Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 259: How You Can Help Transform America's Racial Karma | Dr. Larry Ward

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

What can you, as an individual, do to help break the cycles of rage, pain, fear, and violence that continue to grip America - and many other parts of the world - relating to the issue of race? Even though our guest this week was shot at by white police officers at the age of 11, and later had his house firebombed by racists, he is hopeful that now is a moment of true potential- an opportunity to transform what he calls "America’s racial karma," and, by extension, ourselves. Dr. Larry Ward is a lay minister in the lineage of the great Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh. He's an advisor to the Executive Mind Leadership Institute at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management. He has done consulting work with Fortune 500 companies around the world. And he has a PhD in religious studies with an emphasis on Buddhism. His forthcoming book is called America's Racial Karma. Where to find Dr. Larry Ward online: Website: https://www.thelotusinstitute.org/ Book Mentioned: America's Racial Karma Pre-order: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/651864/americas-racial-karma-by-larry-ward/ Blog Post Mentioned: America, The Business That Tried to Become A Country: https://www.thelotusinstitute.org/blog/thebusinessthatbecameacountry Other Resources Mentioned: Margaret Mead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead 8:46 - Dave Chappelle: https://youtu.be/3tR6mKcBbT4 Outliers by Malcom Gladwell: https://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930 Carl Jung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung Tricycle Article: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/racial-karma/ Lions Roar: https://www.lionsroar.com/race-reclamation-and-the-resilience-revolution/ Additional Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: https://tenpercent.com/live Coronavirus Sanity Guide: https://www.tenpercent.com/coronavirussanityguide Free App access for Frontline Workers: https://tenpercent.com/care Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/larry-ward-259 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, it's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey guys, what can you as an individual do to help break the cycles of rage, pain, fear and violence that continue to grip America and many other parts of the world relating to the issue of race.

Even though our guest this week was shot at by white police officers when he was only 11 and then later in his life had his house fire bombed allegedly by local racists in the town where he was living, even though he's gone through all of that, he is still hopeful that now is a moment of true potential and opportunity to transform what he calls America's racial karma and by extension ourselves. Dr. Larry Ward is a lay minister in the lineage of the great Vietnamese Zen master, Tick Not Han. He's an advisor to the Executive Mind Leadership Institute

at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management. He's done consulting work with Fortune 500 companies. And he has a PhD in religious studies with an emphasis on Buddhism. His forthcoming book is called America's racial karma. And here we go with Dr. Larry Ward. Well, it's nice to meet you remotely. And thank you for doing this. Sure. Nice to meet you too. Take good care of. We have a lot of meditators who listen to the show. And so I'd love to know more about what you do in your own mind when you feel the

the kind of suffering where you're empathizing with the families of these of these young people have been killed or when memories are coming up for you from your own personal story. I think there are two pieces are important to this is also the intergenerational flow of trauma and it is also the trauma I experience on the land in which we live. And so how I practice caring for myself different ways, depending on what I'm feeling,

etc. So sometimes I put on just music and listen to music that will help me move energy that may be stuck somewhere in my body out. What do you like? Through. Well, I have a pretty wide range of music I like, depending on the mood or what I'm feeling needs to be processed. Michael Jackson helps me a lot with some of his particular songs, especially the one he that was sung at his memorial. Will you be there? Harry Belafonte, when I need to feel like beauty is still in the

world. Jump in the line. No, I do try to remember. I'm kind of a romantic at heart. And so that soothes that part of me, that helps me remember life is beautiful, that it can be captured and worded and sound and in vibration and in color. Sometimes I listen or observe a Natalie Stalsman,

who's a brilliant conductor, especially in her version of Umbre Mafou. So sometimes I go to the classical route and choose different melodies and symphonies that also can move energy. So all of our creative arts and methods from our ancestors in one way is designed to do these things. But if we don't learn to master them and don't learn to take the time to do them, we just,

as my grandmother used to say, run around with like chickens with our heads, go down. So you put the music on and dance as a way to get the energy to move flowing. Yeah, sometimes I dance, sometimes I cry, sometimes I lay down and just let the sound and the music, music wash over my body, sometimes it inspires a poem, etc. or another song that I find feeling and energizing and recovering to listen to so I don't get lost at my pain. And sometimes, always, every day, I go outside. So one of my practices daily at morning and noon and night if I can, is to be outside of four walls and pay attention to the equanimity of nature. One of the things I learned a long time ago is why I discovered my love for the natural world is I find it non-judgmental.

