The One You Feed - Jonathan Robinson on How to Explore Awareness

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Jonathan Robinson is a psychotherapist, best-selling author of many books, and a professional speaker. His work has been translated into 47 languages. Jonathan has made numerous appearances on the Oprah show and CNN as well as other national TV talk shows. He has spent over 35 years studying the most practical and powerful methods for personal and professional development and is also known for his popular podcast, Awareness Explorers.In this episode, Eric and Jonathan discuss enlightenment as well as various techniques to explore our awareness.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!In This Interview, Eric and Jonathan Robinson Discuss How to Explore Our Awareness and …His definition of enlightenment: a shift in identity from ego-personality to presence and awarenessEnlightenment is being at peace in the present momentHis humbling experience of speaking to Mother TheresaExperimenting with and being willing to try different techniques to help shift your viewHow having gratitude and saying “Thank You” many times a day can change your experienceTechniques and phrases for working with our judgmental mindLearning to not take our views so seriouslyHow being more playful in our lives can bring the feeling of freedomHis powerful technique for happiness: not letting your mind take over when you’re enjoying somethingThe different forms of inquiry we can practiceQuestions we can ask that can reorient ourselves from our problem seeking mindsMaking a pain and pleasure list and scheduling things from your pleasure listJonathan Robinson Links:Jonathan’s WebsiteAwareness Explorers PodcastFacebookUpstart: The fast and easy way to get a personal loan to consolidate, lower your interest rate, and pay off your debt. Go to www.upstart.com/wolfIf you enjoyed this conversation with Jonathan Robinson, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Dorothy Hunt on The Heart of AwarenessMary O’Malley on Practical AwakeningSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why am I feeling this? When did I first feel this? What does this part of me want? What's its need? By tapping into what we really want and need in a certain moment, it can lead us to a place of happiness and peace. 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. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Jonathan. 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. Robinson, a psychotherapist, bestselling author of many books, and a professional speaker. His work has been translated into 47 languages. Jonathan has made numerous appearances on The Oprah Show and CNN, as well as other national TV talk shows. He's spent over 35 years studying the most practical and powerful methods for personal and professional development. And in addition,

Jonathan is known for his popular podcast, Awareness Explorers. Hi, Jonathan. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. I'm really excited to be here. I am excited to talk with you. You and I talked recently on your podcast, the wonderful podcast Awareness Explorers. So we'll be talking about a lot of the topics there, as well as some of the stuff that comes up in many of the books that you've written. But before we do any of that, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there is a grandparent talking with her 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 and looks up at their grandparent and says, well, which wolf 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. Well, I hope to give a slightly unusual answer. Imagine Yoda saying, the one you feed, like he might say, impatient you are. You know, we look at the world in terms of good and bad, but if you go beyond mind stuff, it's all one. There's no good and bad other than in our mind. So I think the grandpa is saying our mind. So I think the grandpa is saying to his grandson, feed the one. Feed not good or bad.

Feed the fact that everything's interconnected, that we're all one, that there's something beyond like and dislike, good, bad, up and down, called reality. And our job is to get back to the oneness of reality, because that's where true peace is. I love it. Feeding the one, feeding the unity, paying attention to the unity. Let's start by talking a little bit about enlightenment. Your podcast, Awareness Explorers, you've interviewed a number of people who at least make claims in that direction towards enlightenment. You've interviewed people like Ram Dass, the Dalai Lama in the past, who are certainly very esteemed spiritual leaders. What does that word enlightenment mean to you? Is it a useful word? Is it a confusing word? Do you use it? Well, like any word that refers to a big thing, love, God, enlightenment, you always have to

define the term because they mean totally different things to different people. So I'll say that enlightenment is when you shift your identity from your ego personality to just simple, open presence and awareness in this moment. And a lot of people have done that. It's not as hard as we tend to think. We tend to think you have to practice for 50 years to do that. But there are a bunch of people that I've interviewed, and I think all of us experience that for moments in our life. And that when we live beyond our ego and into the state of compassionate, loving awareness, life is a totally different experience. Right. I think when I think about this question of enlightenment, I agree a lot with what you said. It's sort of this going beyond this small

sense of self. And we tend to think of it as a state that we arrive at and that's it. And it seems much more that people sort of dip in and out of it. You know, we're there, we're not there, we have degrees of it, it's along a continuum. And the other thing about the traditional enlightenment experience that's often described, particularly in the Zen tradition, where we talk a lot about Satori or Kens Whereas if you have been more gradually seeing more and more degrees of truth, it's not so sudden. So I've joked before that if you were to take the 22-year-old heroin addicted me and put him in my brain, he might think he was enlightened. He might really be like, oh my God, like this is so different. This is so peaceful, right? And I'm not claiming I'm enlightened. I'm just saying that the contrast oftentimes I think makes those really sudden moments seem like they're so special

