The One You Feed - Lama Kathy Wesley

Starting point is 00:00:00 Meditation is working with your mind, and your mind can fool you in a lot of funny ways. 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.

Starting point is 00:00:45 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

Starting point is 00:01:18 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 this week is Lama Kathy Wesley. Lama Kathy is the resident teacher at the Columbus Karma Tegsam Choling Buddha Center and travels to other centers throughout the country as a teacher.

Starting point is 00:01:50 She's been a student of Kenpo Karthor Rinpoche since 1977. Here's the interview. Lama Kathy, thank you for being with us this afternoon. We're happy to be here in this beautiful room with you. And if we could just start off maybe with, if you could tell us a little bit about how you ended up as a Lama. By the time I was a senior in college, I was feeling pretty, I guess like my tank was on empty, if you know what I mean, from a spiritual point of view. And I was feeling very stressed. And so I did not have the inspiration, oh, to resolve my stress,

Starting point is 00:02:27 I should go back to church. That did not occur to me. However, to go to a yoga class, to learn yoga, which I had heard was very good for stress, that inspired me. So I took a yoga class, enjoyed the meditation that I learned. And I said, okay, now I have found something that really speaks to me. And then I began to learn a little bit about the spirituality underneath the yoga tradition. And after studying it more deeply, I enjoyed certain aspects of it, but certain aspects left me cold. And so I kind of wandered spiritually and started reading widely about Eastern spirituality. And then, of course, life intervened. I graduated from college.

Starting point is 00:03:14 I had to go out in the work world. I got my first job, and of course I put a lot of energy into that, leaving my spiritual work on the side. my spiritual work on the side. But then, within a few months of starting my first job in the real world, because I was trained as a journalist in college, I got my degree in journalism, not long after I had started my first daily newspaper job, I had the occasion of meeting a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Interestingly enough, this Tibetan Buddhist monk who had escaped from communist China in the 1950s had come to live in America. And interestingly enough, he had come to central Ohio. And this was 1977. And interestingly enough, he came to the small town where I lived. I mean, so the coincidences keep piling up here. And then when I saw that he was coming, I was intrigued, and I arranged an interview with him.

Starting point is 00:04:16 And once I started interviewing him, I began to ask him pointed questions about the things that I had heard about Buddhism, that perhaps women may not have been treated as well in monastic settings as they might have been in other places. And what did he have to say about that? And did men and women possess the equal capability for spiritual life? And he answered all of my questions in the affirmative, in a positive way, saying that cultures may develop in one way, but the teachings of the Buddha were that men and women had equal potential to achieve Buddhahood or

Starting point is 00:04:52 spiritual awakening. And it was at that point I was so inspired by his demeanor, which was both gentle and strong. He was able to project both gentility and strength. And I realized that these really were spiritual qualities. And I said, I would like to develop those qualities too. So I began to study meditation with him. And after studying meditation with him for maybe 15 years, I learned that he was starting a training program in upstate New York for people who were interested in going more deeply into their meditation. And this was called the three-year retreat. It was something they had actually done in Tibet and in exile in India. But now they were establishing it in the United States.

Starting point is 00:05:46 in the United States. And because circumstances in my life came together in the right way, I was able to take three years away from my career in order to undergo this training. And that is how I became a Lama, which is interesting because when I went into the retreat, I went into it just thinking, well, I am going to learn more about meditation. I'm going to learn more about how I can help others. But partway through the retreat, it began to dawn upon me that traditionally in Tibet, when people complete the three-year retreat, there is an expectation that they will use what they learn to benefit others. And it wasn't until the very end when my very wise monastic teacher said to me, traditionally in Tibet, when a person completes the three-year retreat, they are given the title of Lama. Now, what does this mean? This means that from now

Starting point is 00:06:38 until you die, you have one function and one function only and that is to connect everyone you meet with spirituality so i uh so i went into the retreat thinking i was going to do something nice sort of for myself and sort of to enable me to help others more but the extent to which i would be able to help them was not clear to me until the very end. When you left at the end of that and you sort of had been, you know, given that guidance or exposed to that that was sort of the expectation, did knowing, did suddenly hearing that transform the way you saw and thought? Or was it during the three years that it transformed it? Or did it take a while after that to sort of get your mind around that, hey, this is no longer

