Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 255: The View of American Turmoil from the Other Side of the World | Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

We have spent the past few episodes talking with black and white Americans about race. But for this episode I wanted to get the view from outside. So I called up a man on the other side of the planet who is widely recognized to be one of the world's greatest living meditation masters. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is the author of such books as The Joy of Living and In Love with the World. He’s only in his mid-forties - which is young by my standards - but as the child of another great meditation master, he began doing long retreats in his teens. He now teaches all over the world, with centers on five continents. He's known for his candor and humor. We cover an enormous range of topics here, including: love, hate, panic, boredom, relationships, death, and whether we humans are fundamentally good. And as a bonus, he guides a brief meditation toward the end. Quick audio note: Mingyur Rinpoche spoke to us from his busy home in Kathmandu, Nepal, so you'll occasionally hear some background noises, including barking dogs. Try to use your practice to just let it go. Where to find Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche online: Website: https://tergar.org/about/mingyur-rinpoche/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mingyurrinpoche Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mingyur.rinpoche/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mingyurrinpoche/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MingyurRinpoche Book Mentioned: In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying: https://www.amazon.com/Love-World-Journey-Through-Bardos/dp/0525512535 Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Health Care Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/mingyur-rinpoche-255 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, we have, you may have noticed, spent the past few episodes on this show talking with Black and White Americans about the issue of race. But for this episode, I wanted to get the view from outside, way outside. So I called up a man on the other side of the planet who is widely recognized to be one of the world's

greatest living meditation masters. Young gay, Mingyue Rinpoche is the author of such books as The Joy of Living and in Love with the World. He's only in his mid-40s, which is young by my standards, but as the child of another great meditation master, he actually began doing long meditation retreats in his teens. He now teaches all over the world with centers on five continents. He's known for his candor and humor. We cover an enormous range of topics here, including love, hate, panic,

boredom, relationships, death, and whether we humans are fundamentally good. And as a bonus, see guides a brief meditation toward the end. Quick audio note before we dive in here. Mingur Rinpoche spoke to us from his busy home in Kathmandu, Nepal, so you will occasionally hear some background noises including barking dogs try to use your practice to just let it go. Here we go with Mingur Rinpoche. Hello. Hello. Oh, Tashi Delay. Tashi Delay. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Very good. So far. Where are you? In Nepal, Karmandu. Oh wow. Kathmandu. So is it evening there? Yes, we are now evening at PM. APM. Okay. Well, thank you so much for making time for us.

Mosul, come. Well, let me just ask you were, I'd be just curious to hear how you are. We're at a point of so much pain and across the world for human beings all over the world. So how are you taking all of this in? Yeah, I mean, this is so much suffering. A lot of kind of like problem everywhere in the world. So for me, what I can do is I pray, I'm doing now kind of like, relax, meditation, retreat. I teach on the internet, but other than that, I pray all the time and I'm teaching meditation to whoever want to kind of listen. And for my personal level, I'm doing quite well.

Actually, I can study a lot. I can do my meditation retreat. I'm making farm, a lot of organic vegetables, doing some exercise. So for my personal level, it's good. I want to hear what kind of exercise you're doing, but I also want to know, when you say pray, because in my understanding of Buddhism to the limited extent to which I've practiced in my own life, there

is no creator of God. So who do you pray to when you pray? I pray for this pandemic, will soon. I pray for world peace, I dedicate my meditation and of my meditation, I dedicate my virtue to the world, to the people who suffer this pandemic, something like that. So it's not prayer in the way a Christian or a Jewish or a Muslim person might pray. a Christian or a Jewish or a Muslim person might pray, it's more cultivating the wish inside of yourself for the suffering of other beings to be diminished. Yes, yes. So kind of by sending my love, my compassion, and sending my virtues from my heart. What impact does that kind of from my heart. What impact is that kind of prayer as you call it have on you? I think for me that really makes me calm, peaceful, and I get some kind of energy, although there's a lot of chaos around us, but this prayer really helps me to be more peaceful and more resilient, I think.

