Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 427: How Do I Meditate When There’s a War Going On? | Claude AnShin Thomas

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

How can we meditate when it seems like the world is falling apart? How do we titrate our news consumption? What do we do with our fears about World War III? How can we do anything constructive to help given how far away many of us are from the action? Why are so many people so upset about Ukraine when they weren’t paying much attention to the wars raging in places like Syria, Yemen, or Ethiopia? Today’s guest is uniquely qualified to answer these questions, given his experience in combat. Claude AnShin Thomas is an ordained monk in the Japanese Soto Zen Tradition. At 17, he signed up to fight in Vietnam and spent his tour of duty in the theater of war, surrounded by death and destruction. He came home suffering from an undiagnosed case of PTSD and spent years grappling with addiction and homelessness before he was introduced to Buddhism. He says meditation can help all of us look at the roots of war and violence that we all harbor.Claude Anshin is now the founder of the Zaltho Foundation, dedicated to addressing the causes and consequences of violence in and among individuals, families, and societies. He has served in war zones, hospitals, schools, and prisons. He has also led meditation retreats at sites of war and suffering, and has worked with gang members, guerillas, and refugees. He is the author of the award-winning book At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace, which has been translated into several languages, and Bringing Meditation to Life.This episode explores the above questions and additionally:The narcotic effect of war.How Buddhism helped Claude Anshin be at peace with what he calls his own unpeacefulness, and yet, why, to this day, he has to reckon with his impulse towards violence. Why he doesn’t believe there is such a thing as a “just war.”Content Warning: There are discussions of war, violence, suicide, and substance abuse throughout this episode.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/claude-anshin-thomas-427See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hey, everybody. I was sitting down to a nice meal with my wife the other day and she asked me a provocative question. How can we enjoy this food? She said, given what's going on over in Ukraine, I suspect this may be the type of question that possibly crossed your mind recently

or to put it another way as somebody asked me on Twitter recently and I'm paraphrasing here. How do I meditate when it seems like the world is falling apart? We're going to address these questions today and more. How do we titrate our news consumption? What do we do with our fears about World War III? How can we do anything constructive to help, given how far away many of us are from the action? And why are so many people so upset about Ukraine when they weren't paying much attention to wars raging in places such as Syria, Yemen, or Ethiopia? My guess today is perhaps uniquely qualified to answer these questions, given his experience in combat. And in turn, he's going to pose an extremely provocative question to you.

Are you ready to look at your own internal Vladimir Putin? Claude Anshantamis is an ordained monk in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition. At the age of 17, he signed up to fight in Vietnam and spent two years on active duty. He came home with an undiagnosed case of PTSD and spent years grappling with addiction and homelessness before he was introduced to Buddhism. He says meditation can help all of us look at the roots of war and violence that we all harbor. In other words, we all have an inner Vladimir Putin and maybe we should start there. Kladhanshin is now the founder of the Zaltho Foundation dedicated to addressing the causes and consequences of violence in and among individuals, families and societies. He has served in war zones, hospitals, schools and prisons, as well as lead meditation retreats

at the sites of war and suffering. He's also worked with gang members, guerrillas and refugees, and he's the author of an award-winning book called At Hell's Gate, A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace. In this conversation, we address all the questions I raised at the top. Plus we talk about the narcotic effect of war, how Buddhism helped Claude Anshan be at peace with what he calls his own unpeacefulness, and yet why to this day he has to reckon with his own impulses toward violence, and why he does not believe there is such a thing as a just war. Heads up this episode may not be easy listening. We're going to talk about war violence, suicide, and substance abuse, but it's all pretty vital

and important, so I'm looking forward to bringing it to you. We'll get started with Claude Anchentomis right after this. Before we jump into today's show, many of us wanna 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 Kelli McGonicle 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 Hey y'all is your girl your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur.

On my new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from, MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. Clyde, Anchen Thomas, welcome to the show.

Thanks. You have such an extraordinary story and I want to talk about it. I'm thinking though that perhaps it would be best to start by meeting what I suspect are the acute needs of people listening, who may be struggling as I am to absorb all of these horrific images coming out of Ukraine. And I'm just wondering if you're okay starting there, what kind of practical advice you would give to us?

First, let me say I'm not in the advice giving business. I understand the dilemma. And I've given some thought because people have asked me this question. What I make an effort to communicate with people is that unfortunately I know my way around the war zone. I'm both as a combatant and as a non-combatant. I spend a significant amount of time in the Balkans when the fighting was going on there. What I can say is that war and the images of war have almost an narcotic effect. There's a book that I read back a couple years ago. The title of that book is War is a force that gives us meaning. And in that book, there was a statement that just resonated so profoundly with

me, and that's the narcotic of war and violence. And so it requires a great deal of discipline to not get sucked into the images that are constantly being thrust at us. I also share with people as best that I can, the information that the images that we see are not the entire picture. What's happening in Ukraine is horrible, but let us not be distracted from the other wars that are happening around the world and the the war that's happening on the streets in this country. So let's not be distracted by that. Now all of that being said without a disciplined spiritual practice rooted in self-reflection and it's very easy to get caught up in the obsession and compulsion that drives us to be glued to the television or to be online and following the various threads of photos and YouTube videos and all of this sort of thing.