I can lay on the tree, I can sit on a rock, I can put my toes in a river, and I've done all those things all over the world many times and I yet to be rejected. And so I find spending time in nature, letting to rest in nature, observe nature, appreciate nature, including observing animals and their behaviors, and insects and all these creatures. I spent a part of my day doing that. And it gets to remind me that we're in a world much bigger, but that we are a part of that process.

So I find that to help full sometimes, I read poems, sometimes I write poems, then of course I meditate daily and I have a different practices for that from many years of learning from many people around the world. For trauma specifically is meditation useful and what kind of meditation? Okay. It's a very good question and that my caveat to that is not always because

My experience has been in feedback from both new practitioners and even older practitioners Is think traumatic things come up in meditation? For many people But when it comes up they don't know how to to care for it So it comes up, they don't know how to care for it. So it ends up retriggering them, retraumatizing them. And so my approach now, based on what I've been learning about myself, which is very consistent with the first foundation of mindfulness practice and Buddhism, is to understand the body, not just as an external phenomenon or a bunch of organs, so all that's very important,

but to understand our systems, our biological emotional systems, and learn how to master what we can of those, learn how to enhance what we can of those. So that's kind of how I'm learning and continuing to practice, and so for some people, not, you know, deep meditation, maybe just relaxation meditation to begin. But to go deeper, I find it helpful now in this world,

at this moment, for people to have a sense of being able to be in their body, be grounded in their body, know the sensations of the whole movement of somatic experiencing this going on. Those are life skills so they can become second nature to us. So I can take a walk and in taking a walk if I'm processing my trauma is the question is what is my mind doing when I'm walking? And so one of the practices I have that I really learned from Tiktok Nhat Han is to do walking meditation. And when I put my feet down, I let go of the energy that's

causing me harm. And when my feet touch the earth, then I receive the energy from the earth, which is pure equanimity, the earth energy. And then I receive that, I could feel that energy entering my body. So it's very kinesthetic practice, Buddhism, not abstract Buddhism, though I'm studied in all those things. But to me, all that abstract stuff is pointing to practice. Otherwise, like, what good is it? It's so interesting to hear you describe this moving meditation that you learn from Tick

Not Han, as you step onto the earth, you're letting go of pain, suffering, and receiving the support of the planet. It's in many ways kind of a mirror of the Tibetan tongue-led practice where you're breathing in other people's suffering and breathing out your wish right there. And both seem necessary. We have to care for ourselves and we need to care for other people. We do. You can't do the caring for other people if you're a mess. That's correct.

That's correct. And so so many of us burn out in justice, and health care work, corporate work, or we could take any field, educational work, especially if it gets close to the candle of justice. It's easy for our empathy to burn us out if we don't know how to take our impency energy and transmuteuted into compassion. And so part of my regime, my daily practices to allow my empathy to unfold, because I believe we basically have empathy in sufficiency world across everywhere I've been.

And I don't see much possibility, or another way to say, I think our next step is to recover our humanity in the sense of our basic empathy, as really the ground for society or civilization. When Margaret Mead was asked once about what if she consider a civilization, she told a story about a thigh of a person found in the forest That you could tell somebody tried to care for this person and they didn't make it and her point was caring is the fundamental Foundation of a society

Care for one another and so we have let yet to learn how to do that here And so we have let yet to learn how to do that here. Here specifically, America specifically. Correct. Now, I can say that anywhere, but I'm here now, and here for 400 years, with the same experience, of insufficiency, of empathy. And there is consequences for the person whose empathy is shut down. It is so, and when we think about trauma, we have to remember victims, perpetrators, and witnesses.