And then I can teach also at the same time. And whatever I can help from limitation, of course, from my side. So it really helps me also, I feel this helps others in a way. It helps others because it makes you more resourceful and better able to help others, or it helps others just through the power of your mind. Of course, I think both, but self and others are independent, you know? So we all kind of like align on each other.

So the prayer has very powerful motivation. This dedication has powerful love, compassion. And that really, I may change the way how we act to the others, the way how we help to the others. So, if everybody has this love, compassion, dedication, pray through heart. I think we'll all become better places. But it's not so much that you think if you cultivate the wish for all beings to be relieved of their suffering, that somehow it's going to happen simply because you cultivated the wish or because some deity will make it happen.

It sounds like something more subtle than that. We believe that the power of mind, you know, really strong. So what we believe is we all have this wonderful nature within us. So what we call everybody has wisdom, love, compassion, awareness, skill, positive energy. A lot of things within us around us. The problem is we don't see it. So normally what I call 10 finger perception. So, if we have 10 qualities within us, 9 of them positive and 1 of the negative. What we see is only the negative one. We don't see 9 positive qualities within ourselves.

So, if you don't see, then almost become, we don't have it. So, if you have the best watch in the world, if you don't know that it's watch, watch cannot tell you time. Although, the watch is the best in the world. So therefore, the power of mind doesn't have limitation. It helps to recognize within yourself, and it will help to others too. If I was interested in doing this kind of practice, what are the instructions? What does the practice look like inside of an individual mind?

I think first important is we need to begin by appreciation. So try to appreciate just simple things. I have this wonderful breath. How nice. And I have senses. I can hear and see whatever you have. Wonderful. I'm still alive. Wonderful. So just simple thing. Which is not simple. Of course, it's really, really great to have this breath, isn't it? It's like magic, actually. But we don't see it. So, then also appreciate about people around you and about the world, whatever you can. So, then begin, it really allows us to see things that we never see before. And appreciate a lot of things and manifest.

And you see this within others, then that is real love. Love really comes when there's sense of love, when there's sense of sweetness within others. So it's not just the empathy and the sympathy, but there's a really opening heart, in Tibetan what we call nhing jie. It's a meaning of love. Interbet in what we call, ning jie. It's a meaning of love and compassion. ning ming heart. jie ming kute.

Loveable. Pressure. It's so interesting, can you talk about love? And there's something I think a lot about. We talk a lot about love on this show. And yet again, and this is a common theme among many of our guests, you're talking about love, not the way Hollywood talks about love, where there's string music and a clever plot twist and misunderstandings

that get resolved in a dramatic way toward the end, et cetera, et cetera. It's not romantic love. It's the capacity we all have to see the best in other people. Yeah, and yourself, yourself and other people, yes. Well, that's a key addition you just made there and yourself because I think, I know you've worked with many Western students

in the West, we often overlook that part. Right. Have you seen that a lot in your Western students, they're overlooking the love toward oneself? I mean, sometimes, like one time, I keep teaching about love and compassion, and I told everybody that love and compassion is there within us 24 hours.

And then, I mean, the many people are very happy about that. And it's there within us, 24 hours. And then, I mean, many people are very happy about that. Then as soon as I finish my teaching, I come out of the hole. There's one man waiting there. And he said, it's just me. Can I say something? I said, yes, of course. And he said, your teachings are wonderful.

You tell everybody that they all have love and compassion all the time. But I want to, you know, that I don't have that. I almost hate myself 24 hours. So, I just want to let you know. Then I asked him, why are you coming here? And he said, to learn from you. Then I asked him, why you want to learn from me? He said, I want to free this hatred. Hate myself asked him, why you want to learn from me? He said, I want

to free this hatred, hate myself. I don't like this. I want to be happy. I told him, that is love. You have care about yourself. You know, there's care, there's love. You came all the way and took this time, energy, the buy this flight ticket. So there's a lot of love and care there, but we are not recognized. The problem is we are not recognized. These are there within ourselves, yes. So these capacities that we've talked about in what has thus far been a short conversation, but I hope we'll continue for a while. We've been talking about

love the capacity to see the best in others and wish for the best for others and ourselves. Yeah, so externally and internally focus love which of course love is omnidirectional so it's all one thing but I wonder for people who are listening to this, they may, they may feel not able to put this into practice because we're under so much pressure. So we've been locked in our homes. We may have lost our jobs. We may be fearful about losing our jobs in, in my country. If we have black skin, we may look at the video, which I suspect you have seen of George Floyd. Yes, I heard of that.

