Sense of Soul - Finding Zen in the Ordinary

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Ordained Zen Priest and Senior Dharma Teacher Christopher Keevil, joined us on Sense of Soul Podcast. We had a great conversation with Christopher about his new book Finding Zen in the Ordinary where he reveals glimpses of the extraordinary that is the ordinary nature of the world, if our minds were just quiet enough to see it. His book includes forty-eight brief stories, prose poems, dialogues between Zen student and teacher, and reflections on moments of spiritual awakening.  Christopher explains what a Zen Priest is, how he became to discovering his purpose, which is to be of service to others and make a meaningful difference in the world.  His amazing book is found here  https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/mantra-books/our-books/finding-zen-ordinary  Learn more about Christopher Keevil at his books website. https://www.findingzenintheordinary.com/samples Visit Sense of Soul Website www.mysenseofsoul.com, check out our many workshops and Mande’s new coaching program. Join Shanna for a sacred woman  circle TODAY at noon MT, free circle today, here! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inner-shakti-womens-circle-tickets-149881943929

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today with us, we have Christopher Keevil, an ordained Zen priest and senior Dharma teacher. Christopher is also managing director and founder of Wellspring Consulting. His purpose is to be of service to others and to make a meaningful difference in the world. He's joining us today to talk about his book, Finding Zen in the Ordinary. It's an honest and thought-provoking spiritual insight drawn from day-to-day life experiences formed by the Zen tradition. Thank you so much, Christopher, for joining us.

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Hi there. We've never had the honor to have on our podcast as Zen Masters, so we're super excited to talk to you about your practices and about your amazing book that we love. And I even liked a lot of your social media, how you put a lot of your Zen quotes up there. The Zen quotes are such riddles. When I started reading your book, I was able to put on a different lens, you know, a new pair of glasses for a moment.

And I was able to like be on that subway. And that, you know, I always say there's a blessing and a lesson in everything. And I felt like I was the observer of these events that were going on. And I was able just to find the beauty through your words in each event that was happening. So that's just kind of how it came to me. And then realizing that that lens is something that I can keep on forever. And it's a choice to sit back and be the observer and see things that way. So I really enjoyed it. My intent was to try to make something that was really accessible. I spent about 30 years practicing Zen, but it can become very esoteric or just for a small group of people. And it seemed

to me it was valuable to share it in a way that people can really connect with. So that was my hope, that it would be a gift to all sorts of different sorts of people in sharing the book. God, I love that. Mandy, we should make one with bad words in it. Unfortunately, we really like bad words. Zen priest. Well, a Zen priest, in my instance, I've taken a set of precepts, which are a commitment in this practice. And they'll sound familiar, to not to kill or harm, to speak honestly, to not take anything that's not given to me, a series of ethical practices. I've studied and practiced in the Zen tradition for quite a long time. And so I had a recognition ceremony with the teacher I work with, and he has supported me in also doing teaching

of Zen. And so that's really what it comes out of. It's really very much in the Zen tradition, but also in a direct relationship with a teacher who has also developed a lineage and a support. Thank you for sharing. What does Zen even mean? A lot of people don't know. The word comes from a Chinese word, Chan, spelled in English as C-H-A-N, which means sitting or to sit. And so it really relates to the practice of sitting

in still meditation as being central to the practice of sitting in still meditation as being central to the practice of Zen. The word Zen was then, the Japanese picked up the tradition after several centuries of it starting to emerge in China. So the Japanese picked it up and then the word Zen came from a different way of saying the same word. And it's made its way to our country, obviously, and has been here for now many, many decades. Is Thich Nhat Hanh considered a Zen master as well? He is. His lineage did develop through the Zen tradition in Vietnam. And so yes, he would be considered in the Zen tradition. He's kind of the dude that got me into looking more into Zen stories. And I love how he tells them.

He's so damn cute. I just love him. And I'm sending so much love and light to him in his old age. Yes. Really, he did. He was kind of like the light that led me into many understandings about many things and especially mindfulness in my spiritual awakening when I was having to actually google what does mindfulness mean my my therapist said I need some of this so what is it

shanna were you like thinking you're gonna buy it at a store. Well, I thought, wait, mindfulness, mindfulness, mindful, what, what is being mindful? What is that? My mind's full. I can tell you that much. So what, you know, why isn't it mindful less? Yeah. Right. How would you describe mindfulness? I would say it is a practice of being fully present in this moment, being aware of all that's arising. So not necessarily trying to get so that there's nothing in one's mind, but to be aware and present of what's actually arising and passing away right now before us. Have you traveled a lot? Yeah, over the years I have. And correct me if I'm wrong, because I have not. Tell me what you think about this theory that I've come up with.

