The One You Feed - How to Discover Your Way of Being Through the Enneagram with Susan Piver

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

Susan Piver is the New York Times bestselling author of many books, including the award-winning “How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life”, “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart”, “Start Here Now: An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation”, and “The Four Noble Truths of Love: Buddhist Wisdom for Modern Relationships”.  Susan has been a practicing Buddhist since 1993 and graduated from a Buddhist seminary in 2004. She is an internationally acclaimed meditation teacher, known for her ability to translate ancient practices into modern life. Her work has been featured on the Oprah show, TODAY, CNN, and in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others.  In 2013, she launched the Open Heart Project, the largest virtual mindfulness community in the world with 20,000 members. Her newest book is “The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship.” In this episode, Eric and Susan discuss her newest book, The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship But wait, there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you! Susan Piver and I Discuss How to Discover Your Way of Being Through the Enneagram and … Her book:  The Buddhist Enneagram: Nine Paths to Warriorship Defining the enneagram as 9 paths or ways of being How the enneagram can be used in a variety of ways based on the person Defining warrior as one who is not afraid of oneself How it’s best to take multiple tests to best determine your enneagram type The subtypes of the enneagram and how they’re often easier to identify Patience is required to utilize the deep system of the enneagram How the enneagram defines our “cocoon” and also our way out of it The arc of transformation that includes the passions and the virtues How the enneagram leads us to compassion for ourselves and others How we should “feel the energy” of a number rather than declare our number Asking what does this mean to me, today Susan Piver Links Susan’s Website for The Open Heart Project Instagram Facebook By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! If you enjoyed this conversation with Susan Piver, check out these other episodes: The Four Noble Truths of Love with Susan Piver (2021) Eli-Jaxon Bear on Your True SelfSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Before we get started, I want to give a shout out to our new Patreon members. Ora G, Holly S, Mattish, Patricia G, Brenda K, Tolstoy, Eileen D, Catherine B, Tijuana, April H, Angela A, and Mary C. Thanks so much to all of you, and thank you so much to all of our Patreon members. If you'd like to experience being a Patreon member and all the benefits that come with it, go to oneufeet.net slash join. We need to let go of fear and step outside of our cocoons. And the Enneagram describes at the same time your cocoon and the way out of the cocoon.

the cocoon. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living.

This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Susan Piver, a New York Times bestselling author of many books, including the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life, The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, Start Here Now, An Open-Hearted Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation, and The Four Noble Truths of Love, Buddhism Wisdom for Modern Relationships. Susan has been a practicing Buddhist since 1993 and graduated from Buddhist Seminary in 2004. She's an internationally

acclaimed meditation teacher known for her ability to translate ancient practices into modern life. Her work has been featured on The Oprah Show, Today, CNN, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and many others. In 2013, she launched The Open Heart Project, the largest virtual mindfulness community in the world. And her newest book is The Buddhist Enneagram, Nine Paths to Warriorship. Hi, Susan. Welcome in the world. And her newest book is The Buddhist Enneagram, Nine Paths to Warriorship. Hi, Susan. Welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. It's so good to see you again and be with you. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on again. I don't know if this is time number three,

four. I don't know. It's been a number of times. And so we are happy to have you back. You've got a new book out called The Buddhist Enneagram, Nine Paths to Warriorship. So we're going to be jumping into that. But before we do, we have to go through the parable. It's kind of part of the show. So... I forgot. Yes. Great. I love it. Okay. You can tie it to the Enneagram. Here we go. In the parable, there's a grandparent talking with a grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.

And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second, looks up at their grandparent and says, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Thank you. It's so beautiful. The first thing that comes to mind is don't feed either. And when ideas of goodness and badness drop away, according to wisdom tradition, you will be in reality. I love that. The place I was thinking about that parable in relation to your book was thinking about the idea of these arcs of transformation, right? That each type in the Enneagram sort of has a journey from its passion or neurosis to its virtue or its brilliance, which we'll get into. Let's start at the beginning

because the Enneagram is something that some people know and love, some people know and don't love, and a lot of people don't know. Let's start with what is it? Perfect. Ennea, E-N-N-E-A, is the Greek prefix for nine. And the Enneagram describes nine ways of being, and sometimes called nine personality types, but I have discovered or feel that it just goes way beyond personality. It describes nine essential kinds of being, ways of being, and each of us are one of them. And it's a beautiful and complex and also very direct and to the point system for describing the differences between people. You hit on something there that I wanted to dig into a little bit because the Enneagram on one level, at least is the way it's often presented,

is a personality test. I answer a series of questions about how I respond to things in the world, similar to I would if I was doing Meyer Briggs. I'm given some sort of type, you know, in Myers Briggs, I'd be an INFJ, or I actually don't know what I am, but I would be given a type and that would say some things about me. I have heard over and over from people that the Enneagram is a spiritual system, not a personality system. And when I've asked people that question, I've never gotten what felt like a satisfactory answer as to why that is. And so, I'm wondering if you can tell me why in your mind it's more than a personality system. And in order to do that, we might need to define what we mean by personality. And that may be where the confusion in my mind is.