If we don't want to be overwhelmed by that, it's important that we keep ourselves informed, but without a discipline commitment, we'll get lost in that. So I just encourage people as much as I can, exercising some self-discipline and just be cautious about the seduction and narcotic of this reality. I read that book that you referenced, Wars of Force, that gives us meaning it. It's by a former combat correspondent whose name I'm currently forgetting. Chris Hedges. Thank you. And I read it after I spent many years covering combat as a young ambitious news correspondent and that war is a drug line really resonated with me because I got hooked on the adrenaline of being in war zones and that

came home and got depressed and started self-medicating with recreational drugs to give me a little bit of a synthetic squirt of that adrenaline I was experiencing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. So I get it, I think, on a pretty cellular level, and I do think it applies for the vast majority of people, I'm listening, I suspect, who may not have had any experience in a war zone. I do think it applies to the mere consumption of the images. And just to state it back to you, it seems like notwithstanding the fact that you're not in the advice giving business, one thing you would suggest for us to keep in mind is to walk the line between staying informed and getting obsessed.

Yes, I think the images and the drumbeat of war creates the circumstances of obsession and compulsion. The obsession to consume more and more and more images. I would say the obsession to go into the image and then the compulsion to consume more and more of them. And with the notion that I'm somehow informing myself about what's going on there, and I'm only informing myself that the smallest little bit of what's going on there. What I do say to people directly is that one of the things that can support us in establishing

some discipline around this topic, to not be consumed by, is like the first thing we do when we get up in the morning is make the bed like we never slept in it, then sit for five minutes. It doesn't matter how long we sit, but it matters that we sit in with the attention and intention that we bring to that process. And I keep things quite simple. I give them the encouragement to sit every morning, first thing, and that the last thing every night. I also encourage people to connect with a group of like-minded people. So that if they find themselves being consumed by whatever thoughts or feelings or perceptions that may arise to the images that we're exposed to, they have some place so they can go to talk about that in a way that

doesn't foster the dependence or the compulsion to see more and more and more. So a group of like mind that people is important, a disciplined practice is important, but most importantly is I have to want to do things differently. I'm going to say to talk a little bit about how I think having a practice of mindfulness can help one titrate media consumption or to walk this line between staying informed and getting obsessed or getting hooked. I think that self-awareness that can be generated through certain types of meditation, another word for that might be mindfulness think that self-awareness that can be generated through certain types of meditation, another word for that might be mindfulness. That self-awareness can help one see when one is

leaning in in an obsessive way, spend a hidoam on hour three of all caps, flaming of Vladimir Putin on Twitter or whatever, and you might just wake up. Now that you've got the practice of waking up, you might wake up and notice, oh yeah, yeah. I think at this point, I've done all I can do. Maybe I should take a walk, make the bed sit, et cetera.

Do you agree with what I've just said? Let's put it this way. I wouldn't disagree with what you said. But what I do is I strongly encourage people to start with making the bed and sitting rather than going, oh, this is too much, I better do this now. So rather than wait until I feel out of control,

take the steps in advance to establish this sort of disciplined routine that will foster the kind of desire to not get drawn into or foster the awareness that leads to the desire not to go down those rabbit holes. But really, at the root of this, is a person has to really down to those rabbit holes. But really at the root of this is a person has to really want to live differently because if they don't want to, no matter what said,

no matter what's done, it won't happen. We've been talking about this compulsion that many of us might feel vis-a-vis the news coming out of Ukraine or anywhere else where problematic or scary things are happening. I've also noticed in my own mind the opposite reaction, which is not wanting to look too closely, not wanting to engage because it's maybe a self-protective pull toward apathy. Does that land for you? And what do you think about working with that? Well, apathy, for example, myself, I'm not on any social media. I don't have any access to it I don't want any connection with it. That doesn't mean I'm not informed. I make it a point to check in on different

New sources, but I read the news. I don't watch the news and I look at a diversity of new sources Not only domestic new sources, but also new sources outside of the country to get different angles of perception. In truth, I'm not so interested in looking at the various images that come out of the war zone. And I don't consider my not wanting to look at those images as having some sense of apathy regarding the conflict that's going on, because one of the things that really drew me to Zen practice is that, doesn't matter what I think, say, or believe. It matters what I do. And so how this discipline practice informs me is I'm looking at what's unfolding out

in front of us in the Ukraine, but not only the Ukraine, and asking myself the question, okay, what can I do? So the, the Zalto Foundation, which I founded in 93 is a nonprofit mechanism to support Vietnam veterans going back to Vietnam has grown far beyond that initial intention. It also has a daughter organization in Europe. And we are in regular contact with people in the Ukraine. There are Zen groups in Kiev and Odessa and some other places where direct contact with them.