because there's just a strong contrast. Quite true. And a lot of the most enlightened people I've interviewed, whether it be the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa or whoever, once you, it becomes more of your normal state after a while. You know, let's just call it peace and presence. It's not necessarily fireworks going off. It's not necessarily that you have all knowledge of the universe. You can be a pretty screwed-up human being, not a screwed-up human being, but have a screwed-up life, and still be rather enlightened because it doesn't give you any special power other than you're in touch with the peace of this moment, and your mind is not so much playing tricks on you. You're just open, compassionate awareness. Well, sometimes you can get used to that.

And sometimes if you haven't had that for a while, it's like, oh, my God, that's incredible. Right. But really, it's our natural state. Yeah, it is amazing. I often reflect that it's one of the best and most challenging parts of being human is our ability to habituate, right? The fact that we can habituate to anything is really, it's a great survival skill. You know, it's a really important thing. And, you know, it means we can deal with lots of challenges and upsets, but it also means that we do get used to positive states and they do seem ordinary. And we often, our brains tend to be drawn towards

change, difference, novelty. It's part of the wiring of the brain to look for difference, change. That's true. Because that's what would have traditionally represented danger. Well, the good thing about enlightenment or moments of enlightenment, we'll call it, is that in those moments, things do seem new. You know, we always bring the past into the present, but enlightenment could be called moments where you're just really there and it's new. It's like a child. Yep. So what was it like to talk to Mother Teresa? I mean, that's a pretty big one. Ram Dass, I'm like, okay, yeah, Dalai Lama. All right. yeah, but like Mother Teresa, that seems like a big deal to me. Right, right. Well, anytime I've talked to any of these

people that you may have heard of, Byron Katie, Adyashanti, Mother Teresa, whoever, it's very humbling, partly because they are very humble, and they're very vulnerable, and they're very human. and they're very vulnerable and they're very human. So when I was talking to Mother Teresa, I felt like I was talking to the deepest, most vulnerable part of myself because she was kind and sweet and generous and human. You know, she said after a while, do you have what you need? I'm really tired and I really need a nap. And I thought that was so sweet. Yeah, it's funny. I love Adi Ashanti dearly. We've talked to him like four times on the show. I think he and I have a great connection. I'm not going to put him in the same sentence with Mother Teresa, though. Actually, not from a wisdom perspective, but just from, I mean, she is someone I so admire.

These people who are so dedicated to serving other people with little or no reward always strike me as they feel almost like a different breed in some way to me. Since you brought her up, I was just looking at a letter she sent me. And I'll read it. I've never read this letter to basically anyone other than my wife. And, you know, it's handwritten. It's amazing that she took the time. I sent her my book in which I interviewed a lot of spiritual leaders called The Experience of God. And she said, I received your copies of your book along with your letter. Thank you so much for sending them.

God loves you for your deep interest in the things of God. I will pray for you that Jesus may fill you with his Holy Spirit, whom he has promised would lead us all into our truth. I'm sorry that I will not be able to appear on a TV talk show called Oprah with you. I am sure that you understand this. Keep the joy of loving God in your heart and spread that joy to all you meet, especially those closest to you. Happy and holy new year. I pray for you and God bless you, Mother Teresa. That's amazing to me. Even Oprah can't get Mother Teresa. She's like, sorry, got things to do. Well, she's not focused on the world and we get very lost in the world.

Right. And that's part of the problem. You know, we think a thousand Facebook likes or a thousand Facebook friends equals one really good friend, but it really doesn't. And we're learning that spending so much time in social media or worry or, you know, it's kind of like we have a victim Olympics now. Everybody's trying to be the biggest victim. And yet peace is very much just in this moment, in your heart, and it's available to all of us. And the good news is that it's never far away.