But say a little bit about that. Well, it is a personality typing system. But it is so much more than that. It depends on the mind of the user. Just like meditation. Okay. Is it something that will help you calm down? Yeah.

Is it something that will help you be a better parent or a better leader? Yeah. that will help you be a better parent or a better leader? Yeah. Is it something that can guide you to liberation from suffering and to full enlightenment? Yes. It really depends on what you are looking for or the door you enter. So, it's very similar with the Enneagram. If you want to have a fun parlor game to, you know, talk about, well, what would fives order at Starbucks and so on, you can do that. If you want to use it as a personality typing system, you know, talk about, well, what would fives order at Starbucks and so on? You can do that. If you want to use it as a personality typing system, you know, you always focus on this, this is your talking style, great, you can do that too. But if you're looking for a way to see what

you cannot see about yourself, and to gain more knowledge about your particular path of transformation, what blocks you and what guides you in a healthy way, you can find that in the Enneagram. So it's in the use of it that it can be used as a spiritual tool, or it could be used as a personality tool, or it could be used as a parlor game. It's really the point to which we're using it. And when you're tying it to your Buddhist practice and your Buddhist practice is tied to liberation, the Enneagram then becomes a means towards liberation in the sense that you want to use it. It helps you go deeper in your own journey, and it generates tremendous compassion, first for yourself and then for others.

So if compassion, which doesn't mean being nice, it means being awake. If compassion is part of your practice, this is the most potent, skillful means I have ever found, that's just me, to going deeper in my capacity to be compassionate toward myself and others. Well, you win the award. You've finally given me an explanation of when people say that the Enneagram is a spiritual system that makes sense to me. It's in the use to what we're trying to do. Wonderful. The subtitle of the book is Nine Paths to Warriorship. And you mentioned that the Ennea means nine. So we come up with nine types. Why do you call it nine paths to warriorship?

Well, this gets back again to your question of what makes it a spiritual system. And as you mentioned, each type has a passion, which in the Enneagram language is considered passion, not in the good sense, but a neurosis, and each type has a virtue. So, for example, for type number one, the passion is called anger. When things don't go their way, they get angry. I mean, we all get angry, but it's their first go-to. The virtue is called serenity. So, in the Enneagram, the journey is from anger to serenity. So if you're looking for a psychological instrument or a personality test, yeah, okay, stop being angry and start being serene, however you can figure out how to do that. But if you want to use it as a spiritual journey,

and this is very consonant with the Buddhist view in the Vajrayana tradition in any case, that within each afflictive emotion, there is a seed of wisdom. So anger and serenity are on a spectrum with each other. So it's not like you chop off one end of the spectrum and grasp the other end. You use the end that you start at to traverse to the far end. So anyway, anger and serenity in this sense are not in opposition. They are two sides of a single coin. So if you're a one, this is one way of looking at your journey, your arc of transformation. And because you have anger, you have a connection to serenity.

Because the negative space around anger, you could say, is serenity. So each type has their own journey. To make that journey is to be a warrior. It takes courage to look at what you can't see about yourself and don't want to see about yourself on behalf of your own awakening. Yeah, there is a phrase in the book you had that I loved, which is the primary obstacle to spiritual attainment is being afraid of yourself. In the tradition, I was trained in warriorship, which is not about going to battle.

Yep. The warrior's enemies are grasping aggression and delusion. And the first definition of a warrior is a warrior is one who is not afraid of themself. So it all begins there. The journey begins there. Whether you would call it warriorship or something else, the Enneagram has helped me and not just me

be less afraid of myself because it's given me a way to see myself in a gentler light for who I am. I can stop trying to be someone else. Personality tests, I'm going to use that term broadly, can lead to typing and can lead to labels, which I have a mixed feeling about these things because on one hand, understanding yourself is really powerful.