It seems like a lot of Americans, we're not taught about mindfulness and self-love and being present when we're young. So a lot of times we have to go through pain, a lot of it, unfortunately, to come to a point where we awaken. And it seems like a lot of other cultures do teach this from a young age. And so they get it earlier. Now, I'm not saying they don't go through pain too, but I feel like they don't have to go through as much because this is implemented at a younger age. Do you see that? I find myself being unsure, making generalizations about different cultures and how things are in different places. I know I'm much more sure about my own

direct experience and perhaps the people that are close to me. And so with that caveat, I would say that I do think that different cultures certainly emphasize different things. And our culture dominantly has emphasized the external achievements and, you know, financial well-being and career growth and those kinds of things. And that's a very powerful energy. And I think all of us live in the midst of it and are influenced by the thought patterns associated with that. And I do think that it influences our children. I know my own children growing up in a, you know, suburb of New Haven, Connecticut, felt the pressure of those things in their growth, which saddened me sometimes because it was around them and in the children and in their parents

and all of the different people around. So yes, I think that there's something deep that we lose. In a sense, we're very wealthy in the material realm and we're quite poor as a culture in the spiritual realm. And so I think it does sometimes take a real concerted effort to engage in the spiritual dimension, to take it up, but to realize that there is wisdom available to us and through many different traditions. One of the wonderful things about our culture, however, is there's so much variation in access

and acceptance. I mean, you can find so many different ways of engaging. It's not that there's a one right way that the whole country is bound up in and other ways are not available or shunned. So I think that we have a mix of great opportunity, but also a burden that we carry that we need to address. Yeah. Where was the shift in your life? What made you seek this? Was there pain? Was there a big aha moment? How'd you get here? I mean, there was pain and suffering and I think, you know, no, in no way unique to me, but in particular in my college years, I felt very adrift. I had no sense about what the purpose of my life was. So why am I here?

Was this grinding question that I felt like I couldn't answer and I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't feel that the spiritual traditions I had grown up in were very good at addressing that. And it was a slow process. I was quite untrusting, I think, also of engaging with something that other people might be excited about. So I felt alone a lot of the time with that struggle and challenge. At one point, I had a feeling that there really was a

spiritual growth path and that there were people who had invested deeply in it. And if I was going to learn tennis or a musical instrument, I would go find a teacher, and why not actually go ahead and try to find somebody who had really put their life's work into spiritual growth and line up, sort of engage with someone to really learn this thing that I felt might address some of my great sense, sort of hollow sense inside, and a great deal of pain in terms of just making my way through life, suffering and feeling like I let people down or let myself down or didn't achieve what I was hoping for, all the things that I think we often grapple with. So I was working in the Boston area at the time, and I went to an evening session, this was way back in 1991, at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center. And there

was a meditation held for about an hour. And during the meditation, somebody passed a slip of paper to the person leading up in front. And at the end of the meditation session, the person read the note that he had been handed, which was that the bombing has just started in Baghdad. This was the beginning of the first Gulf War when the United States bombed Baghdad in order to call off the troop invasion that was going on. I felt, partly coming out of the meditation, this huge wave of sorrow because I could have visualized the buildings and the people and all of the destruction that was happening. And I couldn't say that my government

was right or wrong, but I knew that my tax dollars had helped pay for it. And I felt this deep sense of responsibility. You know, I'm a part of this great tragedy. And so I was very moved and impacted by that. And there was a guest speaker that evening who got up in front to give the talk. And he said, my heart is in my mouth. I am unable to speak given the power of this moment. And so I will lead us in chanting to Avalokiteshvara, who is the Bodhisattva of compassion, the sort of the expression of deep compassion

that we all have. And so we spent 20, 30 minutes all chanting together and a number of people left because they'd come for a talk. But I felt like I'd found my teacher because I felt that this person was genuine in his response to something that was impacting me very deeply as well. So I started working with him and he's the teacher I've worked with all these years. His name is George Bowman or Zen Master Bowman. He has had no professional path other than being a practitioner of Zen. He's taught hundreds, if not thousands of students and resides now in a Zen retreat