So what would you say from having interviewed a lot of great spiritual teachers over time? And I think your approach with Awareness Explorers has been a little bit more focused on what we would think of as awakening maybe than everything. But what do you think are a couple of the key learnings that you've taken from the Awareness Explorers podcast that have meant something in your life that have caused you to live or do something differently? Yeah, it's a great question. One thing I would say is that people who have progressed have usually done a lot of trial and error and found a few things that really work for them. And it may not have been in their tradition that they brought up with. It may be that they just stumbled upon some technique or phrase or very simple thing often that just made for exponential growth. And that's why in the Awareness Explorers podcast, we often

talk about very simple techniques. And I tell people, try different techniques, especially ones that you can use in daily life so you don't have to spend all your life on meditation cushion. Try techniques that take five seconds to do that. See if they can propel you into a slightly different view to propel you into your heart, to propel you into compassion, to help you find a place of peace even while you're walking to your car. If you can do that, your life changes because then you have a friend for life. Yeah. So I think that's true. I think that idea and that spirit of experimentation is really important. I've been reflecting on this a little bit recently with a

couple of coaching clients of mine, and we were reflecting on two things about that. One is that sometimes you find a technique that works for you and it helps you shift your view. I like the way you said that. I think shifting of view is such a great way of describing all of this. You find a technique that helps you shift your view and then it stops working. It was useful for a time. So sometimes something that was working stops working. And conversely, I think a lot of times the technique we may have tried before that didn't do much for us at a later stage in our growth or journey can be very beneficial because we've changed and shifted enough. And so I think that spirit of

experimentation and being willing to try different things is really so important. And a certain sense of playfulness about it is really helpful. I totally agree with you. And you're right, some things that didn't work now work and some things that worked for you, people have a hard time letting go. It worked for me for 10 years and now it's not working, but they use it for 10 more years, and they could be using something much better. When I interviewed a bunch of these spiritual leaders, one of the things that surprised me was how often people talked about gratitude. I thought people would talk more about love or consciousness or things like that, and I was kind of taken aback that so many people mentioned that gratitude was a doorway. Well, I'd kept a gratitude journal and I found it boring.

And, you know, I forced myself to do it and it wasn't very good. So, you know, I kind of gave up on that technique. And then a friend of mine came back from India a few years ago, and he looked like he was totally lit up. And I said, what happened? And he said, well, my guru gave me a mantra for feeling overwhelming gratitude. Well, that perked up my ears. So I said, well, what's the mantra? You know, I always want the best technique. And he said, well, you have to go to India to get it from the guru personally.

I said, ah, crap, you know. Have you ever been to India, Eric? I have not, no. I mean, it's a long plane ride away. It's a long way to get a phrase, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I'm persistent. So I flew there and took a rickshaw for four hours, flew there and took a rickshaw for four hours, finally get to the Guru's ashram. And I explained to him after waiting for a while what I wanted. And he said in his Indian accent, oh yes, my mantra is the best mantra on earth. And he leans in to whisper it into my ear. I'm so excited. You know, I flew all this way. And he says, whenever possible,

repeat these words. The mantra I give you for feeling overwhelming gratitude is thank you. Well, I look at him, I'm figuring he's like joking with me, but he's totally serious. And I go, thank you. That's it. I traveled 18,000 miles to get thank you. That's it. And he goes, no, that's it is a mantra you have been using. And that makes you feel like you never have enough. My mantra is thank you. Not that's it. That's it will take you nowhere. So I'm totally I'm totally pissed off. So I look at him, I make a snide face and I go, well, thank you. And he says, thank you is not the mantra. You must say it from your heart many times a day. So when you eat good food, say thank you. Or when you see your child or a sunset or your pet, say thank you from your heart for

five seconds and you'll feel overwhelming gratitude. Well, you know, I had nothing to lose. So when I went back to my hotel room, you know, I said, thank you for the air conditioning. And then I said, thank you that there was water running, you know, in India, there's nothing guaranteed. Right. And then I opened up my computer and I think, well, thank you for this computer. I mean, this is 50,000 years of human ingenuity in a little box in front of me. And then I Skype my wife. I'm talking to my wife on the other side of the planet for free instantaneously. I say, thank you. And it hits me how much we actually do have. So tears of gratitude start coming down my eyes. And my wife looks at me and she says, that must have been some mantra he gave you. And I said, yeah, you won't believe

it, you know. So gratitude in terms of journal or other things that I was doing, little meditations didn't work. But saying thank you for this moment, 20 times a day for five seconds, actually does really change my experience. And once you find a technique that works for you, you have a friend that is like your best friend, because if you can change your consciousness quickly, that's better than money, that's better than anything else. That's a great story. So has that approach continued to work for you to continue to just say thank you? You know, do you say thank you for your computer every time you remain thankful for the computer? Or is it something, you know, like the gratitude journal, like you said, I had similar experiences where I'm like, all right,

you know, it's starting to feel like I'm going through the motions here. Right. How do you avoid it feeling like I'm going through the motions here. Right. How do you avoid it feeling like you're going through the motions? Well, the good news is I have a bunch of techniques, you know, like five or six I cycle through. So every day I choose what technique I'm going to focus on. And I write it on a post-it note. And I put it in a couple places. So today's my thank you day. Now, do I get used to it? If I did