And because in our human experience and our neurological research, we know witnessing a trauma activates trauma in you as a witness and let alone the perpetrator whose nervous systems have really been destroyed by their own destruction. I'll encourage when you're doing a formal seated meditation to the, I don't know what your practice looks like, but whether you're mostly doing moving meditation these days, let's just say you're doing seated meditation and stumps, strong trauma comes up for you. No granted, you're not a beginner.

But how do you handle that in the moment? In the moment what I do is I direct my attention to the sensations two inches below my navel or that tundine as it's sometimes referred to because that lower center of gravity allows my nervous system and my entire breathing process to begin to get more space, begin to get calmer. And so I stay there, and sometimes I hold my hands on my stomach and just stay with the rising and falling sensation, but I leave my mind,

stay with the body, because that's where the trauma is. The mind is thinking about the trauma, but the body is holding the trauma. And so that's immediately what I do. And if I'm in sitting position, or if I'm in sitting position and that doesn't do it, I go lay down on the earth and do that same practice. But as I begin and I'm starting to feel the earth energy radiating up, coming up through my body. And so I'm feeling solid.

I have some stability underneath me as I, as I breathe that way. I hear two things there. One is you're not going to do much in terms of taking care of yourself and the face of trauma if you're stuck in your own thinking and to the power of nature again because if you lie on the earth, it's not going to judge or reject you. Yeah. And learning how to feel that feeling, that sensation of safety in your body. And that's a very powerful sensation of safety.

That seems powerful in no small measure because so many black Americans right now do not feel safe. That's correct. You know, part of what for many people has opened up in their consciousness, well, you know, I have never felt safe except through my own practice. Society has not given me any reason to feel safe for my whole life, but I feel safe. I am grounded in safety because of my spiritual practice.

And so that allows me to navigate my way through unsafety, which is not just a personal experience that allows me to navigate my way through unsafety, which is not just a personal experience or a black experience quote unquote, as a human experience. And that's why understanding how our nervous systems work and the nervous system of human is the same wherever we are, which some people seem to have trouble understanding about the virus, but I've said to my wife recently,

more people should have paid attention in biology. And I'm really learning how important it is to, as I get older especially, to understand more and more how to respect my body. And the information is giving. How it's communicating. What is telling me? And then I get choices. Once I'm sensitive with that, my range of choices of how to respond is expanded. When you're your comment about more people should have studied biology in relation to

the virus reminds me I was on the set of Good Morning America recently. We were playing some videos of people, some swarm of revelers on Memorial Day. Nobody wearing a mask. And I remember returning to one of my colleagues, I might get in trouble for saying this, but I'll say it. I remember returning to one of my co-anchors and saying, well, I guess we have a constitutional right

to be stupid. Well, you know, in this ad, because of what's at risk. I mean, they're very lives at risk. And so I understand the challenges of trying to get a modern culture like ours that has strong habit patterns and energies around doing whatever I want, if I can.

And so the idea of following a set of rules for whatever reason is very difficult for some people to even understand why. We've been so individuated, fragmented, and our understanding of what it means to be human here as individuals that we take all the glory as an individual, but we also take all the blame and pay a little attention as possible to the systems or the context that creates a situation in which we're having these experiences. Let me go back to the early part of this interview

because I wanna ask a question that I suspect will in some way actually build on a note you've been sounding maybe an undertone I've been hearing throughout this interview. Hopefully my empathic sense is tuned enough so that I'm actually taking you in the direction you want to go here. But one of the things you said very early on in the interview was when I was asking you how you're doing right now. One of the, you listed a lot of difficult emotions, but you also talk about feeling a sense of potential. And so can you talk about why that is and what the potential you see, maybe? Well, there's several different frameworks I can use to,

but these are only metaphors. But in the four noble truths of the Buddhist tradition, our capacity for liberation, spiritual liberation embodied in our life, goes through the doorway of suffering. It does not go around it. And so it, I mean, it's no different than me. Last week I was visiting for an annual checkup at the hospital and so they're checking me out. And then I get to have a test and I get feedback and says, well, your body is suffering

here. Your body may be suffering there. And so for me to care for my body is the same as to care for my mind. To recognize my suffering, do not pretend it's not there. That's the most dangerous thing one can do, because then one internalizes it. I mean, Freud talked about this, no, the pyramid.