center in Kentucky. But he is one of the people I write about in this book, sharing some of the dialogues I've had. So it was really through the engagement with him and then finding that I was brought to some insights that I never would have been able to have on my own. I think of the two of you working together and how you generate energy and learn from each other in ways you probably could never do as an individual. And that ability to engage in a shared experience brings us spiritually places that we can't do all on our own. And so while it might seem that sitting and meditating in quiet is the way through, you know, maybe a meditation practice, it's really a relationship type practice. It's really a relationship-based practice. So things like

being unaware of my own sense of self and how tightly I held on to my ownership of my suffering, how I felt like it defined me and I needed to declare my suffering in order to declare myself and to realize that the suffering was just passing through and constantly changing. And in fact, myself was not my suffering. It was a characteristic of life. And so even though the suffering didn't end, it became very much more fluid and multifaceted and almost curious. And therefore, I became separated and stable from that pain and suffering. And similarly, having a feeling that I was always nervous about relationships, about how to connect with other people. I'm an introvert and I have to put out energy. And I realized that the risks were worth it and that I am expressing myself no matter what I do.

I'm genuinely me and I can just be genuinely who I am and come forth and engage with other people as best I can. And that's enough. And I don't have to put something else on. And those kind of learnings, I think, came only through the relationship that I've had with someone who's invested very deeply in spiritual practice and something therefore I've gained from my own life and my own ability to then maybe pass that on a bit to others. Thank you. That's beautiful. And reminding us that even though it is our own path, we are, we, you know, we do have a community community we are part of one with all yeah very much and you know i wanted to also make clear i think a lot of times people have confusion and maybe i am mistaken but you don't have to lose your religion to practice meditation and it is buddhism is that

a practice or is it a religion what's your your opinion? Well, first of all, many of the Asian social engagements, which we call religions, are not such that they require you to not have another religion. So even if you practice Buddhism, you may also practice Shintoism, for instance, in Japan, and there's no conflict. In other words, there's not a sense of if you're doing this religion, you can't do that religion. Additionally, Zen, in large measure, is a practice in the sense that it is very based in the reality of our present life and what we're doing right now on this podcast. And therefore, that's really what it's all about. And so there's no expectation that you have to believe certain things. It's really about observing things in your life and seeing how things work and how to learn to live more wholeheartedly and fully.

And so from that perspective, there's no conflict, whether it's Jewish or Christian or Muslim or other approaches or whether one's family engages in those practices. So there's no conflict there as well. It does have a long tradition and has characteristics that are similar to other religions. It has deep history. It has sacred texts. It is a way of speaking with people who are deeply engaged with Zen and a series of stories that are Zen stories. And so those have all similarities with other type of religious paths, but it does have differences from some of the religions we may be more familiar with in our American culture.

I bring that up because you mentioned chanting of the Bodhisattva. And so, you know, I remember the first time, you know, I heard chanting and I'm like, oh my gosh, every bit of my body, just the vibration frequency was so aligning with my soul and very deeply chanting of like Hinduism. And so, you know, I mean, I don't even know what I'm chanting or listening to or what they're saying yet. My soul recognizes it. I love that. Yeah. I went there last night, Shanna. I was listening to the Lord's Prayer and that Aramaic, and it just resonated with me. There's a lot to say about sound and frequency and why they do the chanting and the omes and all of those things. They're all very, they're very old, by the way. I mean, some of the oldest teachings, right?

Yes. And, you know, many of the chants you get through Hinduism or Buddhism are grounded in Sanskrit. Sometimes the Sanskrit words come through, even though it may be chanted in a different language. And Sanskrit was developed really around the tonal sound and had very much at its base a religious practice and religious seeking. And so it actually is designed to stimulate vibrations that will support religious practice and seeking. So that's certainly a powerful dimension of chanting that comes through that source in the world. Yeah, actually, Mandy and I both practice Reiki so we can relate to that teaching of the Sanskrit and having healing within that. So my question is, Zen stories, where did they come from?