Starting point is 00:07:31 about me? I'll tell you, I think that realization actually dawned on me a little earlier. In fact, it dawned on me a few years before the three-year retreat. The reason for this is because if you look at the teachings of the Buddha, there's a quote from the Buddha that reads, if you want to study my teachings, you don't have to study many teachings. You only need to study one teaching. And what is that one teaching? It's love and compassion. If you study and practice love and compassion, you have all of the qualities of the Buddha in the palm of your hand.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Bodhi means awakening and sattva means mind. The person who has the mind that is awakening, the mind that's awakening to wisdom, the mind that's awakening to love, the mind that's awakening to compassion. And so this mind of awakening, if you study and practice it, it was not long after I started to study and practice about the Bodhisattva path. I even remember the occasion. I was sitting in my living room. My husband and I were reading our separate books and doing things in some evening. And I remember looking up, sitting on the sofa, and I was looking up from my reading, and I said to my husband, I said, my goodness, I said, I've just realized something. And that is that once you take the Bodhisattva vow, the bodhisattva commitment to benefit others, your life no longer belongs to you. Your life no longer belongs to you.

Starting point is 00:09:13 You actually now belong to everyone. And that realization hit me fairly early in the process of my study of Buddhism. And that, in part, informed my retreat. That informed my retreat because when I went into the retreat, the lama or the monk who I studied with, his name is Kempo Carter Rinpoche. Kempo Carter said to me, if you're coming into this retreat to get a title, Lama or teacher, he said, you can forget that.

Starting point is 00:09:51 He said, the only reason you should come to a retreat like this is because you know that there are beings out there in the world who are suffering. And that through being in this retreat and doing this practice, you're going to learn how to help them. And so that realization dawned on me when I had started doing my reading on the bodhisattva path. But then the bodhisattva path led me into the retreat. And during the retreat, I learned some skills that I was able to then use to benefit others at the end. And I think that's where the expectation of benefit comes from. Because when you are given all of these teachings in the three-year retreat, you learn how to accompany people during illness. You learn how to accompany people at the time of death. You learn about the changes that take place in mind and emotion.

Starting point is 00:10:46 When you learn all of these things, what you're impressed with is the universality of these experiences. Everybody dies. Everybody experiences sickness. Everybody experiences change and the fear that comes with change. And so how can you help people weather that change or weather that storm, if you will? And so it wasn't that partway through the retreat I began to understand bodhicitta. It's like I began to study it and understand it a little bit early, but it's evolutionary. All spirituality, in my view, is evolutionary. You start with a

Starting point is 00:11:25 certain set of circumstances, and then, as your program implies, you either, what do you feed? Do you feed selfishness and egotism, or do you feed selflessness and openness and understanding? What is it? And that's from the standpoint of the Buddha. In order to combat selfishness, which the Buddha taught was the cause of suffering, he taught love and compassion as the antidote to egotism and selfishness, which was the cause of suffering. So it's like that. I always think it's interesting in watching people,

Starting point is 00:12:07 because most people, and even in your story, describe it, you sort of come to spirituality out of a place of personal pain or confusion. It's very much, hey, I don't feel good. And then regardless of the spiritual path, you sort of end up on whatever those teachings are. They're almost always about, hey, you need to spend less time thinking about yourself and more time pretty immersed in it but can you talk about the challenges in making that shift from hey you know me this is what i want this is what i feel and and how and what's that like for you from when you started sort of trying to make that shift even today what are those challenges like i'm really resonating with what you're saying about it because i remember kempo kartharimbache once said, he said, people don't come to the Dharma, the Buddhism or spirituality in general, because they're having a good time. They come to it because they are feeling dissatisfaction, they're feeling pain, they're feeling that their ideal about life and their reality about life are

Starting point is 00:13:22 not matching. And so he said, so the role of the spiritual helper is to listen. First to listen to the story that the person tells, and then to offer whatever advice you can offer that will be of help to that person to bring comfort and relief from their pain and suffering. And so that was what I felt I was offered when I met Khenpo Rinpoche for the first time. He provided me with that view of what might be in my future, that gentility and that strength. And I think that everybody who starts a spiritual path needs a method. They need a method or a technique of spiritual development. Without a method or technique, they're not going to make any change.