The members of that daughter foundation have opened their homes already to refugees. They're offering their services in the various cities where they live. And we have people who have counseling expertise that they're offering their services there. And we're asking the people in the Ukraine, we're asking those people, what do they need? How can we help them? I've learned from being in these circumstances as a non-compact and as an ordained person that I need to sit, I need to listen to what the people have to say to me and I need to ask them, what do you need? Well, how can I be of support to you? And believe me,

they can articulate that. So I'm here, you say that yes, it can make sense on some level to work with your own mind, vis-a-vis, these images and reports coming out of Ukraine. But perhaps the most important thing, maybe for yourself and of course for other people is to do something to help. Yes. And when I'm talking about doing something to help, I'm not talking about social media posts. I'm not talking about Twitter feeds. I'm not talking about any of posts. I'm not talking about Twitter feeds. I'm not talking about any of that. I'm talking about what can I do real time on the ground to assist to be a supporter, to be of help in some way regarding the reality of what's unfolding in the Ukraine. But you're in an interesting position because you've got these organizations where you actually you

Claude Aunchen can be proactive and be helpful. But for many of the rest of us, it can feel helpless. Trust me, I also feel quite helpless and powerless. It's that helplessness and powerlessness is what informs me. Now, for example, there was an article in the New York Times about an outpouring of support that's driven by veterans who are volunteering to go fight. I so understand. I understand and I resonate with this desire. I mean, many of us who come home from serving in combat, there's not so many clarity or purpose in life. And we're looking for some sort of

formula to find that. The clarity and purpose we felt in combat doesn't exist outside of combat. I didn't know this about you. You were a war course funder. So you you have some grass with what exactly what I'm talking about. So I understand when they want the drive to go back. They also think that, okay, this is a war that has purpose and meaning different from Afghanistan or Iraq. There initial reason to enlist in the military to volunteer to go to fight was that there was a purpose there. The defense of democracy, the defense of democracy, the defense of something, the adventures in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq were something different. All my life, I've wanted to be of service. It was sort of an innate thing with me. It's not

some intellectual concept. I just really had this desire to be of service. And when I joined the military, I had the notion that that's what I was doing, that I was being of service to something greater or larger than myself. It's true, and it's not true. So to live with the complexities of looking at what I've been responsible for, and then the fact that that never goes away, the images, the feelings, the memories, they don't ever go away. I need to learn how to live at peace with this unpeacefulness. Before I came to this realization, it was always about, I need to get rid of this stuff. And I need to forget about what happened and get on with my life, because that was what I was being conditioned to do.

So people who don't have, who feel that they don't have an organization like the Zoltov Foundation, they have these sense of powerlessness, this question of what can I do. There are places where they can go. There's questions they can ask. And there is, of course, the most important, I think, the most important aspect of this process is to turn the focus to oneself and not myopically to look at the roots of war violence and suffering in us because the roots of war violence and suffering are not collected they're individual. War is a collective manifestation of individual suffering.

So if we want to do something we can look okay so I feel quite helpless and powerless about Ukraine but what can I do in my neighborhood? That's not to be apathetic towards what's happening there, but that's the realization that what's happening in my neighborhood is also connected to this overarching reality of war violence and suffering. I live in a community. I'm part of a tribe where between 17 and 27 of us kill ourselves every day. Veterans.

Yes. And it depends on your source what the number is. If it was wanted, be too many. Now, the majority of those suicides are happening between ages of 50 and 70, according to the Veterans Administration, the last information I had. The 13th of April 1983, I took a lethal dose of herbitulates. Overtroces were coming closer and closer for me. And it's not because I wanted to die, I just didn't know how to live. I survived that overdose. But while I was in the hospital, three men came to visit me. I have no idea who they were. I had just been removed from

intensive care. And one man asked me if I was going to do it again. And I said, absolutely. And one man asked me if I was going to do it again. And I said, absolutely. I mean, death has got to be better than this. And he looked at me and he said, how do you know it could be worse? What he said at that moment was just exactly the right thing to say, it caught me. And I went, man, worse than this.

And that led me to going into an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center and stopping. I stopped getting high in 1983, using alcohol and drug rehabilitation center and stopping. I stopped getting high in 1983 using alcohol and other drugs and I stayed stopped. This overarching umbrella of war violence and suffering, it doesn't have to continue. If we're willing to wake up the roots of war violence suffering in us, we have the possibility to transform the overarching view of the inevitability of war violence and suffering. We do, we're like drips of water on a stone. We get too attached to it. If it doesn't happen

immediately, I got to stop doing it. When I see the scenes unfolding in Ukraine, I'm confronted with mixed emotions. I know violence is not a solution. I know it. Violence only gets more violence. That being said, there's this stillness piece of me that wants to go. That wants to fight. That's how strong my conditioning is to the notion that violence is a solution at some level. That was the biggest step for me to give up all of my ideas of how my life was supposed to be.