And what are the purpose of them? Some from the time of the Buddha, which was 500 years before the birth of Christ. So it is, you know, centuries and centuries and centuries ago, and then all the way through. So in fact, there are stories that relate to different periods of time, all the way from Buddha, and then through, you know, early days in India, in China, in Japan. So they come from all sorts of different sources. So that's one element. Another is that they are a sort of a distillation by people who have been deep spiritual practitioners, who have been watching for stories that will waken up our on, you were saying, maybe Mandy was saying how they seem confusing. And sometimes they can even seem frustrating or concerning. And if one meditates and then ponders a story, what happens as you engage for a while in meditation is you start seeing the story emerge like a flower coming open. And you start to see that you can look at it from many different angles

and you can interpret it in the positive, you can interpret it in the negative, you can think about what experience does this relate to in my own life. And it's really remarkable because it opens into this sort of awareness space that brings you deeply into the presence of something profound. And the stories actually are designed sort of like, almost like a mechanical device, where if you open the lid and move the lever and go past this object, you start to see down into it in this whole new area. I mean, they actually have inner workings to them, which is fascinating because they worked, I think, rather the same way for people in China a thousand years ago as they work for us now. But they're not at all like an inspirational or a personal growth type story, which would then cause one to say, oh, I get that. That's really helpful to me. They actually invite one to work, to engage in something that isn't clear at face

value, and to watch one's own inner process in engaging with something that isn't clear at face value and to watch one's own inner process in engaging with something that doesn't have initial clarity. So they're an invitation for meditation, in fact. Wow. So for any of our listeners who were to pick up your book, would you suggest this isn't a fast read? I did some drumming and listened to a meditation before I started reading your book for the intention of, I have found that when I raise my vibration, then I can understand things better. I had one of my readers say that it was like thick fudge reading my book. You can eat a little bit and really. Yeah. Do you see that the Bible was full of Zen stories? Because, you know, some of the things that I've read in the Bible where I'm like, what are they talking about? And we had a rabbi on a few weeks ago where he talked about where a lot of the stories were just metaphors, but we took them literally.

Right, right. I think the Bible has been so amazing over all these centuries because it can be interpreted and engaged in so many ways. You know, there's whole traditions of, you know, Bible study or rabbinical study or all of the engagements in the stories and the sayings and what comes through the Bible. So, yes, I think it's this many layered transmission and one can receive it and engage in it at a whole variety of different kind of wavelengths or levels. Chris, I think in your book it was called Coming Home was one of your stories. That's at the very end. Yeah. And I read that one like seven or eight times and I got something different every time I read it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I noted was I shared this with many people before it actually came out and published. And I would track what people, which one of the 48 pieces people liked. And everybody liked different ones. You know, I was trying to see, you know, are there certain ones that really are the better ones and some that maybe I should remove.

But it actually was very distributed. But at the same time, it wasn't like everybody liked everything equally. So it was very interesting. It was almost like different of these pieces were working differently with different people, which was fascinating. Well, and you want to know what else would be really interesting is then in like six months, if you had a group of people that committed to doing it again, I bet that it would be totally different for them that time because it's just whatever's resonating with your soul and whatever message the divine wants to give you. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a favorite Zen story? That's a good question. I do actually. It's about a girl growing up and

she has this boyhood friend who's a deep friend of hers when they're about seven years old they vow with each other to get married and i think her father overhears it he says oh yeah sure you know get married when you're older you know figuring it's just a little kid joking about it and he forgets all about it but they always feel like that's this commitment and bond between the two of them. So, excuse me, I'm getting a little emotional here. They grow up, and then when the girl is, I think, 16 or something, her father announces to her that he's arranged for her marriage, that he's found somebody in town, and this is a traditional Asian culture, so that's the appropriate approach, and she's deeply, deeply upset because she was always planning to marry her boyhood friend. So he is also deeply upset and is so sad. And he comes to say goodbye to her. And then he

decides to leave the town because it's going to be so challenging for him. And he gets in a boat and heads down the river. And then he looks up and sees that girl running along beside the river. And it turns out it's his beloved. And so he pulls over and she comes in the boat and they go downstream and they go way downstream and then find a new life together. And I think they have a house and, you know, they're having a wonderful time together and it's been a few years, but she keeps yearning for home and she feels like she's left home and can't experience home because she's away. So she