We internalize our shadow, which is our suffering if we don't handle it with care. It becomes our shadow, and when that shadow, if it's so intense, gets provoked in terms primitive, irrational, in responding to life's issues and angst of being a human being. So I think we have the potential because we're suffering so and so many more of us are recognizing the suffering We have the potential to heal and transform the suffering But if we cannot recognize

We can't heal or transform it. It will just continue as it is And part of what the quote unquote I don't know know what to call these, these aren't riots, these aren't even protests, they're something, they're acknowledgments of a system flaw. William Arrantomson, he used to teach at MIT, wrote a book many years ago, he talked about the utopian flaw that exists in the founding of every human organization or institution. And we're having to confront our utopian flaw. We have put it off as long as we can, we've topped around it as long as we can, we pretended it wasn't there as long as we can, but enough people are witnessing the flaw in our human

interactions with one another and our capacity for living well together in a world in a society of justice and caring that people are really like, hey, I wanna live in a society with justice and caring, not that. And for me, that's potential. How exactly would you articulate our utopian flaw?

Well, most recently, the insight I had into it is the title of the most recent blog is America, the business trying to become a country. Or an article last year in Wall Street Journal of New York Times, an editorial said, when did we become, how did we move from having a marketplace to becoming a market culture? So translation, the economic function of our society in terms of how we value it dominates all of the functions of society. So to have meaning, to be of worth, to have a life of value is about accumulating economics, power, capacity, etc. Now you don't have a society without economics because you don't have food, you can't eat

and you're dead. So to me that's not the issue. The issue is what's happened to our whole social fabric. So if our social fabric was a triangle, our emphasis and dominance of the economic on our perceptions of what it means to be human, what is valuable in the human experience, what is our life purpose? Like, our triangles has a huge chunk of it. This says economics.

And our politics has become an ally to that. And that collapses our cultural sense and therefore no unity is possible, no shared meaning is possible. And then if you individuate all of that, we don't even know what's happening till we have something like this occur. And this primacy of the market as it pertains to race is the root of that that we brought

millions of people from Africa here solely for economic purposes. Well, that's part of it, but I'm talking at root about the whole colonial enterprise all the way from the doctrine of discovery, that all was, you know, let's build wealth. Right, we began as a business endeavor. Yeah, exactly. And so, I like business. Okay, thank you. Yeah, exactly. And so, and I like business. Okay, I think it's important. I enjoy doing it. I enjoy working with it. But business is not the final definition of

what it means to be a human being. But weren't there lofty, non economic goals in there? I mean Jefferson himself a slave owner, let's not forget talked about life liberty in the pursuit of happiness, although it began as life liberty in the pursuit of property. Exactly. But nonetheless life and liberty

and then what he edited into of pursuit of happiness, those are non economic goals, right? But the way we've designed the society is how we define what life, liberty, and what we should pursue. And so all those things now are defined by economic indicators. Yeah, happiness is a mic-match in the next 80s. Exactly. Great insight from Jefferson. Very important. However, it's how we take our insights from our founding, from our teachers, from philosophers, from history. It's how we think about those insights and apply them and how we look underneath them,

so we can see what, how they get shifted and moved around. So we can ask ourselves, is this how we want to live? Right. So you've brought us back to potential. Yeah. And another way you've phrased the potential of this moment, and in reading some of your blog posts recently, there are a couple of ways you've phrased it. One that's coming to mind is that we have an opportunity here. We have the potential to break your phrase here,

America's racial karma. Correct. Can you unpack that for us? Sure. I have a book coming out on that in September and it's right now at the copy editor. I'm happy to say with that title. What intrigued me about, as I studied and practiced Buddhism and in New York, in my PhD and Buddhist studies and blah, blah, blah, blah, I've been at this

inevitably without choice at the race matter my whole life. So karma in this sense, what I mean is a repeating cycle that causes suffering. A pattern of repeated cycles that create suffering. And the classic definition of karma is action. And my understanding of it in the book is action that continues to live. So part of what's happening now in the streets of DesiPel has put it is that people are standing up and saying

