spiritually sick and malnourished and so many conversations and so many serious problems clearly need they need love they need wisdom they need compassion we need to not feel embarrassed when we say these words and you know and and that there are incredibly potent practices and teachings and ideas that can help us, at the very least, build a much healthier left-wing political culture.

I mean, this is Joshua McCann is another person who means a lot to me. He's on my show a lot, a wildfire project, and is a climate and general, you know, serious activist and organizer, and he's done a lot of work with First Nations people. And it's like, yeah, this is, it's, and he's a Marxist and so on, but like, you know, there, there is a dimension to this that is for lack of a better word. And I really wish there was a better word, but it is spiritual. It is not just a question of, you know, it's certainly not the liberal people becoming woke and, you know, having a bunch of new kind of like, you know, social practices and social agreements. Some of those are good. Some of those are not good, whatever. And it's not even the deeper structural critiques, which are indispensable. You can't get anywhere without them. But I do think that there's something there that is that is felt individually and collectively. And I, you know, and it has to, it's part of the picture.

I don't know how that manifests. But so the way those two things inform is, yeah, is, is in the first examples. You know, there's no magical, spiritual out of history and politics. And then conversely, we're spiritually sick and we need to deal with it. So that's my dialectic. Yeah, yeah. Totally agree with that. And I think the big word you're getting towards is the sense of connection.

In an hyper atomized, competitive, individualistic society, especially a consumer society that not only makes you an atomized individual, but, urges you to consume as your main behavioral pattern, you know, these principles and values and the sort of traits that a good practice can cultivate within yourself are antithetical to those shallow, dead-end approaches of the way one lives their life. It increases connection not only with nature, but with other people and with yourself. And that can then turn around and make you a better educator, a better friend, a better partner, a better organizer. For me, both traditions really chip away at my sense of individualism and selfishness from both directions,

right? I really, and I'm very much a collectivist in a lot of ways. I'm an anti-individualist. And so probably that's why Marxism and Buddhism have been the two philosophies that I've consistently gravitated towards more than anything else. You know, both of them chip away. The meditative practice literally from an internal standpoint, the sense of self that gives rise to petulence and an ego narcissism is chipped away at and then on the Marxist side the sense of I just need to recoil into my personal life and do what makes me happy that's chipped away and replaced with a sense of obligation and responsibility towards other people other you know sentient creatures on this planet and the planet as a whole you know nature preserving nature etc and then I think

both Marxism and Buddhism in the sense that we're talking about it are a theory that that inexorably urges one into practice, right? It's very hard to be merely an intellectual theaturition when it comes to meditation and Marxism, right? The more you read of the theory, the more you are nudged and sometimes shoved into actual action. You can't separate those two. And so on those different aspects, I think, yeah.

I'm thinking, I'm sorry to throw it, I'm just thinking of Marx, you know, it's like, it's not, it's our, you know, I'm, I'm butchering it. But basically, you know, it is an hour job now to, sort of theorize history it's to change it and I you know and I think yeah

and the Buddhist like there's that Buddhist parable which they use to kind of you know sort of slightly deemphasized focus on kind of like cosmic speculation where you know the Buddha's getting all those questions about you know

okay well all right so there's gods but like where did that come from and why is their karma and why and blah blah and he's like basically like you know you're a dude who got shot with a poison arrow and I'm a doctor who has the path to remove it and it's now you're instead you're asking me like where did the arrow come from and all it's like like just like help me get this arrow out yeah and so it's kind of like you know the job is to liberate the job is the change history I think you're right I think I think both of those traditions at their best

there's a huge amount of like right let's we got to theorize this well and understand it But then, you know, but convert, but then even, it's not even just that then we act. It's that we can't theorize it well and understand it without acting. Exactly. That is actually a way in which the meditation practice can be really fun in a dialectical marks a sense. Because you literally are theorizing what's happening and how it works. And then you're doing it. And then you have like a real-time feedback loop to your model.