With his neck under the knee of a police officer for nearly nine minutes, and we may see ourselves in George Floyd's face and hear ourselves in his pain. And we may be under all of this pressure and think, I can't do what this nice gentleman, this meditation teacher is advising I do, I don't feel up to it right now. Yeah, of course, that's true, whatever you mentioned, and I'm very sad about that, and also I'm praying every day. Whenever I meditate, I dedicate for him and all the people who suffer through this. And yes, when we begin to learn meditation normally, for me also, when I learn meditation. Actually, I had panic attacks when I was young around panic, developed with me around seven, eight years old,

and then continued, then my father told me that, oh, the basic level of panic is love and compassion. I thought it's impossible, because panic is a lot of fear. I cannot sleep. I am so much fear of strangers and thunderstorm, snorestorm. So, and sometimes I feel like my neck is tight, I'm going to die right now. Maybe I'm having heart attack. How come this is come from love and compassion? So, of course, at the beginning we see it's impossible.

But then, I mean the love and compassion, it doesn't mean that you have to say everything, yes, even though wrong, you have to say right, you are right, even though you did wrong, but I have to say, you are right, it is not the way of love and compassion. So the real meaning of love and compassion is something which is a benefit, and that benefit, whatever you want to see these others, and wish to help, and wish to free them within yourself

and other, is kind of the opposite of the selfish. So, that develops slowly slowly. The first step, I think, important is we need to see this love and compassion feeling within ourselves. I think that's really important. The first step. It's so interesting what your dad said to you about looking at panic and seeing the love and compassion in that. What I heard as somebody, just so you know I've suffered from panic attacks for a while, both when I'm in public speaking, it's very scary me, and I also have claustrophobia, so elevators are scary.

And when the panic comes on, it feels so treacherous and so dangerous, but I guess one way to think about it is this is my body trying to protect itself. Yes, of course. So there's love underneath all that. Underneath that. Yep, yeah, but we filter our concepts of mind filter and exagger of it. – Underneath that. – Yup. – Yup. – But we filter our concepts of mind, filter and exaggerate it.

And normally, with this practice, what we, looking for something good, meaning for their sense of wanting to come home. That is always there within us. And this another sense is we don't want to have problem. We don't want to have suffering. We don't want to have obstacle. We don't want to have kind of like a meaningless thing. So that to aspect, to size of one coin. So this kind of feeling is within us.

All the time right now I'm having a conversation with you. This conversation why we want to have this coming out of this feeling which to be happy, wanting to free from problem, suffering. And each movement of my body is also coming from there. Normally when I teach meditation and the people sit like, you know, cross hand like this one put outside and change another,

hand put outside again and change the leg position. Each movement is looking for happiness. If you see the one position too long, it becomes uncomfortable, becomes suffering. You need to avoid that. you are looking for something else. So, what I call, each breath is looking for happiness. If you stop breath for a few seconds, you feel suffer. Not only the each eye is bling, also looking for happiness. So, actually,

who we are is the full of love and compassion, embodiment of love and compassion. So we don't see that first. So therefore, not only that, behind each emotion, behind each thought, is also love and compassion. So this is really important to recognize when we see that. Then that is the first step. There's a lot of aha moment for me when I was young. So it's really nice to see this. So I just want to pick up on that aha moment to make sure that I understand it.

Yes. And please, excuse me, because it takes me a while to understand things. But if I'm listening to this, and I'm in the United States of America, and of course we do have listeners who are outside the United States of America, so shout out to you guys. But if I'm here, and I'm looking at what's happening on TV, and with the violence in the streets, and I'm feeling, particularly if I'm black and I'm feeling like 401 years of trauma are all coming to the surface right now. Or if I'm anybody anywhere in the world and I'm feeling so much fear because of this pandemic and I might tell myself a story, I can't do this work.