it every day, I would. But really, the key is I drop down from my head into my heart, I feel my heart. And in my case, I kind of say thank you to creation. And it's not always thanking for the same thing. You know, my knee hurt yesterday. Today Today it doesn't. I'm thinking, oh, thank you for my knee, you know, and it's only five seconds. I can then turn to my dog. Thank you for my dog. I can thank you for being on this podcast. I can thank the weather is nice outside. I mean, it's endless and I keep it new by only doing it one day a week. What are some other techniques, like what's tomorrow gonna be? What's gonna be on the Post-it note for tomorrow?

Do you know? I'll go over a few of them. Sometimes they're just a simple phrase. Now, I don't know about you, but I have a judgmental mind and I bet a bunch of your listeners do too. So I'm trying to be more compassionate, more loving. I have definite opinions about how people should be handling the pandemic. And some people are not doing what I think they should.

I have definite opinions about politics, and some people are doing differently than I think about that, etc. You know, we have a lot of polarization. And if you're trying to feed the one, it's not about them being good or bad. It's how can I feel more compassionate? So I've come up with some phrases that help me to feel more compassionate when I notice I'm judging people. One of those phrases is, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Now, you may have heard somebody stole that from me a couple thousand years ago.

Yeah, yeah. And I have forgiven him for stealing that from me. I'm just kidding, of course. But people don't know what they're doing. People, including me, often do unconscious things. So when somebody is doing something that I think might be detrimental, I say, hey, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Or I might say, it must be hard being them.

You know, if somebody is doing something I think is really detrimental to their kid or something or to their own health, I think, wow, it must be really hard being them. And that helps me feel compassion. Or I might say, hey, I don't really know what's best. That helps me to realize why should I be so judgmental? I'm not God. I don't know what's best for somebody else. So tomorrow is my phrase day for feeling compassion. Okay. What are some others? I pulled a motivation you did about five phrases to ease your judgmental mind. So I think you've given us a couple. Got a couple more in there? Sure. One of the things I do is I might say,

how is what they're doing like what I do? Yesterday, there was a guy tailgating me like three inches from my bumper. And I'm starting to get annoyed at this guy. inches from my bumper, you know, and I'm starting to get annoyed at this guy. And then I think, well, how is that like me? A lot of times I'm in a hurry or I'm tailgating someone or I'm not giving somebody space. And as soon as I realized, how's that like me? I just let it go. That's a great one. I have that experience driving to where I'll be like, somebody will just do something and I'll think, what a jerk. And then I'll think, I have done that 50 times in my life, 100 times in my life, 10 minutes ago. Right, right. idea that I really got from Buddhism that really stresses this fact, which is like, everybody wants to be happy. Everybody wants to avoid suffering. So like, if I look at like something like you said, and I think, well, how is that like something I do? I may get there. I may

not, right? Because I may look at that and go, well, I don't do that. But if I drop down another level or another level, I realized at the end of the day, what they're doing is the same thing that I do, which is I try and feel happier and I try and avoid suffering. And they're doing the same thing. Now, our strategies are different, but underneath, and I've always found that to be another way to keep drilling down, you know, how is that like me? Okay, maybe it's not on the surface level, but one layer down or another layer down. Eventually, I get to, if I have to, that common layer, which is, okay, they're trying to avoid suffering. Right. And that would be an example of a phrase that came to you that's real to you, that through trial and error really has impact on how you look at the world. Another phrase I use is, they are being a perfect them.

Yeah, I heard that one when you said it, and I loved it. I thought that is so good. They're being a perfect them. Say a little bit more about that. Well, you can do it in an experiential way. Imagine your favorite politician that you hate, or that you love to hate. It'll be different people for different folks. And even if you think they're a bad person and they shouldn't be doing what they're doing, it's kind of like in a movie where you see a bad guy and you can appreciate how well they're being a bad guy, how much you dislike them. They're just doing a perfect bad guy. And your favorite politician that you love to hate is kind of like that, like, wow, they're really doing that role really well. And I encountered a very nasty cashier a couple days ago. They were very rude. And I thought, wow, they're really doing the rude

cashier thing really well. If we needed a rude cashier in a movie, that would be the first person I would pick because they're doing it perfectly. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's such a great one. It's a hard one when we start talking about politicians or people in pandemics who are not behaving the way we think they should, because we go, well, it has real impact and real consequence on people. So I think all these things are, as you're saying, they're just ways of shifting our view. It's not like we stay on that view. That's the only view. It's not to say we don't think that person's doing great harm, but it's a way of shifting our view so that we can be a little bit more flexible in the way we view the world.