finally says to the man she's with, I guess, you know, her husband really, that she needs to go home. And she realizes it may be very difficult, but she has to do it. And he says, I will take you there. And so he goes back up the river with the boat, and they come to where her home is. And she stays in the boat, and he goes up to the house. And he meets her father coming out of the house and says to her, I have your daughter with me, figuring that father will have had deeply missed her. And the father says, that's very strange because she's been in bed for the last few years, not waking up at all. And he's really completely surprised. And he says, what do you mean? She's been with me. And her father says, no, she's been in bed and we haven't

been able to wake her for these last three years. Sorry. And then the girl has gotten up and is walking from the boat up to the house. And at the same moment, the girl from the house gets out of bed and starts walking out the door. And then the two of them arrive at each other and merge into one being. And that's the story. Yep, you got me too. Yeah, it's that whole process. I mean, I feel like there's been whole periods of my life I've lived that have been split from myself. Yeah, I have this side here and that side there. And that process of reconciliation, how a big, big part of I think, many of our lives that is

to find reconciliation and almost that it opens and closes in life. It's almost like it's, and there's different times when one gets split into different aspects of oneself and is looking for reconciliation and unity. Reminds me, my favorite chant is that coming home chant to the here and now. I mean, I could just sit and chant that over and over and over.

Because not only does that remind you when you're actually saying it but you start to feel it within you i love chanting chris how how does one reconcile those split worlds oh yeah well in my, sometimes it's patience. Sometimes it's usually patience as a part. I think another is not resigning oneself to the splitness and to continue to being open to new ways of engaging and seeing life, and deep compassion for oneself and for others, to recognize that sometimes I'm the most significant influence in my being split than anyone else, because I'm holding on to something that I believe I have to have, or unwilling to truly see another person in their needs and how I could serve them. So it's a process often of slow awakening to what's really going on in my life and to own it and to be unwilling to not live my life fully, to really be wholly there. So those things I think have been important for reconciling times when I feel that I've been split from myself.

And so that's what Zen stories can help you do. They can help you in every area, bring you to these moments. And there's probably a Zen story for everything. Yeah, in a way, or you can find everything in a Zen story too. See, there you go. I want to, I want to know, is there a Zen story in a sesame bun? Yes, there is. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, Yeah. Let's tell the listener why you asked that Mandy. Because before I even opened your book, I just saw a sesame bun and I'm like, either he really likes buns or there's more to this.

So why did you pick a sesame bun for the cover of your book? Well, the book is titled, as you know, Finding Zen in the Ordinary. And it has a website, findingzenintheordinary.com. And on the homepage, it says to the left of the book, and I'll read this, a monk asked young men, young men is a Chinese Zen master. A monk asked young man, what is the teaching that transcends the Buddha and patriarchs? What is the teaching that transcends the Buddha and patriarchs? And his answer was a sesame bun. I love the light humor that is often in Zen stories. Is that why the Buddha is always smiling and the laughing Buddha?

Yeah, I'd say that there's a great sense of wonder that arises from being truly present in life. Also an awareness that our lives are short. that arises from being truly present in life. Also an awareness that our lives are short. You know, this is a remarkable opportunity and we only get so much time. And that sense of wonder and the sense is we only get so much time, I think leads to often a sense of deep appreciation for the opportunity to just be here with the two of you and to have a chance to

share in each other's lives for a short while. And that I think brings often a smile because it's lovely to be able to do that. You know, I've experienced two near-death experiences in my life. And I used to get down on myself a lot about if there's anyone that should know the present moment matters and that your life can be gone and this current life can be gone so fast, it would be me. And so I would actually really start getting down on myself. Like, you should be doing more. You should be farther along than this. You should be living in that moment of gratitude every second. And, you know, as humans, we're just so conditioned that I, I found that I really had to give

myself some grace and say, you're still human. And we're not perfect. It's okay. I mean, as a a zen master do you find that sometimes you're not present as well do you find that you dehumanize yeah yeah it's um one of the other things that I found that was pretty profound learning in working with a teacher is that I I felt in reading a lot of spiritual books and hearing about historical figures that there was some kind of achievement of spiritual awakening and deep peace that some people had that I didn't, and somehow maybe I could get there. And I started grappling with