Like, oh, okay, I'm not bad. This is kind of the way I am. And if we're not careful, I worry about living into it. You know, there's a lot of debate in the addiction community these days is the label alcoholic damaging, right? Is the belief that you're this thing damaging? Now, let's not go down that rabbit hole with alcoholism today. But talk to me about, you know, the concern about defining myself and the risk of living into my definitions. Yeah. So the Enneagram is not nine ghettos, although it can be used that way. You can use

it against yourself. Like, well, these are my limitations because the Enneagram told me. You can more dangerously use it against others. You're only going to do it this way or that way because you're a seven or a two or whatever it is you are. So you stop seeing other people's humanity and you stop seeing your own. The label becomes a box. And there are people who don't want to be labeled anything. Okay. But you're already in a box. You're in a box right now. So it's not like the Enneagram is going to put you in a box. You are in a box now now. So it's not like the Enneagram is going to put you in a box. You are in a box now. So do you want to find your way out? Well, there's nine paths out, you could say in a much very oversimplified way. And if I try to do it the way a seven would,

for example, by finding the joy in the journey, that would be not great for me. That's a beautiful way. But if I try to find the way out through deepening into my sorrows, that is a good way for me. Doesn't sound fun, I know, but I'm a four and that embracing the blue notes in the various situations you encounter is helpful to me. Now, if I'm standing next to someone that wants to find the joy in the journey, we're looking at each other like, you're crazy. However, if I see, well, this is just how I do it, and that's how you do it, we can walk side by side more readily. Yep. So the question everybody has is, all right, well, how do I know what type I am? everybody has is, all right, well, how do I know what type I am? And you say that there is no test for this. And I think what you mean is there are tests. There's a whole bunch of tests out there.

No one test is going to necessarily give you the right answer. It takes more than a five-minute test to understand what your type is. Absolutely. That is firmly my opinion. Yeah. And there are other people who have equally firm opposing opinions. Mm-hmm. Cool.

But what I have seen, and I've been studying the Enneagram and Buddhism now for close to 30 years. I have no idea how that happened. If you want to know your Myers-Briggs, or you want to know your Colbys, or you're interested in the StrengthsFinders, these other instruments, those are good tests. They will be accurate. If you want to know your Enneagram number, it's very iffy. There's no single instrument like there are for these other systems. Like you say, there are many tests. And I mean, I take them all when I find a new one just to see if, because I know what my type is. I try to answer honestly and see if it comes up with my number. But my suggestion for finding your type is take all the tests. Like you say, there are a lot of them.

Take all the free tests and then start to notice, oh, these two numbers or these three numbers come up more than others. Okay, those are great starting points. Those are data points. They're not answers. So take those data points, and then you can dive into the Enneagram from any number of places. First, by noting that the nine types, I'm making a circle, you can't see me,

that are grouped around a circle, and they comprise three groups of three, according to center of intelligence. You have all the centers of intelligence, but one of them is predominant. It's not always easy to tell which one is yours. So, eight, nine, and one rely predominantly on the intelligence of instinct. Two, three, on the intelligence of instinct. 2, 3, and 4 rely predominantly on the emotional intelligence, and 5, 6, and 7 on mental intelligence, the reasoning mind. So, again, we all do all three, but if you start to notice that 5 and 4 come up for me, well, 5 is on the mental triad,

4 is on the emotional triad. So, you can start to think, well, I do both, but I'm more this or that. And those are really good entry points. Is it possible to be more of a nine than another person or more of a seven? Whenever I've taken the Enneagram, whenever I've taken other personality tests, I seem to be like, if you could land right in the middle, I seem to land like right in the middle. Partially, I think that's because all the questions I'm like, well, it depends. Would I rather read a book or go to a party? Well, I need a whole lot more information before I can decide upon that simple fact, right? But I do have this tendency to land in very similar. So some of the Enneagram tests give you your numbers, like 30 points on a

nine and 28 points on a seven and 10 points on a four. And mine are like, there's a bunch that are grouped like right by each other. What are they? Three, seven and nine seem to show up most for me. Nine is the one I've been operating under. But when you talked about the talking styles of nines, I went, that is not me. I'm kind of the polar opposite of that. And I should explain that for listeners. You talk about different things that are inherent to each type. I don't think we'll get through all of them. But one of them is a talking style that each type has. The talking style for a nine is a saga. That's right. But that is not me. I'm like, if I can say in three words what most people would say in three sentences, like, that's my challenges. It's like, I have like three words.

I'm like, well, I don't know how else to say this. Yeah. But like, I am tired. You know, I got nothing to add to this. Full respect for that, by the way. So my talking style doesn't match the nine, but three, seven, and nine are the ones that seem to come up most often for me. So that's very interesting because three is in the center of the emotional triad. Each central number, three, six, and nine are disconnected from their core intelligence. That would be accurate.