Stop getting high and sit on shut up and allow life to begin to inform me. And like I said, I did not do that alone. I had support in doing that, but I had a real commitment to want to live differently. And eventually that led me to the spiritual practice that I was engaged in for the first six, seven years led me to Zen practice. And Zen practice was like the next step for me. And I can honestly say from my side of the street that this way of learning from me is just the best in the world.

It doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean that I'm not confused. It doesn't mean that I don't feel uncertainty. It doesn't mean that I don't feel powerless. It doesn't mean that I'm not confronted by hopelessness. I have all of those feelings, but I'm able to understand that while I have feelings of hopelessness, I have all of those feelings, but I'm able to understand that while I have feelings of hopelessness, they will pass, because in living in relation with the reality of yes and no and

right and wrong, good and bad, where there's hopelessness, there's also the opposite of that. Now, I'm cautious to use the word hope, because I was conditioned in a military environment, it says that we never say hope, because hope is expecting someone else to do something for you. So, to let go of that notion, the challenge is always how to take the experiences that I received in the silence and put those into action, because the process of sitting and cultivating silence doesn't stop when I get up off that cushion or get up off that chair. I say consistently that meditation and daily life aren't two things. How does OLED support me in face of what's happening in the Ukraine? Is that with the commitment

to become more conscious of the roots of war violence and suffering in me? I can then ask myself, what can I do? And give myself the space for that information to show itself. As I mentioned earlier, there might not be anything I can do exactly as it applies to the situation in Ukraine. What I might be able to do is something in my own neighborhood, something in my own country, something in my own state, something in my own community that addresses a topic of war violence and suffering. It's a nobling and empowering to just do something even if it's not directly

receimingly directly related to Ukraine or whatever the issue at hand may be. Yes. Now people have asked me, so do I think it's important to go out and demonstrate? And my response to that is, yes, and what else? What can I do more practically? What can I do? How can I be of service to those who are suffering? And it's in the silence that I find that information shows us so. Because if I start deciding with my intellect, what it is that needs to be done, I have to be very cautious about that. Because I have to understand that the ideas that are produced through the intellect are also informed by all that suffering that's been passed on to

me through endless streams of family generations. There's a collective, the society and culture of which I'm a part of, the consensus reality. And so, to develop the ability to look at these ideas that I have from different angles of perception, that's why I think it's important to have a community of like-minded people that I can engage with, not that they'll give me answers, but that through the conversation, I often gain more clarity on the notions that show themselves to me. Coming up, Clyde Anchin talks more about his notion that violence is never a solution, how he works with his own mind in the face of fear, and the struggles he faced after leaving the military. That's coming up. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page

six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E'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 feud say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out

in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn'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 Disenthal wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.

You spoke before about, I think you used the phrase, you know, violence never works. I'm curious, what's your response then to the Ukrainian civilians who've been taking up arms and widely, you know, cheered for it? Yes, the phrase that I often use is that violence is never a solution. Even when it appears to work, it doesn't really work. Because if you look at, on the surface of some of the claims that are being made to justify the invasion, and a lot of the rationales being used

goes back to the early 20th century. And before, it's like those Bolsheviks, that Ukraine didn't exist, the Bolsheviks came in and made Ukraine and took terrible thing it all belongs to Russia. It's an excuse that's used to justify violence. Now, what's happening in Ukraine at some point will stop. What will result? The residuals that are left over from that will live on in generations.

And so we create victims and perpetrators. If I'm a Ukrainian soldier, then the Russian soldier looks at me as the enemy and looks at me as the perpetrator. If I'm a Russian soldier, then the Ukrainian soldier in me looks at the Russian as the perpetrator and I'm the victim. And so this whole notion of victim and perpetrator, there is a phenomena, the entitlement of the victim. So I view myself as a victim, that means I'm entitled to act out and revenge or vengeance or retribution. Somehow my hands are clean. But the moment I act out in revenge

or retribution, then I am of course the perpetrator. But I feel to recognize that. That's why it's so important to wake up. Now, when I say that I'm an advocate of active nonviolence, I'm not a pacifist, active nonviolence. How that informs me is that I know in every fiber of my body, I know that I have the capacity to act in violence at any given moment. And I make the conscious choice not to. And that's through speech or action. That doesn't mean that there are sometimes I don't, but I catch it much more quickly than I ever did before. And if necessary, and I had the chance to address that to whomever or whatever group or to whomever it was, that that violence

expressed itself, I have a chance to take responsibility for that and not do it. I'm pretty good at not running people off the road today. Not giving people the finger, not screaming and yelling, and I'm pretty good at that. But that doesn't mean that sometimes I'm not caught. I'm conditioned to act in that way. So the Dr. Organization from the Zalta Foundation that is active in providing support for the Ukrainians who are leaving the country. If I got a call that there was a need to go into Ukraine and they needed me to facilitate

that, I'd go on a heartbeat, but I would go on arm. I'm curious though, just to get back to these Ukrainian civilians. Sure. Because there's an enormous amount of courage that they're demonstrating is from your perspective or from a Buddhist perspective is violence ever justifiable. I believe I read that the Dalai Lama was once asked about the killing of Osama bin Laden and said,

yes, this is an example where actually it's okay. So I know that's a completely different Buddhist tradition. He's in the Tibetan tradition, you're in the Zen tradition. But again, the question I'm getting at is does it make sense on some level for these civilians in Ukraine, even people have never handled a gun before to rise up in defense of what is clear naked aggression unprovoked. Yeah, it makes sense.