it's incredibly yeah it's incredibly fascinating and in the same way on the Marxism edge of things when you go out and you organize you know you are also learning that you know learning things that you turn around and embed into your theory in the same way that you do it there so there's that feedback loop between theory and practice and both philosophies this sort of dialectical relationship between the two that is beautiful and really complimentary so so yeah it's definitely made me less navel-gazy less self-absorbed and made me outward looking and figure out how can I use my life to help other human beings. And once you ask yourself that question, as much as we don't want to get caught into

the very liberal, be the change you want to see in the world sort of approach, there is some kernel of truth in that, you know, if you are a bitter, angry, traumatized, hurt, jealous person, it makes you a much less effective organizer and educator. And so if we're talking about self-care, or we're just talking about how to make me the best sort of organizer and political educator that I can possibly be, you know, it goes back to cultivating within you this sense of humility and serenity and awareness of the pitfalls of your thoughts and emotions, et cetera. So done best, done well, done in conjunction, these two things are not at odds, but can actually be very complimentary. And that's sort of a beautiful thing,

you know? Definitely. All right. So last question before the conclusion. And that's just, just to be fair, you know, what are some good, valid, or other? wise valuable criticisms of, or more importantly, warnings about this practice that you think are worth mentioning to anybody who's maybe become interested in this stuff during this discussion, but you want to warn them against some common pitfalls. What would you say to that question? One is you should definitely be really thoughtful about certainly anybody you do any kind of actual, you know, if you wanted to do like intensive practice, like go on a retreat, I would, You know, I mean, I'm obviously, I've primarily gone to the Insight Meditation Society.

I think, you know, there are teachers that are probably pretty hard maybe to sit with, but just in terms of like their booking and their schedule. But I would be, if you're going to do intensive practice, you should be extremely thoughtful about who you do it with. And I don't just mean, like, I'm not getting into like the real, you know, I mean, more generally, obviously, you know, there's a huge amount of cult activity and stuff, and you should look up any group you're interested in and all of that. But even less dramatically, like, you know, you could be sitting with somebody who's, you know, an above board person and whatever, but like, you know, they might not get you. You know, they might, like, it might be, you know, and it's an extremely, you know, it's not, you know,

it isn't like so many other interactions right like it isn't where again i actually kind of think like yeah you know what like yeah people make mistakes whatever but this is this is uh you know this is the type of environment where you know you're in like a totally radically open space and people say something that you misinterpret or they like don't get and you know it can be super subtle but it can be pretty unhelpful so i would both do research and seriously check your, check your gut before getting into deep with anything like that. And, and, you know, kind of, and, and I guess in a similar vein, like, kind of explore, too, like, what way of approaching the practice is going to be best for you, because I do think that even, you know,

even some approaches that are, like, you know, extremely enlightened and really good, they could still teach things in a way like I'll say Michelle McDonald I mean this is someone you know I I've done a lot of retreats with her and like and Jesse Vega you know those these are two people I

and obviously I mean certainly Joseph Goldstein although there's there's differences between the three but Joseph's just like a I mean these are all first of all these are all like very high quality human beings but like you know Michelle teaches this in a really different way

and in a way that I think is really helpful for you know particular kinds of people it's certainly helpful for me so you know check it out and don't you know and don't and don't get dogmatic I mean I like as an example I think like I haven't actually done one of those just because I wasn't inducted in it but like the Gawanka I mean Mr. Gawanka passed away but like those Gawanka 10 day retreats I know a ton of people who've had incredible experiences doing them um but i'm also i'm a little bit more wary than i used to be of like the idea like there's a power and a beauty and going to a place where you're you know for 10 days you follow a rigidly regimented schedule and you sit and you sit and you sit and you sit and that's it but then there's also like maybe you go on a retreat to a place where it's actually still

frankly a pretty disciplined limited schedule but like you can't go take a walk and taking that walk isn't just like you not being disciplines or whatever maybe that's like really what you need to do you know what I'm saying so I would yeah so those are kind of things I would check out I mean I think you know as far as the broader pitfalls I mean I think we've talked about some of those I think there is a huge amount of misconceptions about what the practice is about why certain people think they can't or can't do it there's you know I think fortunately overall particularly if you're interested in vipassana it's it's probably relatively speaking pretty safe but there's definitely you know obviously if you get broadly into the world