Threes are disconnected. They have trouble finding their heart. And they rely significantly on appearances because when you don't know what you feel, then all you have to go on is appearances. So, I'm not saying that about you, obviously. Seven is on the mental triad and the talking style is called planning. We could do this, we could do that. Oh, this is interesting. What if you put these two things together? And it's the exteriorized type on the mental triad, putting the mental energy out there. And nine is in the center of the intuitive triad. So you've got all three intelligences in your results, and nines

are disconnected from their instincts. And each type has an avoidance, as you mentioned on talking style and all sorts of other things, not for nines, the avoidance is conflict. If you're not particularly conflict avoidant, you may not be a nine. Oh, I am. I am highly conflict avoidant. I've gotten much better at it. But yeah, my default is to hide from conflict. The other thing that I've heard about the Enneagram and what I've heard about nines is that nines encompass all the other types to a certain degree. And I don't know if that's accurate or not, but that's another reason I thought, well, maybe I'm a nine because as I read them, I'm like, well, I don't feel really strongly like that or really strongly that, but it may be to your point, I'm sort of cut off, you know, from that deeper nature or knowing.

Nines can see all points of view except their own. Yes. And that's why I think my superpower and my super weakness is exactly that. My superpower is I can see everybody's point of view. I would be an outstanding diplomat. But if you ask me, what do I want? I'm like, well, I'm not sure. What kind of question is that? Do you have trouble making decisions? Sometimes. It's interesting because the way I have framed it in the past, and it's so interesting when things start layering over each other, right? Because when I have trouble making decisions is very often when I am what I would call depressed, right? And that is a symptom of depression, right? They say a symptom of depression is an inability to sort of decide. depression, right? They say a symptom of depression is an inability to sort of decide. So sometimes yes, and other times no. It depends what it is. But when it comes closer to my personal life, it's harder for me to make a decision. Like I've got the afternoon free.

Should I go to the rock climbing gym? Should I go to the record store? Should I go to the library? I don't know. Ask me to make a decision business-wise, I can usually sort of think my way through that and be like, this is it. I don't have a lot of hesitancy. I'm willing to go. So within each type, there are three subtypes and one of them doesn't look like the other two. And that can make it harder to find yourself. So this to me is the third piece in typing yourself. And we'll relate it back to you and nine in a second, but take all the tests, see if you can identify with one or another of the centers of intelligence, and then look at your subtype, as it's called, or instinctual drive

in the Enneagram. Now, we all have all of these instinctual drives, but one of them is predominant. And the first instinctual drive is for self-preservation. I'm worried about threats, you know, anything from what if I go somewhere and it's too cold? I better bring layers to are the walls about to fall down? And where's the exit? How do I get out of here? That's me. I'm a self-preservation for.

The second drive is social drive. Drive to belong to something bigger than yourself or to be a tribe, or to relate with a group. And then the third drive is the sexual drive or intimate drive, which doesn't just mean I want to have sex with everyone. It means I want to connect with someone, someone in the important experiences of my life. So if the three subtypes are going to a work event, let's say, the self-preservation person, whether they're a nine or a four or whatever, will be like, what if I don't like the food? And what am I going to sleep on? And what if it's too cold? That's me. The second social subtype, whether you're whatever number, will

wonder things like, how will the room be arranged? Will people be able to see me? If people go out to eat together, will they invite me? Do I feel proud to belong to this group or not? What does it say about me that I belong to this group? So that's really different than I better bring snacks. And then the third subtype, the intimate subtype, will think, will there be someone there who will get me, who I can talk to, who I can share this experience with? We can like sit next to each other, we can have, you know, side eye each other when things seem weird and, you know, spend time together. So that's easier to find, usually. Whatever your type is, that's the hardest to find. Your subtype

is easier to find. So Hi everyone, I wanted to personally invite you to a workshop that we are offering at the end of October at the Omega Institute, which is in the Hudson Valley in New York, and it is really beautiful this time of year. It's going to be a great chance to meet some wonderful people, recharge and relax while learning foundational spiritual habits that will allow you to establish simple daily practices that will help you feel more at ease and more fulfilled in your life. You can find details at oneufeed.net slash omega. I'm really looking forward to meeting many of you there. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden and together on the Really No Really podcast,

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Do any of those three resonate with you? I think the first or the second in probably fairly equal measure. Okay. Like, is the food going to be good? Am I going to be comfortable? And what's the social situation? Usually if it's an event is the anxiety around the social situation.

Like, don't put me in a room with 50 people, you know. What I should say is don't put me in a room with 50 people and no alcohol. Now I'm recovering 15 years sober, so alcohol's off the table. Put me in a room with alcohol, I'm happy to wander in there and make some friends, but I don't like to do that. Although I am pretty good one-on-one with people. So what you're describing is anxiety in the group situation, which I share. And that's a fear thing. I'm not generally speaking. It's a self-preservation related fear. Okay. Okay. So I would invite you to consider, if you're a nine, that you might be a self-preservation nine, which looks different than the social nine and the sexual nine. Self-preservation nine is called appetite.