What you're saying is even that feeling of, I can't do this work, or even the feeling of just wanting some sort of relief, every shift in your chair where you're looking for some level of comfort, that is all love. Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. So what happened is the love is filtered by the selfish, the egoistic mind, the conceptual mind. So then it is become hatred, then it is become panic, then it is become self-hated, all these things.

But when you just be let it be and just feel that feeling at the beginning, you will feel very uncomfortable, you feel really, really like feeling like embarrassed, almost like, imberiful feeling, you cannot be with that feeling, but just be with it. You don't try to control it, don't try to fight with it, don't try to follow it, just be with it, just be with it. Then you can see underneath, it's love, actually, it's just be with it, just be with it. Then you can see underneath, Islam, actually, it's just looking for happiness, wanting to be free, wanting to do something nice,

wanting to be help to yourself, help to others. So that is the fundamental nature of all the emotion and the thoughts. i don't know what the meaning of the word is, it's the meaning of the word, and the thoughts. Right, it doesn't mean it's all going to go away, this practice that it doesn't mean

it's all going to go away, you have to go through it. Through it, yes, at the beginning, sometimes, we get worse, look like we get worse. So much feeling that the beginning and the panic it's looked like we get worse for for me. And my father said, that's a good sign. He gave me one example about the dirty cup. So the things in the cup is dirty, but when it's dry, it doesn't see so bad.

Then when you want to clean that, put a few drops of water and then move. All the dirty will come out. Look like the cup getting worse. But actually it's process of cleaning. Process of purification. So, therefore, sometimes it may happen. But most of the time, when we feel it's getting worse,

because we are beginning to aware of that. sometimes it may happen, but the most of the time when we feel it's getting worse, because we are beginning to aware of that. Actually, it's not getting worse, but we feel like getting worse because of we are aware of that. So we need to go through that. Okay, just be with it. Be with it. Be with that feeling is also meditation, is awareness.

And then underneath, we can discover this love and compassion. I'm going to keep asking you questions from the perspective of somebody in America. I apologize for that, but the stories here are so powerful in our culture of what's happening right now. But if we're talking about love and compassion, which we certainly are, there's so much hatred and anger where I sit right now. I had protesters marching by my house last night, not that those protesters are all motivated by hatred or anger. They're not that a lot of it is motivated by love, of course.

But this is not something that I'm just watching on TV. This is a real story for many of us here. So there's so much political division here. We do, some of us hate the people with whom we disagree. And so I wonder what your thoughts are about from the outside, from the other side of the world, about how individual Americans can practice in the face of so much division and mistrust. Yeah, yeah. I've been the normally in my meditation tradition, or cause to turn be under control by hatred,

but then to develop, to remember, go back to our innate goodness. Sometimes, what we call our true nature, our original nature, which is love, compassion, awareness, wisdom, skill, soul. Many good things are there, so go back into there. And then, you act out. So when you do action, there are what we call four ways, peaceful, enrich,

magnetizing, and powerful activities. So not just peaceful, everything's okay, be a see-he, not like that. Not powerful, always fighting, and fighting, not like that. No powerful or fighting, fighting, no like that. So, really basic motivation is love and compassion.

Then how to help? Sometimes peaceful, peaceful like peace, patience, really be nice. Sometimes develop, something needs to increase, something needs to enhance, something needs to enrich, and some that may notize. In supplier, role model, magnetic power, most comes from the inspirations, role model, you don't have to special make peace, you don't have to enrich or give anything, just role model, just peace. And sometimes there's powerful activities, which is there, follow to the ground law,

you start and you let go and really need to have some energy. Powerful things also need to be there. But the important is, really go back to this love and compassion. And out of that, with wisdom, not with the stupid of hatred. So the wisdom even you become very powerful, forceful, but it is through wisdom, through compassion, sometimes it's okay. So let me ask you, let me make this very practical. So I'm sitting, I'm watching TV and some politician or some person comes on and says something that I disagree with and I notice that I get angry. What do I do in that moment?