of spirituality there's a you know there's a ton of cults so yeah i would look out for that i think that's incredibly important you know it took me a long time i got i first got introduced to like taoism in a hospital because i was hospitalized for depression in my teens and that's the first sort of ever hint of Eastern philosophy that I got was from a nurse there who handed me this book on Taoism and said, you know, you're a smart kid. You might actually find this pretty interesting. And that led me down a long, long path of sort of learning all these different methods and different schools of thought. And so it took me a really long time to find the teachers an approach that fits best with me. So start slow. Don't jump into anything over your head.

Before you go on a long retreat, I would say put in a lot of time with like 10, 20, 30 minute sessions, you know, so you sort of get a good idea of what you're doing before you get plunged into the solitude, which can be a huge challenge to somebody, especially if you don't have that base level of practice sort of already down, you know. And then I'd also, I would warn deeply against two errors on each side. I would warn against those who insist that you adopt certain anti-scientific metaphysical beliefs or that have too much woo-woo sounding bullshit infused into it. You can think of like the Deepak Chopra types of the world. If you're listening to my or Michael's show, I assume you're a little bit more scientifically minded and, and skeptical.

So anything that I probably like Top Chop Chopper more than anybody watches my show. Really? Well, that's weird. A whole other episode on that one. Well, partially, I'm just, you know, look, I'm a little bit of a contrary and I love provoking people with this stuff. I mean, look, a few of his things that I've read are actually just sort of like, you know, popular versions of the Vedas, which I think is fascinating. You know what I, I have a problem, and I don't know this, but I, because I just don't know the area. I don't, I really don't like when, you know, people hinge their spiritual arguments on saying that, like, you know, quantum physics validates it or something. I think that that is

well, I think that, because to me, it's bullshit on both ends because I think it's scientifically, you know, I assume it's bullshit because that's what the people in the field say, mostly. But I also think it's like, like, I think looking at the Vedas or, you know, that can be really fascinating and interesting. And it's, I think adopting different cognitive frames of the world is useful. I don't mean, of course, I'm talking about, you know, I'm not saying like, oh, adopt the idea that the world is 3,000 years old. Like, that's just false.

But I'm talking like broader structural, like capacity to move in between worldviews, I think is actually super valuable. So to me, it's like, and it is, I think, also true in India. I listened to an interview with a very highly regarded Indian physicist recently. And he was kind of just like, you know, he's also quite observant. And he was just like, yeah, like in India, this kind of split in both directions is genuinely less pronounced in some ways. right like the idea that you need to like jettison material realities in order to have like a very spiritually infused worldview is just a little bit different there but that being said and i don't even know if i accept that argument but regardless i i don't like it from either direction because i think like you should just be able to you know like explore something like the vedas you know in its own terms and again where i don't like the kind of like well that's not that's not true so i won't read that I really think I wish people would let go of that perspective and enlarge their capacity not to accept things but to think about things and engage with things

and then on the other hand yeah I think it's I think it's actually kind of a disaster to hinge spiritual validity on rapidly changing physics and science that you're probably almost certainly misunderstanding to begin with yeah yeah I just mean like the I used him as an example but the worst excesses you know you can get pushed the direction of like the secret or like extreme forms of idealism and you know i just think just be just be skeptical is what i'm saying but then on the other side is this and i think you were getting at this a little bit i would warn especially against those who want to strip the practice of its ethical foundation strip it completely from its buddhist context

and strip it from like the the notion that you are trying to gain insight into selflessness and impermanence right and i think the obvious form of that is like using it in silicon valley for productivity and efficiency, but also in more subtle ways that can be done as well. I think the Buddhist context is important to engage with, and I think having an ethical foundation throughout the practice and really thinking about ethics in conjunction with your meditative practice can go a long way in blunting some of the worst edges of where this practice can go if it's totally unhinged for many sort of ethical commitments whatsoever. Yep.