It doesn't mean it's a solution, but it makes sense. I understand it. In the end, it only invites more violence. Now, I don't know what the solution would be. I'm in no way pretending that I would know what the solution would be, but I do know from my own experience. Let's say, so I left a military in 1968. I was discharged out of military hospital from that point until sometime in 1984, I carried

a gun all the time everywhere. And I carried it because I didn't feel safe. There was a point in time in 1984 where I had given away all my weapons I still had a handgun left. I drove out onto the Tobin Bridge in Boston. I pulled over to the side. I took that handgun out and I threw it into the Charles River. When that handgun left my hand, I almost had a heart attack. Really, I was overwhelmed with fear and panic and all the engagements I have had in war zones since, and I've been in war zones in Europe. I've been in war zones in Asia. I've been in war zones in South America. I'm unarmed, and I'm in robes. I wear robes, probably 85% of the time. I'm unarmed and I'm in robes. I wear robes, probably 85% of the time. I'm unarmed and I'm in robes. And it's really rather interesting how people then respond to me. It makes sense. They pick

up arms. I get it. It's like, oh, I so I feel helpless. I feel powerless. This feels like something I can do. This is something I need to do. And I cycle this topic a lot. And because I say I support people who are in the military. They're on active duty. I support people who have had multiple deployments, multiple combat deployments. And I understand how profoundly they've been affected, but I also understand how that makes sense to them. I just really, I'm the firm belief that violence only gets more violence. But look, if we really wanted to stop what's going on there, I mean, we could.

Are we really willing to step to that looking dress? Are we really willing to step up and say, okay, you know, this is enough, we gotta stop this. Violence only gets more violence. People at some level know that. It's like the whole notion about, So this is enough, we gotta stop this. Violence only gets more violence. People at some level know that. It's like the whole notion about there is no just war, there's just war. As a war correspondent, you've seen what goes on in there.

The changes that take place in the people who experience combat. I just read an article where they're bringing in Syrian mercenaries. Now Russia is bringing in Syrian mercenaries. And these are people who've been fighting in Syria, and this is what they know. So they're coming in to do what they know. I just hold steadfast. Violence is not a solution, and I make an effort to live that in my own life. I don't impose that on other folks. I say it out loud because the first precept, if we're talking about Buddhist practice, the first precept, don't kill, don't let others kill, and don't accept any active killing in the world or in my life. But that's for me to live. It's not for me to attempt to convince you to live

like that. It's for me to live that way, and to see how that manifests itself in my life. is for me to live that way and to see how that manifests itself in my life. And really to live that out loud, I have a lot of deaths on my conscience. I was a helicopter crew chief, a door gunner. I crewed troop ships, slick ships and gunships. And we could see the people we were killing. You could see them, different from being on the ground. We could see them. And I have a body count. And I can't

really articulate that unless someone had that shared experience, I can say it and they can identify with it, but to really know how that feels and how one psyche is affected by that. So, if I were civilian in Kiev, what would I do? There's an image for you. I actually, I didn't see this image. Somebody from Germany related to me. There's an image of a group of people unarmed in one of the major cities that confronted a Russian tank. Oh, I've seen that. Yes. Yeah. And the tank turned away. Yes. And there's also a really powerful story from the Second War. It's the Rosenstrasse. It's the story of the Rosenstrasse. As fascism was losing its grip, as Nazism was losing its grip, its Germany and its allies were being defeated in Europe.

They began scorched earth policies, so they modified the racial laws and they gathered up all the mischlinlings, what they call half breeds. The people who had any taste of Jewish blood or Jewish spouses of German people, they gathered them up and they imprisoned them in a building called the Rosenstrasse. Their family members turned out, they came out and they just stood witness at the place where they were being held. And the numbers started to grow and started to grow. At a certain point, one of the SS commanders called out a squad of machine gunners.

They had four or five machine gunners out there. And they locked and loaded and said, if you don't go, we're going to kill you. And the people there unanimously said, without our loved ones, our life doesn't matter. Kill us. Good kill us. And they blink, they left. The power, the power that exists in non-violent resistance is quite phenomenal, but it takes an incredible amount of courage.

I was in Medellin, and I was invited into one of the communities there, Community 13. It's a gang-held community. Before I went in there though, I made sure they had permission. It was okay for me to talk to them, but I'd go and I walk the streets unarmed. It's a powerful statement because whether I have a gun or not, if somebody wants to kill me, they're going to kill me. I really know that. Guns don't get me safe. Let's talk a little bit about fear because I think that's a pretty common response that people are having as they watch or read about the events unfolding in Ukraine. And I'm sure this is a question you've gotten before.