So for me, what do I do? I see this lot of bad news on the TV many times. So then I got, I look at that person's as like me. So when you have this hatred, when you have this anger, do you have control? Can you control? No, not very well. Nobody can control, but we want to control.

Nobody wants to be hate. Nobody wants to have panic. Nobody wants to have this kind of anger, depression. But then when we have this, we are out of control because of ignorance, because of this egoistic mind filtered, because of this strong negative emotion. So if you want to hate that person, you should hate this hated, this ego-sting mind within that person. So you have to separate the person from the person's emotion or the action of that person. Maybe you need to hate that person's action. So for me, when I was young, my mother always said, you action is no good. She never say you no good. So I think this is really important to see this for us.

So if there are people in our immediate environment or on television who are doing things that make us feel hatred to separate their actions or their egoistic mind from who they are fundamentally underneath. Yes. Exactly. But that would require us to believe, as you said before, that people are fundamentally good in our culture, as you know, there is this idea of original sin. What do you say to folks who think that actually know we

are not fundamentally good, we're fallen. So for us what we believe is this basic inner goodness, so we don't believe that people are by nature is there's an impure. Sometimes what we call In pure, sometimes what we call kata, in Tibetan word kata, meaning the original purity. So kata, meaning the original from beginning. And ta, meaning purity. So that's what we believe. So, and actually, when you look around, you can see that, you people are really excited to see bad news?

Because bad news are not normal. It is very rare. Good news or yes or yes or yes or yes. When you see good news on the television or cause. But there is something bad news. Because this is really not normal. So 90% even though we are a lot of hatred, a lot of ignorance, a lot of selfish there, a service level, but still the manifesting these good things, 90% within us around us. Right. So it's back to what you said at the beginning

that we overlook so much good that's right there, but because of our negativity bias, we look at the negative because it's the most exciting in some ways. Yeah, yeah. So we see one negative, we exaggerate 90 percent, and the nine good things we ignore, we don't see it. You said you've been doing a lot of teaching online since the pandemic began. What kind of questions are you getting from people? What are people your students concerned about and struggling with at this time? Yeah, so I think the most people, the question is around this pandemic time, they're at home, how to deal with my bottomness, how to deal with the worry and panic, and how to develop relationship, and how to meditate, something like those questions.

What do you say about boredom? I said this is a great opportunity now to really look into ourself. So, of course, everybody wants to have this time for ourself, time for like this. But then we don't have it because of so much busy. time for ourself, time for like this. But then we don't have it because of so much busy. We have so many to-do lists and we have to follow that. And it's very expensive.

I heard of that to have time off. But now it comes order manually. But this is a great opportunity to explore yourself. There's one we call the great treasure within yourself to discover it, to explore it. So to sit with the boredom and see what's there? Yeah. And then you can do something creative. You can do some study. For me, I'm looking at ancient meditative books and recall my teachings way back, 20 years back. And then, during every day, something with my brother and mom,

family gathering, making vegetable farm and doing exercise. What kind of exercise do you do? I do mostly walking and I do a little bit like, I have this kind of like how to say, I create myself jumping breath. It's almost like jumping rope, but with the arm like this and with the breathing. So I created jumping breath, really helps sometimes I do that. More of my conversation with Mingyue Rinpoche after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on Page Six or Du Moir or In Court.

I'm Matt Bellissi. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wundery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lin spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to

fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lin's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow disentell wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wonder App. You mentioned gardening a couple times. What's the appeal of gardening for you?