this living action of this kind of suffering needs to stop. And karma is just energy that then shows up in our thinking, in our language. Boy, can we see that in our speech, and in our physical behavior, and in our institutions, and systems of being a society. And so that whole thread of that whole energy, this is basically a business, and then we try to make everything work around that principle, is not sustainable for very long, especially as people wake up to themselves,

to their education, to the nature of the world, and the future that none of us have figured out. So people, I'm not doing this because I want to destroy something. I'm doing this because I want to create something. And so also I see that as potential. We can redirect that energy in the direction of creating something together that we'd be happy to live with and have our children live with. Just to pick up on what you said about Dave Chappelle, if people, I want to recommend listeners,

check out the new clip he posted on YouTube with his response to George Floyd. Dave Chappelle is one of my personal heroes. I've quoted him in both books. I've written and my goal is to make sure I get a Dave Chappelle quote in every book. Right. That's great. So go check that out. But back to the economics that you're describing here. Do you see policy ramifications from, I mean, it's interesting to hear a critique of capitalism from you because obviously you've done so much work with Fortune 500 companies, you've just said,

you don't dislike business, you're not anti-capitalist and you're safe. So how would this rethink of the role of the marketplace in our lives show up on a policy level, or is what you're talking about much more sort of psychological spiritual? Well, at the first instance, for me, it's psychological and spiritual because of our relationship to the meaning of life.

Only stays in the realm of materialality, which is what another way of describing what I'm talking about. We can never be fully human in our experience with ourselves or with one another because things are just things. Have it beautiful, have it grand, and I think business is very important. The question for me about economics is how to build wealth without creating suffering.

You can do wonderful things with wealth. If one does, if one is willing, if one can. And so, part of the dilemma with that is we've so individuated the meaning of being wealthy that we actually don't see our society as wealthy. That has consequences about how we think about policies. So when I'm trying to say the psychological and spiritual dimension actually rules how we design and think about systems and what we even conceive of is possible. So the veneration in our society of the rugged individual, sounds like you think that maybe that's the utopian flaw. That's a piece of it, yeah. Yeah, because it's a great book called Outliers written

some years ago. It was a great interview with Bill Gates, and he described his high school, and how his unique high school experience contributed to him becoming who he is, the teachers, the environment, the equipment. And so, he capable of recognizing how he did not create himself. And that's what I'm talking about. So that we understand how we contribute to each other's lives. And right now our frame for how we impact each other is framed in negativity. We have very little sharing, communication, news, information about how we impact each other's lives positively.

I saw an astounding clip recently in the UK on the QT network. I've never seen that, but it was a protest march. I think in London, there was still some place like that in. It was a confrontation between Black Lives Matter people, a spattering of other groups, and quote unquote, the far right there in Europe. And one of the far right white guys was being attacked, and life was literally being physically

threatened. And he was rescued by the Black Lives Matter guys who were there. But that's not on the news. So I mean, is how we feed our minds, how we feed our emotions that will either redirect the energy which is profound. I think we have no idea how much energy we have

to create the future in America, because so much of it is going to managing our stress, managing our shame, managing our guilt. We have a huge reservoir of energy and talent which I have confidence in. More 10% happier after this. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest

and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brownaller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking. Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll

feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. In terms of potential, there was something quite moving in a recent blog post from you about how moved you've been by the multiracial nature of you are struggling to find the word for protests or whatever we're seeing, whatever you want to call what we're seeing right now.

And you posited that what we're seeing right now, perhaps because we've all been forced to slow down because of the pandemic, is just an awakening of empathy after we've all witnessed the George Floyd video and then obviously taken in the facts of Brown, a tailor and on my Darbury, et cetera, et cetera. Am I describing your view correctly, and can you say more about it, or so? Yes, and I think, the back to the Margaret Meade example, and some others, but empathy as part of the fabric of human sociality,

we wouldn't have survived as a species without the neurological capacity for empathy. So, I think it's feeling someone's pain, but that's also being able to feel someone's joy. And so when we suppress or become deficient in our capacity to feel our own humanity, we rob ourselves of a very rich experience of meaning. So I think that the empathy is then flowing from the energy flowing from empathy to a larger sense or a compassionate sense of what's possible for our world and our planet. Friend of mine, as a book called the Compassionate

Civilization, I think that's what's trying to be born. I think, oh another way to say that kind of negatively is a non-preditary world in terms of both our relationship to one another and to nature. This is a big shift in our human conditioning and neurological patterning to date. That's why it's so hard. The reason I also see this as potential and possible is because genetically and neurologically, we have these things within us already.