How do you work with your own mind when you, and at a few moments ago, actually, you talked about the possibility that the United States or other Western nations might intervene here and that could escalate and turn into World War III. Those words have been uttered, World War III. This kind of propuncia, this proliferation of worry, I see it in my own mind, I hear it coming out of the mouths of my friends and family. How do you work with your own mind in the face of that? Staying present, as present as I can can stay to be cautious about not being drawn into the threads that my fear might create because at the root of a disciplined spiritual practice regardless of whatever you might call that Is the reality of not knowing?

There's no way to know what's gonna to happen. But the mind has such a hard time. We're so intellectually oriented that we have such a hard time in sitting with the tension of not knowing. So what I make an effort to do is if my mind starts getting too busy, I look at what can I do? Again, we're talking about what can I do? So practical. What can I do right now to support me from not being seduced by my fear into attempting to gain certainty through intellectual comprehension. So I can wash the dishes, working meditation.

I can connect with people who are part of a support network for me. I can make myself a cup of tea then, but that cup of tea, I can really bring my attention to all of the gestures and actions that's required in drinking that cup of tea, just to slow myself down. And in that process, to really concentrate on the breath. The breath is the foundation of life. We don't breathe, we die. And so to breathe consciously, breathing in, knowing that I breathing in, breathing out, knowing that I'm breathing out, breathing in. When I breathe in, I breathe into my abdomen. I'm

cautious that I'm not cutting the breath off at the diaphragm. When I breathe in, I don't follow the breath into the body. I pay attention to the precise point where it enters the body. And when I breathe out, I notice my stomach contracting, and I don't follow the breath out of the body, but rather pay attention to the precise point where the breath leaves the body. And I do that in conjunction with whatever I'm involved with. So that's meditation in action. That really supports me in not rejecting my fear,

but at the same time not allowing it to control me. In the course of answering that question, you mentioned making yourself a cup of tea and it brought to mind for me a comment that my wife made to me over this past weekend when we did ourselves a favor and escaped our child who we love, but you know, needed a break and we went in state at a hotel and we're having this incredible brunch on Sunday morning. And I just be curious to hear how you would

respond to this. She said, how can I enjoy this meal when I know what's happening in Ukraine right now? You know, it's always a challenge for me. I mean, if I'm not there in part of that exchange, it's hard for me to know exactly how I would respond. In the first monastery I lived in studying it. It was a quite intimate environment at the time. I had a very intimate relationship with the Abidda that monastery. Actually, what got me there is the added that monastery had facilitated two meditation retreats for combat veterans of the Vietnam War, one on the West Coast

and one on the East Coast. I was sort of conned into going to the one on the East Coast by a social worker I was in therapy with. So out of that retreat, I ended up going to that monastery, just to sort of check it out, see what was going on. And I went to stay for a month, I ended up staying for three years. At the very beginning of that stay,

there was a plan for the Aberdeen that monastery to come back to the US, to do another series of talks and retreats in the US. And I approached him up by doing a retreat for veterans. And he agreed. He said, I'll for sure, I'll do it. Then I learned that he didn't. The plans changed. He wasn't going to do it. But I went down to his hut and give him a piece of my mind. I walked in and I started to go off on this guy. And whatever he said, I stormed out there, slammed the door, broke.

So then I got about halfway up the hill, then I started to feel guilty. Time went back, I fixed the door, I walked in, and I was still pretty angry because I felt betrayed. He said, let's have a cup of tea. So I said, okay, I'll have a cup of tea. He let's amend sense, poured some tea. And he looked at me, he said, when you heal, you heal for all veterans. When you heal, you heal the suffering of your family of the lineages that exist in you.

And I thought, what a crock of poop. It just sounded like some med physical jabber. But I left his hut and I continued throughout the day and doing what I was doing. And that really started to resonate with me. I had an understanding, not intellectual comprehension, because it still doesn't make any sense. But I had a deeper understanding of the truth of what was said, that when I eat that meal, I'm eating that meal for all the people who don't have enough food to eat. I do a recitation before I eat. This food is the gift of the whole universe,

the earth, the sky, and much hard work. Maybe live in a way that makes us worthy to receive it. Maybe transform our unskiltful states of mind, especially our greed. Maybe take only foods which nourish us and prevent illness. We accept this food so that we may realize the path of practice of love, compassion, and peace. I do that before I eat any meal, and I reflect on all the effort that took to produce the food, to grow the food, to bring the food to that place. So that my eating becomes in itself, it becomes an active meditation. And so I eat for all those who don't have the capacity to eat. And at the same time say, okay, so what can I do about this? And on another level, it's still okay.