And that doesn't mean, you know, you're eating too much. It means you're looking to self-narcotize by some means, whether it's alcohol or television or making money. You want something to self-narcotize. Social nine is called participation. They're in groups, but they don't have a particular role. And sexual nine is called union. They're looking for the partner to provide an agenda for their lives. So those are really different. But self-preservation nine is very particular

and something to investigate. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. I mean, obviously being a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict, literally narcotics. I don't want to derail this entire interview into my typing, although I think it is helpful to sort of give these things a little bit of a reference. So we've talked about how to type yourself, which is, you know, take all the tests you mentioned, try and identify your primary triad, right? Intuition, emotion, or reason, try and understand your subtype. What are some other things that we might do? You know, if we really want to go deeper into this and, you know, we've taken the one test and we want to know more, what are some other things to look at? You want to know more about

the Enneagram or you want to know more about which type you are? More about how to figure out which type we are. So there's one additional thing you can do, and it's called be patient. Because it can take time. And the system is deep. It's incredibly nuanced. And we want to use it, I would say, not to reify ourselves, but to discover who we are beyond our conventional way of being. And that takes patience. If you want to learn more about yourself and learn more about other people and learn more about how the world works, great. I want all those things too. But if you want to discover how to let go of aspects of your identity that don't serve you, this is a way to do it. This can support that. So if you want to be more awake, more compassionate,

and more powerful, because those, as I was trained, are the three qualities of the awakened mind. The awakened mind is wise, meaning clear. It is compassionate and it is confident or powerful. We need to let go of fear and step outside of our cocoons. And the Enneagram describes at the same time your cocoon and the way out of the cocoon. That's what drew me to it originally was that very thing you said that it sort of pointed out, here's what you might look like when you're, and there's lots of different words for this, right? I'll just use, here's what you might look like when you're flourishing. And here's what you might look like when you are not doing so well. Because I've always felt that about myself. Like, again,

on one hand, there's a heroin addict who was homeless. And then my life today, and in some ways, I can look at those two people and be like, well, they do not seem at all the same. Now, they are, obviously, in some ways. In some ways, they're not. But that's what I liked about the Enneagram is I went, oh, yeah, like, I can see that is me at my worst. And that is me at my best. That makes sense.

You know, do you call those the arc of transformation? I think what we're talking about is the passions and the virtues, which is the arc of transformation. So one part of it is it gives us an understanding of that and what that transformation looks like. And then there are the arrows of integration and disintegration. That's something different. Explain what that is. Yeah. If anyone looks at a diagram of the Enneagram, they'll notice that there are lines connecting the points pointing in different directions. And those lines have meaning.

And they point to what you were saying, integration and disintegration points. I've heard that some people in Enneagram circles don't want to use those words anymore. I don't know why. I think they're accurate. I can never remember the journey for nine. Let's say you're a four and you take your seat and you own your fourness and you embrace who you are and so on. You don't stop at the beauty of four. You sort of go through the ceiling of four and take on the high qualities of a second type. That's called the integration point. Fours integrate at one, which is a very crisp, clear, black and white point. Fours are not unethical, but it's a little soupy in here. So, when fours integrate at one, there's a kind of

rigor that is more accessible. And when a four goes to their natural defenses, which is to cry and hide and wonder why no one thinks I'm special, and withdraw, and that doesn't work, four drops through the floor, a four, and embraces the low qualities of two, which is the most giving and generous of the types. So, a four in stress reaches out to others for reassurance. And that's not a terrible thing to do, but for a four, that's a sign of things aren't working for me. So, those are the integration and disintegration points. And in the Buddhist Enneagram, I try to equate them with peaceful and wrathful deities. In the Tibetan tradition I was trained in, each deity, or most deities, have various emanations. Some are peaceful and some are wrathful.

The peaceful ones, you know, they're in flowing garments and sitting in clouds and stuff like that. And the wrathful ones have fangs and they're standing on babies and they have necklaces of skulls and, you know, what's up with that? And because, according to the lore, the peaceful and wrathful deities have the same focus, which is your wakefulness and how can we help you with that. So, the peaceful deities through, you know, gentleness and the wrathful deities through sharpness. So, it's useful to integrate and it's useful to disintegrate. And to learn more about your specific journeys of integration and disintegration, the Enneagram can really help. And so the ways you described the Enneagram being useful to you, it gave me direct and specific instructions on how to meet my world with an open heart.