the fact that first, as I spoke with my teacher, he said that, you know, he said, I started grappling with the fact that first as I spoke with my teacher he said that you know he said I've lived with and practiced with many spiritual teachers and they all struggle they all find their lives are difficult and painful they get frustrated they get irritated about things they're up and down all the time he said it's it's no such thing that you somehow arrive at some panacea where everything becomes lovely and light. He said, that's a kind of a stylized picture that helps to give people some, you know, motivation and think about what might be, you know, possible in terms of gaining a deeper spiritual basis. But, and I first reacted to that. I was like, well, that I don't agree. I, there must be

a way to get out of this challenging situation I'm in. And, and yet over many years of practice, I think having really tried to look carefully, I think that's very true. And so, you know, I think that it's not one kind of exits a certain set of problems or, you know, achieves a certain level, even though there is growth of a certain sort. But I think one is in whatever level or development or experience one has had, one is constantly, I am constantly falling off a position and picking myself up. Life is always going out of balance. And, you know, I realize these days, you know, it'll be a matter of time before I stub my toe or, you know, jam my finger in something or somebody says something that hurts my feelings or it's a constant stream.

And the pain just kind of streams through our lives. And so, no, I don't think there's a way of exiting it, but there's a way of holding it somewhat differently so that we are not owned by it and that we actually can, in fact, own our own lives deeply. As a child and as a student, we think we're doing our most learning, but I have found in my practice that it is as a parent and as a teacher that I have learned more from my students and from my children. In reading the Zen stories, you're learning and you're growing and experiencing this expansion. But how is it on the other side as you're writing them?

Oh, well, the writing process of this book was wonderful and profound and challenging. I don't consider myself particularly a writer. I started to write quite a lot every day. Not a lot every day, but every day I was writing, so it became a lot. And then I also did a lot of reading about writing. I read about how to write about other writers. One of the things that helped me was to read that writers, even great writers, struggle with writing. Writing is inherently a very difficult practice if one's trying to do it well. And in the writing, I found that I was able to work on giving voice to things that were profoundly important to me. And in large measure, the

things that I was writing about just emerged, but then went through many, many cycles of editing. And so what you see in the book is 48 short pieces that seem very simple. That's the intent, that they would feel very simple. I started out, I think I wrote a 400-page book that was unpublishable because it had all sorts of personal things and things that wouldn't work, but it became sort of the ground of sort of early work. And then I think I went through three years or two years of editing my book after it had actually been written to just continue polishing it. I had an editor go over it twice. And so it was also a process of trying to get it to a place where it could be received. And I had about 25 people read it and give me critiques and commentary. And all of that was to try to get it to a place so that when people would read it, it would actually act as a gift. And that would actually act in a way to

bring up spiritual experience, rather than talk about spiritual experience. I wanted it to be a book that people had spiritual insight when they read it, not a book about how to have spiritual insight, which I think is the predominant form that most books about spirituality take. I really felt your love when you wrote those last pages, thanking all those people that helped you. I also felt your humbleness and your bravery. And I say bravery because a lot of people think asking for help is a weakness, but in asking all those people to help you. And I mean, you had a lot of people helping you edit it and I loved your tribute. Yeah. It just touched me. I thought it was beautiful and it was long. Like you'll usually see a lot of book authors just put like a couple of sentences in there, but I mean, you really went out of your way to make sure you didn't forget anyone that helped you along that journey, like your brother. And yeah, it was cool.

It was cool. I have a question. It doesn't have to be poetic, right? It doesn't have to like be a haiku poem, but poems are very similar in some way because it almost seems poetic when you read it. Yeah, it's interesting. The book, as I wrote it, had a very poetic form, but it's in a funny way, it's not poetry. I don't know quite why, but I think anybody who is interested in poetry would say it's not poetry. There are some that are in stanzas, I guess, and I can't really speak to that. But it is poetic and it's intended to make every word count so that every word holds a place. And it's not sort of throwing a lot of words at something to kind of create an impression, but it's taking each word and making every single word count. My God. You know, my dad used to have a lot of

little jokes and of poems that his dad taught him that probably his dad, you know, there was this one, he was like, there once was a man from Gorham. He had a pair of pants and he tore them. He stooped and he laughed for, he felt quite a draft because he knew just where he had tore him but he had like a lot of really wise I've never heard that before oh he had I could have wrote a book just about his oh my god your dad was so funny I know I love that guy super wise though too and they had been passed down, you know, one generation after another, you thought it didn't make sense until you said it so many times. And you're like, oh, I get it. My grandmother used to say things to me growing up and it didn't make any sense to me at all. Like the one that always stuck out to me is like, we all have our own bag of rocks. And I was just