Absolutely. And, you know, if you have the don't know mind, like I don't really know what's best, you know, for example, is a pandemic good or bad? 99.9% of people would say it's bad. But what if there's a worse pandemic coming in two years that we don't know? And because we now are better prepared, right prepared because of the science and the things that we've had to do to deal with this stuff, when it comes to the worst pandemic, we're going to be ready. We don't know what the future is. So I think it's helpful to look at the world and, well, I don't really know what's best. I have my opinions. The problem is that we believe our beliefs. Right. Yeah, we do. And I always find this one of the hardest aspects of the spiritual life to navigate, which is that a certain degree of awakening shows you that, as you said, it's all

kind of one. And there is a place perhaps beyond good and bad, that there is this different view of the world that doesn't divide it up. So there's that, and that's very real. And there's the life we're living right here. You know, that in Zen, we talk about the absolute and the relative. And it's a teaching I reference often because it's being able to hold both those views and move between them that I find both very important to being both liberated and being a compassionate, ethical, moral human being. And I think it's an interesting dilemma to find our way back and forth between those places. Yeah, in my podcast, we often talk about two wings of a plane. One wing is realizing that we don't know, to trying to feed the one, to trying to see beyond good and bad.

And the other wing is discernment, is being effective in the world, making wise choices, and being able to act passionately on our beliefs. And if you have two wings well-developed, that plane can soar. But if you only have one wing well-developed, that plane is likely to go around in circles and eventually crash. Yeah, it makes me think of a phrase by, I can never say the guy's name, Nisargadatta, who says, wisdom is knowing I am nothing, love is knowing I am everything, and between the two, my life moves.

And I just love that phrase. It speaks to exactly what you just said, the two wings of an airplane. Yeah, and as a coach, what I often do is I try to ascertain which wing is weaker. I think people should work on their weak wing because that one, if you don't work on it and it really falls apart, the plane's going down. But in this culture, we focus a lot on getting good at the world and making decisions and getting good at money, but we don't necessarily focus so much on love, compassion, unity, that other wing, which is half of what it is to be a human being. Yeah, you need both. But to your point, 98% of us, 99% of us care only about the things of, not only, but very much about the things of the world and the outside

events. And so what most of us need is a nudge back towards, you know, the deeper realities of life or, you know, what we might call spiritual. Spiritual just being a clarity on what really matters to us, what's really important. I have a refrigerator magnet. It's a quote from the Buddha. And it says, do not search for peace in the world. You will not find it there. Peace is only found within. And in a way, that's an uplifting message because I don't know about you, but it seems like things are getting really crazy out there, Eric. We're having several catastrophes hitting us at once. And if you're trying to find peace in the material world right now, you're going through a lot of stress. But that's just one channel. There is another channel. And on the other channel,

the channel one versus channel two, on channel one, it's always peaceful. It's always just right now. It's always very simple. And our mission, should we decide to accept it, is to get good at balancing out channel one and channel two and creating a life that works for not just you, but for the people around you. If you dread looking at your credit card statements, you are certainly not alone. The weight of debt can be crippling. I've been there. I had lots of debt on lots of different credit cards, and I could barely bear to open the envelopes each month. They just sort of sat there and piled up.

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and you can get loans between $1,000 and $50,000. Find out how Upstart can lower your monthly payments today when you go to upstart.com slash wolf. That's upstart.com slash wolf. Don't forget to use our URL to let them know we sent you. Loan amounts will be determined based on your credit, income, and certain other information provided in your loan application. Upstart.com slash wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know 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. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer.

We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend.

Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really.

Yeah, Really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. Register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think that's really well said and really important is it is a balance of the channels. We can get the message that it's all about what's inside us. It's only about our internal state.

And if we think that's true, then we often we don't live in the world in a way that serves our best interest. I love that balancing out the channels. I think the spiritual teacher Ajahn Chah once said, if I see a guy about to go off the road into a ditch on the left, I shove him to the right. And if I see him about to go off a ditch on the right, I shove him to the left. And it's so knowing it's where we do. And so in the coaching work I do, it's a very similar thing. It's sort of, you've got to ascertain, okay, it's the same thing isn't what everybody needs because some people, you know, have got that thing down really well. They need a different tool. So I think it's back to that idea a little bit earlier about flexibility, right? It's about being able to move between these different realities, these different insights, these different views, these different stories