Not on principle, but with actual guidelines. I did say that. You did? I did. And I stand by it. And it's very pragmatic and useful on a practical level. So, for instance, if you are a nine, and my stepson is a nine, and I've been in close relationships with many nines. I love nines. I love all the types, but I really love nines. I know that if I ask him a question, point blank, what do you want to do? Do you want to do this or that? He doesn't know. If I keep pushing, well, you know, this is good because of that and that's good because of this, which one? It won't work. I can't push him because nines, for all their flowiness and ability to see all points of view, are unbelievably stubborn.

You cannot move them. So if I'm saying to him, make a choice, I have to give a lot of space. And just, oh, he's going to do it in this nonlinear way. Great. My husband, my partner, is a one who sees right and wrong, the first type we talked about. So I'm concerned with that, but that's not the first thing that gets my attention. So when we get in an argument, he wants to see where it went wrong and who made a mistake. I don't find that useful. I want to know what does this mean about us and our relationship

and how does it make you feel? And I want you to know how I feel. And I can tell you very precisely exactly how I feel. So wanting to know where we went off the rails and wanting to know what the impact is on each of us emotionally, those are both really important things. And they're different. And for the longest time, I'm like, why are you wasting our time trying to assign blame? And he, I'm sure, thought something similar about me. If we could only figure out where it started, we cannot do it again. So it just gives more space for meeting each other, which of course is everything. It's interesting. If I think about the nine and the conflict avoidance, right? If I look at conflict avoidance through the lens of the Enneagram, then I go, okay, well, I'm avoiding conflict because I'm a nine. You're not avoiding conflict because you're a nine. You're a nine, so you're avoiding conflict.

Ah, got it, got it. The other lens is I avoid conflict because I had angry parents. It wasn't safe to enter into conflict. parents, it wasn't safe to enter into conflict. So I guess this gets at a question that I think is sort of unanswerable, which is to what degree does our conditioning, the experiences that we've had in our lives, make us a particular type? And if that were the case, if that was the sole factor, you would assume you would change type throughout life based on the experiences you were having. And you believe that we kind of are a type. So say more about that. Do you have siblings? Yes. Did they respond to the aggressive home

environment in the same way as you? One of them did, another did not. Yeah. So I have siblings too. Yeah. And we responded in our own ways. I don't know at what point conditioning makes you a type or your type colors the conditioning. I don't know. But three people or 23 people can grow up in the same household and have three or 23 different defenses built. Yeah. So I think the Enneagram

can deconstruct the defenses, but I don't think the conditioning makes the type. I think the type makes the reaction to the conditioning. But I'm making that up. I don't really know. I'm not a therapist or anything like that, but that's my observation. Terima kasih telah menonton! I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

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We've been talking about the Enneagram through the lens of viewing ourselves and working with ourselves more skillfully. You also say that it enables us to see others apart from our likes, dislikes, opinions, and judgments. You sort of touched on it with your husband there, but say more about the way the Enneagram leads us to compassion for others. That's my favorite subject, probably. So here's an example from a place I used to work.

I had a person I worked with, great guys, we're still friends. This is 20 years ago or so. And we worked on creative projects together. And I would sit in my office and noodle around with ideas, and then I'd go into his office and I'd go, I think we might be able to do this, I think this could be a good direction for us to go in. And he would listen to me, and then he would list all the reasons it wouldn't work. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I would leave defeated. And I didn't like myself. I didn't like him. Then I realized he was a six on the Enneagram. Sixes are attuned to danger. They can point out

where the pitfalls are better than anyone else. They're attuned to what could go wrong. And at some point in a creative project, always you need to know what could go wrong. So I stopped telling him my ideas in the germination phase, and I only told him the ideas when I wanted to know what could go wrong. So that's not like the world's most glorious example of compassion, but it softened the relationship that we had. And I understood him better and enabled us to work together more closely. And I stopped trying to make him respond in a way that would make me feel heard and instead work from our strengths together. Does that make sense? It totally does. And I think that's why workplaces more and more embraced things like StrengthsFinder

and Myers-Briggs and all that, which was if you can sort of understand the way people around you respond to certain things, you can take it in a very different way. Like you said, you don't have to take it personal in that case. You use the word skillful means a lot to describe the Enneagram, right? That's skillful means when you can be like, all right, this is the right time to approach this person with this thing. This is the right way. In this example, did that person sort of tell you they were a six? No. Did you intuit they were a six? You've said you really probably shouldn't type other people.