All right. Well, this has been a long episode. Thank you so much for coming on. It's almost two hours now. We didn't even get to all the questions, but I'm sure this will create some dialogue in our audiences, and we have plenty of Q&As on our patrons for people to pursue some questions they might have. But as we're wrapping up here, what recommendations or resources would you offer for people who might want to get into this practice as a total beginner, somebody who has no experience at all but wants to find a way in?

What would you recommend to them? So I would definitely recommend there's some podcasts from Joseph Goldstein and then actually also Jack Cornfield, who are like, you know, and Sharon Salzberg, who are basically three of the prime people that actually brought this stuff over. There's the Heart of Wisdom by Jack Cornfield. There's the Insight Hour with Joseph Goldstein. I actually for me personally I I'm a really big fan of just the talks of Baba Ram Dass who was like another important figure in this stuff partially just because he was just like this incredible storyteller um like it is an incredibly entertaining public speaker um but that's very kind of broad flavor I I would really actually check out my friend Jesse's uh he has a website called do for peace um and his writing on vipasana

on politics on Burma it's it's fascinating like I would say like I do think the the buddwasi blues the prices and perils of genetically modified Dharma is a very um and the PGB and the false promise of mind mindfulness. I think these are, I think for people who, you know, I'm just assuming coming from this, you know, listening to your show, they're going to have a really sharp and critical bent. And Jesse writes exactly to that and has a very deep understanding of that. And like, you know, we'll specifically talk about like the historical process of political economy. and how Marx's, you know, modes of production relate to how Buddhism is disseminated in the West,

and then how that's actually affecting how we're processing mindfulness. So I think it's both like a really good intellectual grip, and I think it also really will show for people who are, you know, strongly in the left and are rightly allergic to so much of the bullshit that this line of inquiry is really compatible. I think the experience of insight by Joseph Goldstein is a really good book. One of their podcasts is Darmacede. This is just like collected talks of Buddhist teachers across the country. But, you know, I don't know.

I don't know what, you know, I'm trying to give like a range of things because there's a lot of different pathways of what people are going to resonate and find interesting. Yeah, I don't think you can go wrong with, as you said, I even had this written down like Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Sald. Jork, Jack Cornfield. Those are really interesting people who don't strip it out of its Buddhist context and who have been practicing this stuff for literally, in Joseph Goldstein's case, over 50 years. At times, he would go out for one or two year retreats. So this is somebody who is very humble, but has obviously achieved high levels in this field. And then, you know, we live in an app-dominated society, and I'm not one of these people

that thinks this is anathema to practice. this. So I think there's guided apps like 10% happier, which was actually made with Joseph Goldstein. And so you'll get talks from Sharon Salzberg and Jack Cornfield and guided meditations in this 10% happier app that I think you can get for free. I'm sure you can pay for more stuff. But there's good stuff there. And I'd really recommend especially people trying to get into the practice itself to try those guided apps. And then one person that, you know, inspired me from a very young age and who was instrumental in getting me sort of involved with the philosophy behind this stuff when I was a teenager in early 20-something was Alan Watts. He's this weird

theologian scientist philosopher guy from England, I think. But you go on YouTube and they have a lot of little clips of him talking about this stuff, lots of interviews with them. His books are great. And so that's really inspirational philosophy that you can really get into and see why this stuff matters and what its implications are that I think is accessible and genuinely fascinating for people to jump into. Yeah, I mean, I would kind of put Ram Dass in a, and I think that's sort of complimentary with Alan Watts. Agreed. Oh, and one other person, if you're more, you know, this is a little, maybe a little bit more of a reach, but I, I think Krishna-Murdy is another pretty fascinating kind of kind of kind of kind of, actually at times incredibly poetic.

and touching, but in other ways, like, just incredibly ruthless assessment of our human predicament. Oh, yeah. He's, Christiani Merti's powerful. Oh, and one last thing, I think a kind of, a book that's super accessible, but is, like, not, I mean, Sayada Upandita taught a huge amount of Westerners and was very much part of that direct relationship between Burma and the United States and Papasana. But he was a, you know, he was a Burmese lineage holder and a very traditional teacher in some way.