I have some land near my house. It's an empty land. We plan a lot of vegetables. Now it's become organic. My mom really enjoy it. Sometimes I cook for my mom. She said, you cook really good excellent. You're excellent cook. I go for my mom and she said, I'm you're really good excellent, you know, you're a good

good. You've come a long way from when she told you your actions were bad when you were a kid. You also said that a lot of your students are asking you questions about relationships. Relationships are hard to manage right now because we're seeing so much of one another or we're seeing so much of one another or we're seeing so much of ourselves because we're on our own. What kind of advice do you give to people when they ask about relationships? I think some people has a problem but many of them, what they said, wow, this is a great time that we can really be with my husband and wife or family, help each other, C'est un grand temps que nous pouvons vraiment être avec mes parents,

les parents, les parents, les parents, il nous a beaucoup d'interprétations. Deux gens ont plus dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix dix dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais dix mais But what I recommend is normally what we call relationship is In order to keep relationship we really kind of like accept the impermanent So what we call live is like wave of the ocean, it's got up and down, up and down Nobody is perfect. So normally what I call is if you are looking Mr. perfect and Mr. is if you are looking Mr. Perfect and Mr. Perfect, then you will never find. So just look Mr. Ok and Mrs. Ok.

So, accept. Everybody has some problem. It's ok. And then another thing is because need to change our interests, our feeling will be bought if we don't kind of like keep the interest. So, learn each other every day, do something new things together to explore, do some creative

things. And so, every day there's something learning, something dream explore, there's something new things. And that really helps to, I think the love become, what I see is because a lot of my students, many of them want to have some interviews and a lot of questions come to like that. So I recommend them and they feel very happy about that.

Are you married? No, I'm not married. In your lineage, people to Rinpoche's, they can get married, right? Yeah, my brothers married and some of them are, which is a married, yes. So have you made the decision not to get married or still think it? I thought that a long time back. So then I decided to not marry it. Why? I mean, I see there's a lot of marriage people around me and there's a lot of sufferings around that. So for me, what I think is, if I remain single, I have a lot of time for teaching and helping many other people and also explore what I want normally is I want to do a lot of retreats, I want to do something like that. So that is really kind of like I have two things I have two things in my life, my wish. One is, I really like to teach meditation because when I was young, I had panic attacks.

And after that, I learned meditation because of this meditation, panic became my teacher, what I call panic became my best friend. So I kind of break through. So, so much benefit for me. I have deep appreciation about this lineage of meditation. I have always a passion to teach this. So when I teach, I don't feel tired and I feel very happy. And another thing is I want to retreat for myself, like solid retreat. So these two things, like almost like my life, dedicate for that.

So then now I feel very appreciate and feel very happy about what I'm doing. Yes, so you, you may not remember this, but you were on this podcast once before and you were in New York City, we sat together and you told me about some of the long retreats you've done, including a long, wandering retreat, where you left the monastery and went sort of roaming by yourself very little resources, and you got so sick at one point that you nearly died, and that that experience was incredibly meaningful to you to be that close to death.

Yeah, that was one of the best time in my life. Actually, I just walked out from my monastery, from I have monastery in India, Bodhikaya. So I just walked out with a few thousand Indian rupees, other than I don't have much so I just walk out and then that few thousand rupees finished within three weeks then I have to back the food and I got food poisoned so I have the idea of vomiting for a few days for five days in the end. I feel like I'm dying, lose senses, cannot see, cannot hear, and my body becomes paralyzed,

but then I continue to meditate. So rest in awareness. So that is a great discovery. Awareness becomes more clear, the sense of love, the sense of joy. But this conceptual mind is gone. Now what we normally say, it's not gone. It's not time, not from, not back.

So vast. So I was in that state about six, seven hours. So when I come back, then I feel like the street becomes like my home. Before I feel like, what I'm hearing, you know, there's a lot of dolls, mosquitoes, unsafe, dangerous, you know. So when I come back, the unsafe feeling is gone.

So, feels like the street is like my home. So, what I call, if you love the world, world loves your back. So, I wrote a book about this, my retreat called in love with the world. So I mentioned about this, my story about my one-dune retreat. Earlier on in our conversation, you talked about how you've been using this time during the lockdown to look at ancient books. Yes. In the Buddhist tradition. Can you say more about that? That's interesting to me. Yeah, so we have these five kind of like men subjects about ancient book. One is Abidharma. Abidharma

is a tells about how our mind walks. What we call this mind, does it matter? Then the mind, which is the feeling level, and the conceptual level, and the habitual level, and just pure conscious level, total, what we call five skandhas. The matter is first skanda, and then feeling, all the feeling, feeling the six sense feelings with eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, very good detail level of the feelings mind, then there's conceptual mind, the cognitive mind, and then the habitual mind, which is unconscious level. And that really drives us with the involuntary. Yes. Yes.