like, what does that even mean? And of course, now that I'm older, I know what that means. But that's so funny, Shan. I love that. I never heard that one either. Can anyone do Zen? Is this a practice that anyone can do? Yeah, sure. Of course. Yeah. I mean, anybody. Would your book be a good start for someone who was curious about exploring zen it would be a good book for someone who is interested in exploring zen there are some other books that are good for just sort of the basic practice of zen sort of how does we don't have any like local zen places around here not especially not in our city shanna we have the Shambhala that we need to go to 45

minutes away. Yeah, Shambhala is very closely aligned to Zen. Yeah. Okay. It comes from the Tibetan tradition. And Buddhism came from India to China, and then went to Tibet, went to Japan. And there's much in common between Tibetan Buddhism, which is expressed in Shambhala, the Shambhala tradition and Zen. Dan and I are always aligned with our questions because mine was going there too. I think that it's important if you could explain to our listeners that you don't have to go sit in the mountains in a retreat in Mexico. You don't have to go to the Shambhala. You don't have to sit in quiet for a week to experience this

with your book or just in life. You can find Zen in a sesame bun. I think that sometimes when people are searching, we as humans, well, I'm not going to say we, I'm going to say I. I always over complicate things and overthink it and make it seem like it's got to be this grandiose gesture. And I have to like leave my family and put on a backpack and go into the, you know, what would you say to our listeners that are searching? Well, Thich Nhat Hanh, who is a well-known Zen teacher, which who you mentioned earlier, has a wonderful set of practices, one being eating an orange and just experiencing, you know, eating an orange section or blowing a dandelion when the seeds come up and watching the dandelion seeds come off. And or hearing your phone ding with a text that just came in and waiting for three seconds to experience the ding before you reach and look at the text, to put those moments in to just be present in our daily lives.

Because in the end, meditation and Zen practice or other meditation practices are training. And they're training us for presence in our daily lives and what we actually are going through. The intent is not to somehow go away from it all, but it's to develop a capacity to be fully present with it all. And so that combination, so then meditation is helpful. So in terms of your listeners, one can sit for just five minutes a day. It's helpful to have a regular practice because it sort of builds up over time. You know, you might meditate for 10 minutes on one day and you say, oh, nothing really happened or, oh, well, that was really cool. I had all these colors coming up in my mind or something, but it really is something that if one does it,

say for a month and makes a commitment, I'll do it in the morning when I first get out of bed for five minutes for a month, then I think what happens is rather than the sitting experience itself being something important, one may see that one's life is settling down a bit. And that actually one is a little less reactive to things and has a little more space to decide on what you're going to say when you hear something you don't like, or when you hurt yourself and don't necessarily just jump to react. You realize that, you know, you can be a little slower and kinder about it or all of those things. So that's, I think, how the practice works. And a very simple way of starting meditation practice is to count one's breath. And so, and you may have heard of this practice as well, but it's one that's used throughout meditation practices as a good beginning practice,

where you sit and just breathe out saying one, and then breathe in, breathe out saying two, and then your next breath out, you say three, you go up to 10, and then you start again from one and just go up to 10. And the interesting thing is that it's not long before you'll lose track and forget. And that's actually not like, oh my God, I'm failing at meditation. That's exactly how our minds work. And it's very interesting to notice, even for someone who's practiced meditation for many years, that will still happen. Your mind will go galloping off and you'll forget the counting from one to 10, but then you quite quickly, you remember it again. And so you bring yourself back and then you start counting again

from one to 10 and it's training for being able to do that in one's life when one's feels anger arising. And then you bring yourself back and say, wait a minute, I can have a little space between my anger and what I say, or, you know, hunger. And I'm like, you know, I can wait a little longer or, you know, so that one gains these space to make choice. Just as one gains the space to make choice about coming back from one's thoughts and counting from one to 10. And then just sitting in a still stable way. So it can be in a chair that's comfortable, not that you're going to fall asleep in, but allows you to be upright and present. Or if you have a way of sitting cross-legged on the floor with a cushion, that can be good. But finding a way to sit that's really stable and something that you don't feel like you have to keep shifting around, because the more still one's body is, it encourages the mind to be very still as well.