of the world. It's, you know, I have become more and more focused on this idea of flexibility of our views. You know, how can we be flexible? We're always taking a view. We can't really not do it, but we can certainly learn to be a whole lot more flexible in them. And we can learn to not take our view quite so seriously, you know? Yes. If you look back on your life, you can say, well, I believe that way back when, what was I thinking? You know, and 10 years from now, we'll probably believe that way back when, what was I thinking? You know, and 10 years from now, we'll probably be doing the same thing with what we're thinking now. I like to think beliefs are like outfits that you try on. Oh, I'm now playing the, I'm a spiritual seeker belief, or I'm now playing like I know what I'm doing in the stock market

belief, but it's all with a certain amount of amusement, a certain amount of playfulness. all with a certain amount of amusement, a certain amount of playfulness. You know, all kids play, and really all animals or mammals play. But a lot of times adults lose that sense of play. They don't even play tennis. They compete at tennis or they compete at golf. You know, I think we need to be able to be playful with our own thoughts and beliefs. And that gives us a certain amount of freedom right there. And it's a freedom that not only gives ourselves freedom, but it gives other people interact with us a certain spaciousness and freedom. Because we're all very serious now, you know, problems, plans, pandemic, money, worries, depression, the whole thing. And really, you know, as a kid, we all kind of play with this stuff. We're not waiting for everything in the world to be okay before we have a good time

with our friend. Yep, that is really true. And I've, over the years, have really started to work on that play element. Because like you said, I will immediately turn something that is fun into something I'm competing at. Like I took up rock climbing recently, indoor rock climbing, and I love it. And I've had to be careful that, you know, part of it is just my nature. And I just let it do what it's going to do, which is like, I'm like, I want to climb that. And then I'm going to climb the harder one, then the harder one and the harder one. So some of that I just take with a grain of salt. But to some extent, I also have really just tried to also just focus on the enjoyment of being up there and the feeling of just the pleasure of doing it.

And whether I stay on V2s, as they call them in bouldering, or V3s the rest of my life, so what? Yeah, it's really a matter of are you really enjoying yourself? I've written some books about happiness, and I'm going to give you the single best happiness technique I've ever come across. Are you ready? I am ready. Okay. If you're enjoying a moment, don't let your mind hijack you away from the moment so that if you're playing with your dogs and you have a thought, oh, I need to get back to work, give yourselves another frigging minute to

play with your dogs. You know, if you're having a good conversation with a friend on the phone and the thought comes up, oh, I got to make another call, give yourself another two minutes and just tell your friend how much you're enjoying this. You can literally double your amount of enjoyment just by giving yourself a little bit more room, a little bit more play, a little bit more space, and not being so committed to always being on top, getting stuff done at the most efficient rate possible. You know, I'm a type A personality too, Eric. So I have had to learn this.

And it's really a wonderful feeling to like just let some of that constriction go and be a little bit more like a kid again. And you know, we're here to have a good time. Yep. You guys had a podcast recently where you talked about the five different types of inquiry. I think questions are really important. I think inquiry is really important. Can you walk us through what those different types of inquiry are? Do you remember that one? I do remember. I don't know if I'll

be able to say all five. One of them, of course, is Byron Katie's work, which she has four questions in a turnaround. And the first question I love, or really the first two questions are, can you absolutely know for sure that this is true? So you're thinking, ah, the politics is all screwed up. Can you know for sure that that's true? Or you're thinking, you know, this person shouldn't have done that to me. Can you know for sure that that's true? Just asking that question gives you a little bit of space. And then there's Ramana Maharshi's inquiry, which is trying to get you back to this place of pure awareness. I actually have a funny story about that. Many years ago, I went to India a prior time to see this guru named Poonjaji, who you may have heard of. He was a disciple, Ramana

Maharshi. And I didn't really know what the scene was there. So I walk into a house, which ends up was his ashram, and there's like 30 people sitting in front of him. He's a big bald-headed guy, and he looks at me, points at me, and he says, you sit here right in front of me. So I'm like nervous. I sit in front of him, and he gets really close to my face, and he says, who are you? Well, I didn't know anything about Ramana Maharshi or any of this stuff. So I say, I'm Jonathan Robinson from the United States. And he and everybody in the room just bust up laughing. And I think, well, that was the wrong answer. So he goes, No, no, who are you really? And I go, I'm a seeker. And he shakes his head no. I go, well, I'm a man.