Talk about how we do that skillfully. Yes, thank you. That's really important because we can't really type other people. skillfully. Yes, thank you. That's really important because we can't really type other people. So, when I meet someone or I'm working with someone or teaching and I have a student or a fellow teacher or whatever, I can't help it. I don't do it consciously, but at some point I start to notice the flavor of the type, except sometimes I can never figure it out. But what I have encouraged myself to do and what I encourage others to do is to never say either verbally or through your actions, you are a six, because I don't know. And I sometimes worry about these tests in a workplace environment that they will naturally limit other people. And that makes me

upset. So, that's not a good use. So, instead of saying you're a six to myself or you, I say I feel the energy of six right now. And let's go there. Let's go with that. And maybe you're six, maybe you're not, but I feel the energy of six. So that gives me some ideas about how to speak skillfully or not speak. Yep. Because it does strike me if you mistype someone, that could be problematic. Seriously. Because you go 50 miles down the road thinking they're one person and a kind of person. And a jerk, or you're impatient, or you're right, but we're still assigning people characteristics. Which we have to do. Yeah, there's no sort of avoiding it. But like any of this, I think it's really helpful to recognize like, this is just my current interpretation of this. And how can I hold it loosely? And how can I be willing to see

it change? I think that's beautiful. Totally agree that those are the important questions. Yeah. I love being wrong about people. I really do. I am wrong about people so often. Yeah. Usually for me, when I'm wrong about somebody, it just doesn't happen as much anymore. It happened in the corporate world a lot more because you were exposed to a lot of people with very little depth. As a human, you make an opinion of someone, you have to, like, it's just what the brain does. And I just love to be just over time, be like, boy, I did not see that coming. Or that is not

what I thought. I just love that sort of surprise because A, it's fun and B, it is a reinforcement to me. Like, you don't know. You think you know, but you really don't know. Oh, that's lovely. That's really good. And I agree. I agree. You really don't. We really don't know. At the same time, it's important to make judgments and to assess things and to have your own opinions. And we need to do that. You know, the world is chaotic. But as you say, it's also important to hold those things loosely and be willing to see them change just as you said yep so i want to change directions a little bit here and talk about some other things that were in the book that i really like that aren't necessarily enneagram specific although

you may bring them back there but one of them is a quote that you use from, I think it's a Zen master, Sokuzan, who said, the knot of the mind untangles itself in space. I love that phrase. Say more about why you love it and what it means to you. How fabulous is that? Yeah, it's so good. The knot of the mind untangles itself in space. And he's a great teacher. If anyone wants to look up Soku Zan, he teaches in Michigan or Wisconsin. Sorry, people in Michigan and Wisconsin. He's a great, wonderful Zen teacher. I think what this points to is something so essential, which is that the things that we want most in this life, and I feel very confident saying this about all of us, even though I can't see any of us except you, is we want love.

We want wisdom, insight, to be able to see clearly. We want creative self-expression. We want to innovate. These are the things that most of us value above other things. Those things all have one thing in common. us value above other things. Those things all have one thing in common. They are things that we receive, not things that we can transmit, not things that we can will into existence. You can't will love into existence. You can't will insight into existence. But if you relax and make space, insight arises. I don't think it's a mystery that some of the world's greatest

discoveries have happened to people who are sleeping, you know, or taking a shower, because there's a space and things arise. So, meditation practice is the practice, among other things, of becoming comfortable in that space of receptivity and in beginning it, and in beginning it. I know that's not a word. The knot of mind untangles itself in space is saying much more eloquently and beautifully, I think, the same thing. If you just relax, everything will untangle itself. So once I heard a teacher say, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, that the more he studies and practices,

the more he sees that the entire spiritual path can be boiled down to one word. And that word is relax. Yeah. Which doesn't mean sleep. It means be with, it means allow. Yep. Yeah. It's so interesting that that idea or that point of spiritual practice being relaxing or allowing, because like you said, it doesn't mean sleep. And the idea of doing spiritual practice, that takes a certain degree of will or discipline to engage in these practices. And yet, it's like we need the will and discipline to carry us part of the way. And then, like, they become absolute hindrances. That's my experience. It's like the will or the discipline is helpful to get me to meditate. But at that moment, it becomes a huge problem. It becomes a huge block, you know, and there, you know, really is about like, okay, now I kind of have to let this be the way it is.

Within your technique. Yes. So if you let things be and also sort of slump into the technique, metaphorically or literally, it doesn't work. So it needs some combination of precision and letting go. And for meditation, the technique is the precise piece. You take a posture, you work with your breath, you work with your mind in a particular way, and that creates the container for whatever will arise. But the great Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist's Way, said, the first rule of magic is containment. And I will never forget that as long as I live. And in our spiritual practice, the technique or the practice, whatever it is you do,

is the container. And without it, there is no magic. Yeah. So you have an upcoming class uh i don't know if you'd call it a class maybe you'll call it a program a seminar i don't know what you call it but it's on the heart sutra oh yeah a retreat yeah retreat that you're gonna teach at your house in austin and as a zen student i'm very familiar with the heart sutra it's i mean you can't turn around without getting hit over the head with the Heart Sutra. I wasn't as aware, though. Is it that big a part of Tibetan tradition also? Or is it just something that has meant a lot to you? Both. It's been a central part of the Tibetan tradition that I've been trained in. And it's meant a lot to me. I think the Prashnaparamita Sutra is valued across