I feel a little bit guilty about it. I think that's healthy. But it's not 100% guilt, it's some percentage guilt and a lot of gratitude. 10% guilt. It's going to rake to it. Yes, maybe that should be my next book. No, no, I think it's quite correct. Yeah, I mean, that I have a measure of guilt, I need to pay attention to that because guilt is an informative sensation or feeling. But to not swim in it, not wallow it, not allow it to define me. It's just information. Yeah. But how can I use this opportunity that I

have? You know, that I live in the United States provides me with some incredible opportunities that I wouldn't, and we'll have if I live in other places. Because I've lived in other places. I mean, I lived in Iran for four and a half years from 74 to 78. I saw what was going on there. I experienced it. There's a person who studies with me who has a center in Chile in the Rekinwa. So I have an active relationship with a lot of people in Chile who experienced who lived through the realities of the Pinotitri regime and how they dealt with opposition to the way they wanted to do business. It was another autocratic, strong person regime.

Some people benefit a lot of people suffer. So that I have the opportunities that I have here, how can I take advantage of that? That I exist in this form. It's such an incredible opportunity that I'm presented with to wake up, to bring an end to suffering in my lifetime. It's possible for me to bring an end to war violence and suffering in my lifetime. If I'm willing to wake up to the roots of war violence and suffering in me and live that out loud, then there's no telling what the results of that can be. That's my commitment.

Let me just clarify that for a second. Are you saying you can end war, violence, and suffering inside yourself in this lifetime? Are you saying you can end it writ large? No, no, in me first. However, if I look at the interconnected reality of which I'm a part of, is I heal? I heal for the entire spectrum of existence because self and existence aren't two things. Up next we're going to explore what waking up to the roots of war violence and suffering

inside of yourself means for the Vladimir Putin in you. If we really take in this interconnectedness of which you speak, it's logically inexorable that we are connected to Vladimir Putin. That's true. Who is, I think, correctly cast as the, or maybe if I want to be generous, a bad guy in this scenario, how do we reckon with that? Well, let's say here's what I challenge people. How am I like Vladimir Putin? How am I like that? Where's the Vladimir Putin in me? This challenge for people to wake up to the roots of war,

violence, and suffering in them. Somebody says, look, I don't have a seat of violence in me. Those people scare me. I'm in no way justifying the decision that was made, the decision to come into Ukraine. I'm in no way justifying that. Am I willing to look at things from his angle of perception? Am I willing to do that? Am I willing to say, where's the Vladimir Putin in me? Because a moment I make Putin the enemy, then I'm no different than him. So if I want the world to be different, I need to be willing to live differently. If that in no way excuses his decisions, that no way excuses his actions, and no way diminishes the truth of what's happening there, because it's horrible what's happening

there. And I have the propensity at any given moment. I've been responsible for the destruction of entire villages. And I believed. I mean, when I went into the military, I believed in the idea of it. When I stepped off the plane in Vietnam, I understood the truth of it, which was much different from the idea of it, that it wasn't about the films and it wasn't about the books, it wasn't the heroic myth of war that's created. This was another thing that I could die. And so my time spent in Vietnam, it was about staying alive and it was about keeping the people around me alive. And that meant killing people, and meant blowing stuff up. And I just did that as a matter of survival.

There was a very little thought connected to it. After the first couple of two or three actions where death has been a part of that, rapidly become even more desensitized than the training we receive. Because the training that we receive that prepares us for war is the training of dehumanization because it's impossible to take another life

without losing contact with one's own humanity. And the consequence of being so desensitized to being so removed from my own humanity were immense. One doesn't have to go into combat, one does not have to go into the military to be trained for that. To a large extent, we are de-sensitized in any number of ways to the reality around us, the suffering that exists around us. I grew up in a very small rural farming community,

and the suffering that takes place in rural America is often overlooked. It's not paid attention to the sort of services and efforts that the suffering in the cities get doesn't get to rural America. So how can I be of service to that? How can I let people know that they are important to me because they're, I treat them as I want to be treated, because I am not separate from them. Yeah, so am I willing to wake up to the Vladivier Putin and me? You just talked about sort of our propensity to overlook certain kinds of suffering

and you were referring to rural suffering in your comment, but it does remind me of something you said earlier on in this conversation way earlier about the fact that there's an awful lot of attention being paid to Ukraine right now, but there are wars raging in Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, plenty of other places that we're not talking about. What do you think is going on there? In the United States, we kill between 33 and 35,000 people here with handguns. That's a war by any other name.

What is every other week? And there's another mass shooting. I think we have been desensitized. I think also Ukraine draws our attention more than Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria. And I think that could be a result of generally as a society and culture, the people in power. I hate to use this word, but it also is a statement of systemic racism that what's happening with people of color has less importance than people who work more like us.

So we don't pay attention to that. And that's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to me. But in order for that to be heartbreaking to me, again, I had to be willing to wake up to the nature of how I was conditioned as a young man growing up in the society and culture that I grew up in. I was conditioned to be racist. I was conditioned to be misogynistic. I don't want to be any of those things, but if I'm not willing to acknowledge that I was conditioned to be like that, then I won't see how it manifested

self in my life. I grew up in Northwest Pennsylvania. It was populated by an influx of Eastern Europeans, Polish, Slovakia, and Ukrainian. How so I grew up in was two houses away from my high school buddy. We're still friends. We've known each other since we were five. His mother was the valedictorian of his class Right? His mother was the valedictorian of his class in the time where we grew up. And when it came time to pass out the awards, she had to have a nonpolish person except the word for her. Because that's the kind of discrimination that these people experienced. And as another inflexup immigrants came into the area, then suddenly it wasn't the Polish or the Slovakian people who were at the bottom of the run.