Shakes his head no. A writer, no. I do this for like 20 things. You know, I'm a husband. I'm a tennis player. He keeps shaking his head no. Finally, I run out of things to say. I look in his eyes and his eyes were like beams of light coming out. And I decided to just shut up and look in his eyes. And I was really overwhelmed by an incredible wave of love. And it was so strong that I just started sobbing in his lap. And as I'm sobbing in his lap, he says to me, this love that you feel now, this peace that you feel now is who you really are. And your job in life is to never forget that. And that's really who we are somewhere in us. You know, thank the creation that we have that inside of us, call it a soul or consciousness or awareness or God, doesn't

matter what you call it. But by asking, well, who am I? That's a form of inquiry that can help you see through the character that you're currently playing. Yeah. You know, our job is to go from a role to our soul. And one form of inquiry is called, who are you or what are you? And I like that form of inquiry because it's very quick for the people that it works for yep another form of inquiry is just

asking people questions like you and i ask on our podcast you know just wanting to learn what do i want to learn and you know you are really good at that and by going with your curiosity, what do I want to know now? That's a form of inquiry. I tell people, what question, if you knew the answer to it, would change your life? What are you really yearning to know? And I say, follow that question. So that's a form of inquiry. And then there's forms of inquiry where you kind of go into a feeling and you say, well, why am I feeling this? When did I first feel this? What does this part of me want? What's its need? And by tapping into what we really want and need in a certain moment, it can lead us to a place of happiness and peace. Those are great inquiries. I'm thinking of a section in one of your earlier

books where you're talking about questions and you say questions are a quick and powerful way to change your focus and what you focus on grows. Our emotional state is largely determined by what we think about. And then you have four questions that I really like, and these are not necessarily the same level of deep spiritual insight questions about the essence of who we are, but I really liked them as four questions that can help us move from a state of sort of unhappiness into one that's a little bit more open. I can't imagine you remember what the four are, but maybe you do. But I have them in front of me if you don't. I might know what they are, but you might as well say them so I don't embarrass

myself. What small successes have I had recently? What can I feel grateful for? We've sort of covered this. Who do I love and or who loves me? And what do I appreciate about myself? And I really like those. I think those are four really helpful questions that will reorient what we're paying attention to. Yeah. And the great thing is that there's always something that you can appreciate about yourself. There's always someone or some pet that you're loving or have loved. There's always some success. If you got out of bed and made it to the toilet today, that was a success. Not everybody does that. There are ways to kind of counter the mind. The mind is kind of always looking for problems. It's always looking for what's wrong and what can

I do about it? You don't have to force the mind in that direction. That's a given. A guest we had on called Mary O'Malley. She would be a great guest for your show, by the way. She's written a couple of amazing books, but she referred to our brains as problem factories. And I loved that because that image really worked for me because I was like, that's the way my brain works. As soon as one comes off the assembly line, it's like another one gets cranked out. There's a problem factory one after the other. Yeah.

And that's its job. And it does a wonderful job. There's a problem factory, one after the other. Yeah, and that's its job. And it does a wonderful job. It's a perfect them. But the important thing is to realize that there is something beyond mind. And if you can both listen to your mind and also not listen to your mind, then you can be happy. But if you are always on channel two, always what are the problems, then it's going to really limit your experience of life quite a bit.

Say a little bit more about that. There's something beyond mind. Well, people talk about it in different ways and people experience it in different ways. So you can talk about intellectually, like it's deep peace, it's connection with everything, it's oneness. Some people tune into it through poetry, or some people tune into it by being in a redwood forest, or some people tune into it by making love or looking into the eyes of their child or their pet. So it's a quiet, wordless place where reality is not being hijacked by a constant dialogue, by a constant narration. And we do have little moments of it. And I'm kind of like on a treasure hunt for more of those moments. Right before the podcast, I was petting my dog, looking in her eyes

and telling her how much I loved her. Well, that was beyond mine. That was petting my dog, looking in her eyes and telling her how much I loved her. Well, that was beyond mine. That was like, you know, it's had somebody walked in the room, then I would have been embarrassed. But it was like, we're both in love. We're both devoted to each other. It was so sweet. And then I thought, well, I better get ready for the podcast. And then I thought, well, let me do this for 30 more seconds, because this is the juice of life. And then I thought, well, let me do this for 30 more seconds, because this is the juice of life. And we all want juice. And the mind, you know, is there for taking care of problems and making us money and doing those things.

But you really have to give this other world its due, the world of oneness. 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. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you

and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really.