Then there's pure consciousness. So there are five skandhas. So a lot of about those, this abidama. And another is the vital cognition, the logic, to really analyze the nature of the reality, so analytical meditation. Another is the Madhya Maka, meaning the middle way, everything should be balanced. And this talks about the independent and emptiness.

So emptiness meaning kind of like to see the nature of ourself is unborn. Actually you are not born, so you are not going to die. So it's kind of like really interesting. There is luminosity, there is clarity, there is awareness. So the middle way, the middle way, or the matiyama. And there is a pranjapara metas, a wisdom. And this explains the stage of the kind of like meditation experience, step by step, the wisdom. There's a lot of wisdom meditation experience step by step.

Last is the Vinaya, the rules that discipline about the ethics. So we have these five volumes. Yeah, I started to read, you know, you mentioned the Prasya Paramita. I think that was the fourth of the volumes you mentioned the Prasniparamita, I think that was the fourth of the volumes you mentioned. And I've just started to read actually just last night, the book of translation and commentary on the diamond sutra and the heart sutra. I think it'd be interesting for a lot of people

in the West, they either study mindfulness or meditation from a secular standpoint, or we have a big influence in this country as you know of a teravato or insight meditation. But at least in my world, there are a lot of people who don't know much about the later teachings in the Praja Napara Meetas. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about those? Yeah, I think the Praja Nap Mehta is the really talk about the wisdom.

So I mentioned before we all have awareness, wisdom, love and compassion, isn't it? So that is the what we talk about the wisdom. So the wisdom, this basic innate wisdom within all of us, is there within us. So according to Pranjaparamita, you are perfect right now, right here. So to discover this wisdom, first we just be aware. So what we call the clarity of mind. The clarity of mind, meaning the mind is like lamp. It's just like lamp mind is like lamp. It's just like lamp, the candle lamp. So the lamp has true quality.

One is lamp, it's the light. So what we call self-luminosity. Another one is the lamp, luminating things around. So that is your consciousness, your mind, actually. So, here, the consciousness, the mind, the awareness, and meaning. So, right now, you can hear this, my talk, and you can see things there, you can smell, you can taste.

So, this is the luminating others, everything that comes in the awareness. But at the same time, your mind is awareness, your mind is clarity, your mind is luminosity, just like lamp, it's light. So then we begin to recognize that, and then we lose this dualistic mind, it's a sub-tick and object. But when we lose dualistic mind, it doesn't mean you cannot see, you cannot hear.

You can see, you can hear everything even these senses, even open up. But what loses is the grasping, the ignorant. As I mentioned before, the inded love, wisdom is filtered by conceptual mind. So this conceptual mind loses, but you are not lost. You have wisdom mind. You have love, you have compassion. So that's the really meaning of prancha paramida. Prancha paramida meaning, parameda meaning wisdom, Pranja meaning, Beyond wisdom, Beyond knowledge, Great wisdom.

Right, the phrase I think is gone beyond. Yes. That's the mantra. Tiyatha, kati, kati, paragati. So, that's the name of the mantra. Gone, gone, gone beyond. Meaning, Pranja Parameda something. The name of the mantra, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, concepts, to understand the concepts, of course, to understand the basics. And then we are in some ways using the conceptual mind to go beyond

itself. Is it my stating that correctly? Yes, the mind beyond concept is there with you, actually, without that mind, you cannot have conceptual mind. The conceptual mind is the layer outside there. So what we have, example, wave and the ocean. So, wave is conceptual mind, but without ocean, you cannot have wave. So, actually it's just there, and for that we don't have to do anything, we have to know how to be with it. So, when we let go of doing, just being, we will just cover, we will just be, we will be just there.