So it's kind of interesting to get that flavor. So he wrote a book called In This Very Life by Sayada Apondita, which is another, like, very good, just sort of like, you know, I mean, basically life is super short. You should do Vapostina because it's a unique opportunity and then you're going to die. But it's very powerful. Hell yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, that should be a bunch of recommendations for people to get.

get started you can always reach out to me or michael on twitter too and we could help you um with more specified needs if you have that but michael thank you so much for coming on it's it's been awesome to finally make this happen let's continue to collaborate in the future on different topics because we have a good vibe together and i think our conversations are genuinely interesting um to people so before we let you go though can you point to people where they can find you and your work for anybody who wants to follow your work well first of all brett absolutely i agree 100 percent. And I do get antsy on a weekday night with the amount of stuff I have to do. And this time totally flew by. So it was awesome. Thank you. It's my honor. We'll definitely do more. Yeah. I mean, the prime way, if you want to get the whole show, and there really is a, you know, a lot of history content. A lot of, I mean, that is sort of the basis of the show in some ways. Pitch. But, you know, you. You can go check it out.

I don't have to give a whole spiel, but check out patreon.com slash tmbs. We have an extremely active. I mean, obviously people see me on Sam Cedar, a majority report on YouTube, but Michael Brooks show on YouTube now is almost at 60,000 subs.

And we, in the last several months, I mean, we've turned that into like a very real channel with a lot of clips, as well as the full main show. And, you know, we cover a fair amount of things,

things with a more left emphasis, but there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, you know, there's definitely a lot of stuff on, you know, Sanders, the U.S. election, but I would say, you know, especially for that space, I mean, there's deep dives on Thomas Sankara, on dialectics. There's been a, we cover Latin America, the political imprisonment of Lula extensively, but also other topics like, you know, redefining human rights to enlarge them. anarchist critique of technology, you'll get a pretty decent flavor of the show and, you know, it's a great way to engage with it.

And then, you know, you could find me on Twitter and Instagram and all the rest of that stuff. Absolutely, and we'll link to a lot of that in the show notes so people can find Michael easier. All right, Michael, thanks so much, man. Let's keep in touch and do this again, brother. My honor, brother. Thank you so much.

Have a great night. You too. Solidarity. Solidarity. And I feel so good that I have another one Last Friday I took acid and mushrooms I did not transcend I felt like a walking piece of shit

in a stupid-looking jacket I walked around town I felt like I wasn't sodden There were filthy people seeking comfort For their bodies It was so obscene Filled with loathing and religious fervor I laid on my friend's bedroom floor for an hour

and tried not to face my place. And then I saw Jesus, and he said, ooh, to go against the word of my father. The scum of the earth No, we are just, we are just, we are just, we are just teens are stuck Oh, we are just, we are just, we are just, we are just teens of stun There were people getting drunk, there were people getting high They were falling to pieces right before my eyes

and I said, Mm-mm, a lot. And there was one guy there who kept asking me, how does it feel? And I didn't even know how to begin to answer that question. So I just said, I don't want to talk about it. So there I was just another issue. shitbacked civilian

and afraid of the cops when I was outside afraid of my friends when I was inside and I grew tired of the scene when my dad showed up and he was like ooh to go get somewhere of our fathers It goes

It goes Oh Oh The scum of the earth Now we are just, we are just, we are just, we are just seen to start We are just Biggs The contemporary style

Yes, we are just We are just, we are just Going along with the modern style And now everybody Everybody, everybody Everybody's going along With the modern style Let's do it together

It goes Drugs are better drugs are better with friends are better friends are better with drugs are better drugs are better with friends are better with friends are better with friends are better with drugs are better with drugs are better with friends are better with friends are better with drugs are better with friends are better with friends are better with drugs are better with friends are better with friends friends are better than friends are better than friends are better than friends are better than friends are better than friends are better than drugs are better with friends are better friends are better friends are better with friends are better Friends are all better Don't all better win

Friends are better Friends are better Friends are better Thank you. Thank you.