No really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's another technique that you talk about in one of your books called the pain and pleasure list. Could you say just a little bit about what that is? I thought it was an interesting way to look at shifting some of our priorities. Yeah, well, most people have a list of the things that they don't want to do that are difficult that they don't like. You know, it might be like taxes. Well,

when you're making a list of the pains in your life, the question to ask is, can I delegate this to anyone? You know, I don't like house cleaning, Eric. So I now pay somebody to clean my house. And it's great. So making a list of your pains and seeing if you can reduce any of them will immediately lead to being more happy. But probably even more effective is making a list of your pleasures. People often get stuck with the same three or four pleasures. So I tell them, make a list of 40, 40 pleasures. That's the goal. It could be really simple pleasures. Like right now I have a rock between my fingers I'm playing with.

I like doing that. That's a pleasure. It doesn't cost anything. You know, it feels good. What the hell? Of course, there's things like tennis. There's things like spending time with my wife or my dogs. But it can also be simple things like massaging my hand. Luckily, my hand

is with me wherever I go. It can also be big things like going to a redwood forest or playing music. And you realize as you make this list, how many of these pleasures am I doing? A lot of people really have this thought that as soon as I get through all the difficult stuff in life, with my leftover time, I will do some pleasure. I will give myself some pleasure. So it's kind of like you're always giving yourself leftovers. And what I do is I actually schedule some of my pleasures in my calendar. They're like appointments. Like I have a date with myself. I have a date night with my wife, but I have a date night with myself where I get to read some of my favorite books. I get to do basically whatever I want for three hours

because it's on my calendar and that's what I need to do during those three hours. And I think scheduling pleasures can be another great way to easily increase your happiness level. Now, there are some people that go overboard, you know, and they need to not do that. But most of us really need to work towards treating ourself with kindness. Right. Back to that, knowing which side you're sort of erring on and moving yourself back towards the middle. I love in this you sort of talk about like just sort of adding it up. Like the amount of time that I'm spending on these things in life I don't like versus the amount of time I'm spending on these things I do like.

And you say the key to having a successful life is to find the right balance of pain to pleasure. It must be a balance that works, not only in one's current life, but it must also work long-term. And you say that, I found that when the degree of pain as compared to pleasure rises above a five-to-one ratio, people dislike their life. Now, of course, is it exactly five-to-one?

Of course not. But as a general way of thinking about it is to look and go, okay, is there some balance here? You know, if I'm spending 10 hours doing stuff I don't like for every hour I do like, that's going to be problematic. So either a, I need to start doing more things I like, which is sort of working on, we might even say that's working on channel two, or we could work on channel one, which is learning to like more of the things we're doing. Yeah. You know, changing our relationship to the things

that we're doing. And a lot of people, they don't have a five to one pain to pleasure ratio. They have like a 20 to one pain to pleasure ratio. Right. And then they wonder, why am I depressed? I go, well, it's simple mathematics here. You're doing 20 times more things that you don't like than you do like, and that's a problem. Right. I assume then working with someone like that, you would say, okay, well, let's get some more pleasure in your life. And also maybe let's work on reframing some of the things that seem like you don't like them. Is there a way to sort of change our relationship to those things? You know, you're looking for the quickest way to make somebody feel better for the least amount of effort. That's why I've tended to focus

on methods that take under 30 seconds to do, you know, certain phrases, even certain meditations that take under 30 seconds to do. But I found one of the simplest things that really can make a profound change is I have people commit to something that they know would make their life better. You know, as I say that to you, Eric, we all know something that, oh, if I did that, I would have a great time. It would make my life better. But we don't do it. It might be backpacking. It might be going for a walk with a friend. It might be meditating, whatever it is. I say, schedule it into your week.

Actually put it on your calendar and then make a commitment that if you do not do that, that you have to rip up a dollar. For some reason, the threat of ripping up a dollar, if you break your promise to yourself, is enough to get a lot of people to radically change behavior, they may have had difficulty changing for 30 years. Well, I think the thing that would make my life a lot better would be to take Chris, who's our editor, and cut his hair in a mohawk like mine. So Christopher, I am coming over next Thursday. Get your shears out. Get your hair clippers out because you're getting a mohawk. And if you don't do it, you have to rip up $100.

How's that, Jonathan? Am I on the right track? Absolutely. Please send me pictures. My mohawk needs touched up. Well, we are at the end of our time. I do want to talk with you in the post-show conversation for a little bit about meditation in general. And I'm interested in some meditations that take less than 30 seconds also. So you and I are going to explore meditation in the post-show conversation. Listeners,

if you would like to get access to this post-show conversation, lots of other ones, a episode I do each week called a teaching song and a Poem, ad-free episodes, and the joy of supporting a show that you listen to and love, go to oneufeed.net slash join. Jonathan, thanks so much for coming on. This has been a really fun conversation. Thank you so much, Eric. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits.

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