And by being still in the mind, one starts to notice who one is, what one's life is, and what's going on. Nothing ever stops. You just start seeing that everything is in constant motion and change. You know, there's always little sounds, there's changes in the airflow, the mind always has these ideas coming in and out, and one gets at peace with the fact that things are constantly in motion by getting that still and present. Not that one stops at all and one can kind of somehow wall everything out and have this entirely peaceful experience with nothing interposing. And so therefore, that practice of being present with all the changes in the still moment gains the practice of being present with the much more active aspects of one's life as well. Yeah, I remember I couldn't even brush my

teeth without thinking about where that water came from. I mean, it was just, you know, you're like noticing things you've never in your life noticed before in that space. There's so much. There's so much. And you know what? I love how fun it is. Like I text Shanna the other night and I was so excited because I've learned a new level to my meditation. And that is that water always enhances everything for me. If I'm in a bath or like in a hot tub and I'm meditating, it's like, I literally, and I've had an outer body experience, um, and for real, and it's like I literally and I've had an outer body experience um and for real and it's when I described to her the other night what happened to me it was exactly the same as the outer body experience I had when I died from my asthma attack I actually was able to achieve that

in meditation and I couldn't even feel my physical earthly body. It was, it was amazing. So it's so fun because you learn new things that work for you. And I think a lot of our listeners and people that I know were so judgy and we think there's a right and a wrong way. And yes. Do you ever read any of your pages on your social media um because the book holding the book has some energy to it but you you really have like something with your voice that just captures oh uh i have not done so yet i've i've i have read it out loud for a few other people you should do like a weekly like monday read it and then people meditate it on for the week, like a, like a Zen book club. Really like that. That's really awesome.

Yeah, I know you, you just, I'm sure, you know, a lot of people have told you this, but, and it's, I know it's part of of your practice but you just have a very calming energy and voice and your authenticity really comes through in in your voice and your energy well mandy i appreciate that i don't hear myself obviously in the way that others do so it's helpful to hear some feedback thank you yeah so we have a thing called break that shit down on our podcast. I know it's a bad word again. And now it's time for break that shit down. Well, I feel a very deep appreciation to you, to the person who's listening, because in this very curious way through Mandy and Shana and the podcast and you listening to it, we're connecting.

We're connecting across space and time. I appreciate being received. And by receiving what I offer, I am given to. And so I wanted to express that appreciation to each of you who are engaging here. Thank you. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for your book. Appreciate it so much. I can't wait to share it with everybody. So it's Finding Zen in the Ordinary. There's a website, findingzenintheordinary.com. It's available on Amazon or other

places where books are sold. There's an ebook as well as a book in paperback, and it would be a treat to me if other people find it of use and value. In terms of the non-profit management consulting I do through our website, wellspringconsulting.net. Wellspring Consulting is the name of our firm, Wellspring Consulting, and it's at a.net location. So WellspringConsulting.net. I'm also reachable through the book website, FindingZenInTheOrdinary.com. There's a contact page and people can submit a message to me there too if they choose. If I remember correctly, Gavin connected us. Shanna and I always have to give a shout out to Gavin because he kind of helped us make a sense of soul in a way. I mean, he was just this gift that came to us.

We connected with him. We had on a guest and he has just been feeding us amazing souls ever since. And we had the pleasure of having him on and interviewing him ourselves. And so being able to meet him and talk to him, he's funny. He's amazing. And I love that he, he gets us because he knew that we were going to connect with you. He, he, he knows us and I love that. So thank you, Gavin. Yeah. Thank you, Gavin. Love you, Gavin. Thank you. And, he, he knows us and I love that. So thank you, Gavin. Yeah. Thank you, Gavin. Love you, Gavin. Thank you. And he's been wonderful in supporting this book and, and reaching out about it. So thank you, Gavin, for me too.

Thank you for your energy and for this space today. It's been a treat to get to know you both. And I so appreciate what you do. You're sharing much love and light. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Many of our listeners have asked how they can support Sense of Soul podcast. You can now buy Mandy and I a cup of coffee by going to www.mysenseofsoul.com and go to the coffee fund. You can also take one of our many workshops or classes online.

We love to meet our listeners and work with them. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.