They were up one, so then they acted out that violence on the next group that came in. So they could feel a little bit more superior. And I grew up with racist views of people who weren't like me, the Polish jokes that we told, the Slovakian jokes. I mean, just the stuff that we,, God, it's heartbreaking to me. So I had to be willing to wake up to that. And I need to be willing to live in a different relation with how I'm conditioned, understanding that that conditioning doesn't go away,

but I can relate to it differently. I can live in a more conscious relationship with it. I need to be willing to be the piece I want to see in the world and not have a preconceived idea about what that piece is. Or even if I do, be willing to allow circumstances to alter my perceptions and ideas. At the beginning of this interview, I said, at some point I wanna talk about your personal story, you have expertly and very movingly woven your personal story into many of your answers. But as we now approach the end of our time together,

I do wanna just give you a chance to address any parts of your narrative from combatant to veteran to deep practitioner and teacher of Zen Buddhism that I may not have given you a chance to address. All I can say is that the way I experience my life is the war before the war and the war after the war. My dad was a soldier in the second war. He was a school teacher.

I mean, he was very well-liked in the community. He was a volunteer fireman. He was on the town council. He was active in the politics of education. At one point He was the president of the Pennsylvania State Teachers Association But all that activity kept him away from home and he and I lived alone He was a single parent What was modeled for me

Growing up in the community that I grew up in where the majority of men my father's age were veterans of either second war or the Korean war, was the use of social anesthetics to keep that experience at a distance. My father died at the age of 53. He died of a massive heart attack in his sleep. When I heard that he died, I knew that it was his lifestyle that killed him. My father drank alcoholically, and he had a horrible diet he smoked two and a half, three packs of cigarettes a day. All of that was not only a product of the disease of addiction that he had,

but it was a way to attempt to keep all of that suffering under the blanket of social anesthetics. That's what was modeled for me. So growing up, I adopted those kinds of circumstances to give me any chance of learning how to live at peace with my unpeacefulness. I had to stop taking intoxicants and I had to stay stopped. And it just had to. There's no way around that.

So when I engage with people, if they want what I, what they think I have, I never know what that is. If they want what I think I have, then I say, okay, from this Buddhist perspective, you need to be willing to stop taking talks against a stay stock. You need to commit yourself to not killing.

And a way to do that is to stop eating meat, fish, and poultry. To not support institutions of killing. Just these are just general obvious steps. You need to be willing to sit twice a day, and you need to be willing to engage in a group of like-minded people who are practicing this. And I think that grew out of the fact that I was forced to be such an independent person. The child that I had was, I had to decide for myself. I was taking care of the house at 12.

I was cooking for myself. I was cleaning, doing my laundry. I was doing all of that at 12. And my family became the community around me. And I learned certain survival techniques that given a perspective that's more aware, more conscious, have helped me to carry the message into communities that have been decimated by suffering and say that the things can be different if you want it to be. Outside may not look different, but our relationship to that can change if we want it to be. Outside may not look different, but our relationship to that can change if we wanted to.

We can, we can arrive at a place of peace with our peace on this. I would love to have you reference anything you've put out online or other ways that people can reach you. So please talk about the books and any other resources. Sure. Thank you. I had the privilege to have a book published. It's available through Shambala publications. The title of his is at At Hell's Gate, a soldier's journey from war to peace. I was very afraid to have this book published because I know that people create certain narratives around their war experience and they hold that as an absolute truth for everyone and if anything challenges that narrative, they want to extinguish it. And so I was at anxious, but I went ahead and did it anyway.

And then just recently, there's been another book published through awkward publishing, and the title of the book is Bringing Meditation to Life. And these books are available through all of the online places. If people are interested in the Zolto Foundation and in the work that the Foundation does, if they want to know more about me, they can go online at www.zolto.org. And also, if people want to be in contact with me, I am available through the website they can reach me. And I do answer my emails when I get them. And also on the website, every Sunday I do this question and response session online. It's open to anyone who wants to come.

And they're all recorded and released this podcast. And they are with a German and Spanish translation because there are so-called communities in South America and in Europe. Cloud Anchin, it's been great to talk to you. Thank you for giving us so much time and more. Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks again to Cloud Anchin Thomas, really appreciated him coming on. Thank you as well to the folks who work

incredibly hard on this show. Samuel Johns, Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Kagemere, Justin Davie, Kim Baikam, Maria Wartell, and Jan Pliant. Also, everybody over at ultraviolet audio, the folks who do our audio engineering. We'll see you in a couple days with a fresh episode. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with 1-replus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at 1-3-dot-com-slash-survey.