It's not like you can go get it from somewhere. It's already within us all. So how do we nourish that? How do we care for that? How do we protect that in ourselves and in our children and in our society? I've been around the world many times and in many places and my basic experience has been great. And I've been in

Burmese villages and I've been in Calcutta, I've been in Hong Kong and London, you know Mexico City, Caracas, Toronto, I can go on in Brussels, Paris, etc. Up in the mountains and Italy working with village people there on social economic development projects as well as in Kenya and Ghana etc and everywhere I've been my fundamental experience of humanity has been great But part of what I'm trying to say to us is we need to tell that story to ourselves. We tell ourselves a very different story. My wife, when I were on a trip to China to go study at some temples there, and it so

happened to be the day after the US had accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and so people were saying, don't go, you're going to have a problem, and so we couldn't afford not to go, so we had our tickets. So we went, and we got emails from our friends saying, what problems do you have with being in China? Two things. Some people greeted us at the airport who could speak English and well and said, please don't confuse us with our government. And we won't confuse you with yours.

And so I'm really talking about how we as citizens, civil society think about ourselves and not simply turn over how we shape the future to people in whatever position. Because it's obvious we need to change and grow. The planet telling us that, our social structures are telling us that people, bodies in the streets and in camps and in cages are all telling us that people bodies in the streets and in camps and in cages are all telling us that. And I think that's possible. I see no reason it's not possible. But unless we choose to change ourselves, we'll stay in the pattern that will repeat itself of what we're seeing right now,

which has been going on. I just got a list of all the similar events that have happened over the last hundred years alone. It's predictable. It's sadly predictable. And so to be willing to live in a society with that sad prediction harms us all. And it's quite tragic. Some people don't understand being human enough yet to get that. I imagine many people listening to this are thinking, well, yeah, I want to be part of this. I want to, I want to be part of the, the breaking of these cycles, to what extent can meditation for an individual help us be productive players right now? Well, one of the key dimensions of meditation practice beyond relaxation and getting calm is learning how your mind has actually been constructed

by your own experience, by your society, by your history and learning what those energies are in your own mind and selectively choosing which of those energies are gonna get your most attention. And if you don't make conscious choices those energies are going to get your most attention. And if you don't make conscious choices like that through your own practice, the energies that have the most momentum or the most habituation in your past thinking, speaking, and action will carry on, that to me is a piece of it.

And so learning to recognize in myself, or to deconstruct working on a new course, my wife, T.C. University, deconstructing the colonial mind. And so when people think of that, they tend to think, you know, say, the image is a ship and soldier. But the colonial mind has nothing to do

with how somebody dressed particularly. It's a way of thinking about being human. It's a way of thinking about the world. It's a way of thinking about how to be together as a society. And so we need to look at our own internalized structures of suffering and decide and choose what we want to deconstruct. But deconstruction is not enough. My image for this is the Rose Bush right outside our house that deconstructs itself and reconstructs itself at the same time. So it's not deconstruction is only a part of the energy. The energy has to finally be focused and grounded in construction. If the colonial mind isn't isn't just somebody with a tricorner hat and a, you know,

in a fight and drum core, how would I recognize the colonial mind in myself? What are the aspects of it that I should be on the lookout for? The way I'm learning to describe it, a piece of it is the mind of patriarchy, the male-centered view of the universe. And to me, the most powerful thing about this is, it's not only power, position, and privilege, et cetera, it is the power of defining what humanity means for everyone else. That's one piece of a definition of the human hierarchy. A second part of it is an orientation towards status and wealth, and affirmation seen through

material acquisition. And then I think the third part of it is power, power over, power to control. And we all have these urges in us. We can call them colonial, but I'm speaking in a specific context with the book and our discussion here about American race. So, and that whole adventure of colonialism and this tragic results for many, many people.