It just occurred to me, I didn't go into this interview with a whole plan, I've just been trying to listen to what you say and then react to it, Yes. Respond to it. You talked earlier about how much you love teaching meditation. Would you be open to doing a little practice right now? Yeah, why not? So maybe today we have a lot of discussion about the basic inebriation and the pr pranchaparamata wisdom, abidama, maybe I will do what we call the open awareness meditation, which is just be your mind with your mind itself.

So you don't have to do anything, just let it go, drop. So we have a lot of doing a lot of, try to create, try to control, try to increase something good, try to ignore or avoid something bad. A lot of these things there, but actually, no need because you are perfect. Your fundamental nature is okay. So just stop everything. Be with whatever you are. So then what happened is, in that moment, your mind is just like a sky.

Although there's cloud, but the cloud cannot change nature of sky. So, let's try this together and please keep your spine loosely straight and relax your muscles in the body. Your muscles in the body. And whatever feeling, sensation, just let them come, let them be. You don't need to pretend to be anybody. You don't need to act to be someone or somebody. Be yourself, be free. If you don't want to smile, you don't need to smile. If you want to cry, you can cry.

Now, slowly deep breathe in. Let go. Just rest. Just be Okay, that's all hey Well, it's so funny you say that's all because Yes This is say that's all because this is, it's simple, but it's incredibly, it's incredibly deep and we should just be doing, we should, in my opinion, be developing the habit of doing that over and over and over again. Yes. Yes. It each time you learn more, each time you learn more,

even you feel you cannot be allowed that you cannot be. Even you feel that you're doing mistakes, allow to be mistakes, even you feel you cannot relax, allow that you cannot relax, when you allow that you cannot relax, that means you're relaxing. Well, that's love, right? Because I mean, I've been trying to rescue love

from the land of cliche. But the way you talk about love, it's again, it doesn't need string music. It's like, I sat here, I'm in my wife's closet, and what came up for me is I started planning what I'm doing later today, and then I felt a little trapped in this closet. And okay, it's okay.

That's just, I heard your voice in my ears. And I felt okay with whatever was coming up. That's love. Yes, that's the real love. So you allowed your mistake. You're actually, in a way, it is a really meaning of forgiveness. You allow that pain. You allow whatever you allow.

You don't need to control. You don't need to suppress. You don't have to worry. Just stop. Just be with it. So that is the really accepted, great accepted, accepted. I think what I feel is this is the kind of like unconditional love. But you were clear before and I think it's worth

restating this before we close here. You were clear before that this acceptance, this love, this unconditional love is not resignation or passivity in the face of the problems of the world. resignation or passivity in the face of the problems of the world? Yeah, so it helps. If you transform normally, then there really influence, great influence comes. So you may be, it is kind of like contingent, you know, we have the virus contingent. Why not? Contegious, yes. We have the virus contentious. Why not? Contegious, yes. Contegious.

We have love and compassion contentious. Awareness contentious. So, if you want to change the world, then it will be chaotic, but you change yourself. Everybody wants to change it themselves, but it will become a better place. So, that is, I think, more powerful than Adam Bang. So think more powerful than Adam Bum. More powerful than Adam Bum.

We can change ourselves, we can be okay with ourselves, we can develop the capacity to be okay with other people, and that will allow us to get off our cushion out of our chair and engage in the world in a way where the world really needs people who are sanely trying to help others. So, when you know you don't need to change, that means you're changed. Well, that's a beautiful note to end it on. Remember Shay, thank you very, very, very much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm really appreciate for you. Walk true. I can't get free to do this with my hands, but there we go. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

That was me trying to raise my hand stuff for a bow for Rinampache in the confined space of my wife's closet. Big thank you to Mingyue Rampache, go check out his books, really appreciate him spending time with us during this time. Big thanks, of course, to the team who works incredibly hard to make this show a reality, Samuel Johns, our lead producer, our sound designers, our Matt Boynton, and Anya Sheshek of ultraviolet

audio, Maria Wertel, our production coordinator. We get an enormous amount of valuable input from our TPH colleagues, Jen Poient, and Rubin, Natobi. Also a big thank you to Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan from ABC News. We'll see you on Friday with a bonus episode. Hey, hey, prime members. with a bonus episode. Hey, hey Prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music.

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