the board in all Buddhist traditions. But I'd say especially in the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions, it's viewed as essential and very much connected exactly as you said with Zen because it is from the Mahayana schools and is a guidebook, you know, directions for understanding emptiness to the point that you are liberated from suffering. I don't know. Not having actually completed that task myself, I trust that it's true, but I don't know. It is one of the things that for a long time I heard and I went, I have no idea what they're talking about. I have no idea either. I read a lot of Buddhist stuff and I feel like I understand kind of what they're saying. And then I would hear that, and I'd be like, all right, I am completely lost. So I've now done enough reading about it that it has some context for me, and my Zen training is put into context. But it is a particularly interesting text. Yes.

And what I try to encourage myself and students to ask is not, what does this mean? Because you will never, ever get an answer to that question. But what does this mean to me today? Because it's like a living text. You know, it speaks the language of another realm. I don't want to sound all woo-woo, but it's like emissive from beyond the beyond. And so, can you relate with it is a better approach than can you understand what it means? Because it points to non-dual reality, which cannot be understood, because once you say, oh, I've understood it, then you've stepped out of it. Yeah. Makes me think of, I don't know who said this, might have been the spiritual teacher, Adyashanti. He said, when I would hear someone say something, like a spiritual teacher would

say something that would make no sense to me, I would hear someone say something, like a spiritual teacher would say something that would make no sense to me, I would ask myself, what might the mind of someone be like for that statement to make sense? I just thought that was a really like fascinating way to go into it. I also think as you're saying, it's also really important to go, okay, well, that's maybe what that mind looks like. And I have to trust my own experience. What does this mean to me? You know, along with relaxing, I would say that has been the other thing that I felt like has been a real aid in my later years of my spiritual journey is to really trust my own experience. Like, this is what is happening for me inside me. I'm not putting what

I think I should be feeling or what this should be like, but this is actually what is happening for me, inside me. I'm not putting what I think I should be feeling or what this should be like, but this is actually what is happening. For me, my own experience has been a big piece along with this sort of relaxing. That's so important. That is so important because that's the inner teacher. Yeah. And it is trustworthy. I once heard Khandro Rinpoche, a great female Buddhist Rinpoche, say, the job of the outer teacher, the Adyashantis, who are so great, the Khandro Rinpoches, and so on, the job of the outer teacher is to introduce you to the inner teacher.

And the job of the inner teacher is to introduce you to what in Tibetan Buddhism is called the secret teacher, which is the nature of all things. And if someone doesn't make their hand off, something's gone wrong. So your outer teachers have introduced you to the inner teacher. It's wonderful that that voice of wisdom is present. It's you. It's not some strange voice. It's you, but it is trustworthy, I would say. All right. I want to end with one other thing that you write in the book. You said, whether it's Buddhism or the Enneagram we use to try and shut the door to our suffering, it simply blows open again and again.

Then you say, we could latch it tighter or just walk outside into the storm. Both are understandable choices, but problems arise when we try to do both at the same time or think we are doing one when we are really doing the other. Say a little bit more about that. That sentence really intrigued me. Yeah, there's a lot to say about that. I'm listening to it. I'm like, what did she mean when she said that? Oh, that was me. Okay. Well, I and other many, all of us somehow think, well, I'm going to find a way to suffer less by appearing to walk out into the storm, by taking on difficult situations with an agenda. And my agenda is to suffer less. Okay, that's a good agenda. But then once there's an agenda

attached to it, like I want my meditation practice to make me this and unmake me that, and well, the practice sort of turns its back on you. We all have an agenda. No one does spiritual practice without one. But if you can let go of it while you are practicing and just allow an experience to unfold, then something begins to metabolize. And I guess I said walk into the storm because when you open to your experience, it's chaotic. It cannot be made sense of. It cannot be ordered.

It cannot be predicted. You're buffeted about. That's also why I think I would say it's a warrior's journey. It takes a lot of courage to do that. And what I try to tell myself when I'm like, oh, enough, enough already with all the spiritual practices and the walking into the storms and so on. I just want to feel okay. And I do. What I try to remember is something that the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche said, which is, the bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hold on to, no parachute. And that is what it feels like. The good news is there is no ground. You're never going to hit the ground. So can you relax in the action of falling, I guess is the takeaway there. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I love that quote. And I think that's a great place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much, Susan, for coming on again. It's always a pleasure to spend time with you. I really enjoyed the book. I learned a lot about the Enneagram that gives me more to think about.

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