And so, the idea, I mean, as a male, I'm continuing, quote unquote, a male, I'm continuing to learn when I think, oh, I know what to do. Oh, I'm supposed to take charge here. Oh, I'm more and more recognized these patterns in myself. And as I have done that over the years and I'm still learning for all my days, but I discovered I'm less stressful. I don't have to be in charge. I can support

the process, I can support other people. I don't have to tell anybody what to do. I can ask people what they think should be done. And so that's how I am a daily basis. You mean, of course, you're married, you have a partnership, whatever set of relationships. These energies are in us. We've been conditioned by commercialized society, our movies and what we read, blah, blah, blah. So Tignant Hans great insight here. One of them is whatever unhealthy pattern I heal in myself, I heal in the world. But also, whatever healthy patterns I create and generate in myself are healthy patterns

that are being generated and created in the world. If we get past the idea that we past the illusion of separateness, he calls it. If we get past that and can really see ourselves, not just as matter, but also as energy, back to thermodynamic laws, we can begin to really see who we are. And therefore what we're capable of is, so my sadness that I'm experiencing, I know

is a sadness of many people. And so is my joy. But so is my kindness. So that my experience of being a human being is not a separate experience from other humans being human. And so that's a part of my sense of safety. And I've been in some not so safe situations as many people have. Right. Just to restate what you're saying there as I understand it is we think we are separate

from the world. We're just like this fretful little ego peering out at the world through through these two eye holes in our skull, but if we have sight that is. impacting it and impacted by other people. And so when we work on our own mind and uproot unwholesome tendencies or strengthen wholesome ones, well, then that will ripple out inevitably. It always does. In Buddhism, there's something called leaks. And whatever goes on in my language, whatever goes on in our heart and mind

Be it wholesome unwholesome positive or negative leaks out into society And so what how we care for our own internal life Not in the sense of naval gazing, but in the sense of healing and transforming so that our best possible qualities are released into the world our best possible qualities are released into the world. Our best possible energies are released. We will still think the plant, we have a planet and then there's us. That's that deception of separation again. We are the planet. We are children of the planet. And that's a powerful insight that can occur in meditation, if one practices paying attention deeply to what one observes, especially in the natural world. Of course, the whole world isn't natural, but in the sense of rivers and mountains and streams and trees and bees and furry dogs like we have here.

A lot of people right now, just to pick up on your, on the foregoing, a lot of people right now are really kind of figure out how can I help? And you write about this in some of your recent blog posts, you know, and no one of us is going to fix this problem we're seeing. But what I'm hearing from you is that by taking care of our own minds, by training our own minds, which is possible, even though that may seem small, it actually is a real and an important thing that we can do right now. Yes, it's real and important, but only if it's embodied. This is not an intellectual exercise. Because the embodiment of a transformed and changed

mind becomes the basis of a transformed and changed system. And by embodied, you mean like I actually act on it, or I actually feel itself of my head. Both. Okay. It's in your body. It can become second nature. Kindness can become second nature if it's not your first nature because you already have other geneology to be kind. But if it's been suppressed and you've been rewarded for being cruel, you have to unpack your conditioning around cruelty and whatever you experience from that and Begin to have the new experience of what is it like to be kind?

Many people have not had that experience either going one way or another let alone between Or so now and kindness for me is more than politeness Though politeness is great I don't want a wonderful place to start. I think that everything that to me here, if it's not embodied, it won't change anything. If it's not in our thinking and our new, I mean, we have so much to rethink, which I find exciting, but to reimagine, to remount the slope of thought as some philosophers say.

So, you know, our way of thinking about education, people are, I'm on the board of the America School of Bangkok, and I interact with the principals there from time to time, and education is so very important. I spent a couple years there working with the school and the administration and owners from time to time. And education is so very important. I spent a couple years there working with the school and the administration and owners and the parents and the kids. And we had children with 44 nationalities. And what struck me the very first week I was there

is none of them thought they were supposed to harm each other. It was an astounding experience to see all these children from all these parts of the world, casually and calmly, playing, getting along. Of course you get upset, of course you get hurt, but there was never this intention of harm. And that energy of harm or any other negative energy permeates our bodies. We don't escape stuff like that. You can walk in a room and have a feeling of what happened before you got there,

whether you wish you had been there earlier or come later, depending on the energy that's still present. So we must learn to be sensitive to our whole humanity or we'll be hijacked by our unregulated nervous system or we'll be hijacked by some ideology that or any other model of thought that we don't critique. And therefore, to me, if we don't critique our thinking, our speech and our action, we're not free. We're just living out of conditioning. I want to go back to economics for a second, you as as

referenced work with major corporations, yeah, on a number of issues, including diversity and inclusion. What is the role, we're seeing all these corporations issues, statements, some of them have been criticized for these statements being either tone deaf or just wrote recitations of bromides. And of course, some of the statements have been well received, et cetera, et cetera. But everybody, all the corporations feel like

they need to say something. What did your view do corporations need to do right now and can corporations be part of the solution as we think about America's racial karma? I hear a wind chime in the background. Yeah, it is. It's a little, it's got a nice breeze coming through down from the mountain today. Well, it is. It's got a nice breeze coming through down from the mountain today.

Well, that's a complex question. Let me share a few thoughts. Corporations can either help or hurt. Any institutional power can help or hurt. Contribute or not contribute to the continuation of America's racial karma. So choices are made. We make choices. Part of the dilemma is systems, this is more about from Carl Jung after, is distrust of institutions because institutions don't have conscience. And so I think any corporation who tries to do the right thing,

for many people will be suspect because of past patterns. I think corporations can help profoundly and must help. And one of the ways I think corporations must help is demonstrate what you said. I want to see your campus, I want to see your workforce, I want to see your board, I want to embody the change you say you want to see. That to me is how corporations can help. Or any institution can help.

Or I can help. I can, I can, a new family just moved in down the road. I could walk down there and meet them. I mean, so it doesn't have to be, I'm just saying if it's not embodied, it won't really, neutral is not for me an option. Neutral continues the pattern, continues the negative karma. I appreciate you for what you have asked. I appreciate you for what you have answered. I appreciate you for what you have answered.

I appreciate you for what you have answered. I appreciate you for what you have asked. I appreciate you for what you have answered. It's been a pleasure to spend some time with you. I just want to make sure I didn't fail to steer us in a direction that you were thinking that might be useful to go. No, that was great. But part of my practice as a Dharma teacher

is whenever I have Q&A question and answers, I just try to be open. Yeah. Can you, before we close, I have a suspicion that people having listened to you for while we want to be able to learn more about you. Can you tell us where we can learn more about you and from you in terms of on the internet, books, you've written, books

you're about to publish, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. The pre-sale on now, America's racial karma on now America's racial karma and publisher is Parallax Press and Berkeley in cooperation with some other publishing enterprises. I and my wonderful team of people can be reached at www.thelotusinstitute.org. They'll take you to our website and there's videos and exercises and an online course for managing learning how to work with trauma at the first level and understand the body systems and mindfulness of the body is also there. It's called the Earth Gate. It might be very helpful for some people.

And the blog that we keep referencing that's there too? Yes, great. And I just had my operations director three weeks ago suggest I do a blog. I had never done one before. So it's like, okay, I try to follow people's instructions as much as I can, because they're usually wise. Great job, Larry.

Thank you. Well, thank you, Dan. You had Great job, Larry. Thank you. Well, thank you, Dan. You had some great reflective questions. Thank you. I could tell you prepared. Thank you. Be well. You too.

Big thanks to Dr. Larry Ward. Also want to thank the folks who work so hard to put together this show. Samuel Johns is our lead producer. Our sound designers are Matt Boynton and Anya Sheshek of ultraviolet audio. Maria Wartel is our production coordinator. We get a ton of valuable input from TPH colleagues such as Jen Poion, Liz Levin, Nate Toby, Ben Rubin, and of course, Hardy shout out to my guys from ABC News, Ryan Kessler and Josh Cohan. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus

and then we'll be back on Monday with another fresh episode. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-replus in Apple Podcasts.

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