Starting point is 00:14:18 And so the method or technique that I was given by Khenpo Kartarabhache was meditation. And he gave me several types of meditation. The first type of meditation is called calm abiding. The word for it in Sanskrit is shamatha. The word for it in Tibetan is shine. And what it is, it's the breath awareness meditation that's taught in many places by many traditions, in which the mind's attention is placed on the breath as it comes in and goes out. And this very simple act of being with and attending to the breath as it comes in and goes out provides a sense of calming to the racing chatter that feeds selfishness. You see, selfishness has to live on something. The me, me, me, me, me, my pain, my pain, my pain

Starting point is 00:15:05 lives in the stories we tell ourselves, and it grows through the stories we tell ourselves. And so when the chatter is calmed down, once that chatter begins to calm down, the stories begin to change. First, the story becomes less loud. Then it becomes less intense. And then slowly, it's like a stream that starts out as a rushing torrent and then becomes a gently flowing river. And then it eventually comes into a pool that is more calm. that is more calm. And that, I think, is the real point of change. Because once a person, and this is my own experience, once I began to get that relief from the chatter, the torrent, the story that was always self-centered, oh, poor me, this situation, that situation, it's all about me, me, me. Once that became calm, then I had enough emotional space, if you want to call it that, to look around me and realize there were other people in this reality with me. It's not just about me anymore. I realized there were other people feeling the same pain.

Starting point is 00:16:30 For our listeners that aren't so lucky to have a lama move into their town and, you know, to become so deeply involved so quickly, what do you consider to be a great starting point? Is it meditation that is the starting point for someone who's interested in Buddhism? I would tell people that if they want to read about Buddhism first, that's fine. Or if they would like to practice meditation first, that's fine. Because they have to kind of go with the way they're made. Some people are more intellectual. And so reading about the teachings of the Buddha is more their taste. But there are other people who,

Starting point is 00:17:06 like myself, really craved the relief from the chatter, chatter, chatter of everyday insanity. And I needed meditation to start with. I had done some intellectual reading. It had left me cold. But when I learned the technique, it really sang to me. But there are other people who are more intellectual. So if a person wanted to read about Buddhism, of course, I'm a little bit prejudiced because Khenpo Kartar Rinpoche helped me so much that I would recommend his book. His book is called Dharma Paths, P-A-T-H-S, Dharma Paths. But in terms of meditation, I think the best way for people to learn meditation is to find someone who is experienced and to find someone who, theoretically, they would meet someone who represents a time-honored tradition of meditation, not necessarily somebody who is self-taught. necessarily somebody who is self-taught. I think it's better to find a person who has themselves had a teacher who's been able to help them work out the bugs in the system because meditation is

Starting point is 00:18:12 working with your mind and your mind can fool you in a lot of funny ways. Where does a meditation teacher help you to do? Because at first glance, right, it's the instructions, you can give the instructions in three sentences, essentially, right? So what does a meditation teacher provide beyond that? What's that interaction like? As I mentioned earlier, I think the reason that a teacher is so important is because we can fool ourselves. that a teacher is so important is because we can fool ourselves. Because egotism and selfishness is wily. And as my friends in the 12-step tradition like to say, all of my best thinking have brought me to this place, meaning this place of chaos and confusion. So sometimes your mind thinking, the chatter can lead you astray. And you can have chatter about meditation too,

Starting point is 00:19:06 thinking, oh, I'm a failure, or oh, I'm really good at this, when neither one is true. So how a teacher will help you is that the teacher will help you navigate the challenges that arise when you meditate. Because since meditation is about calming the chatter, sometimes the chatter is resistant. Sometimes your old habits flare up while you're attempting to meditate. Sometimes you try too hard. Sometimes you don't try hard enough.

Starting point is 00:19:39 So the idea is that you have to titrate the technique to meet that particular person's situation, how their mind is. And a teacher who is good can question the student, okay, what are your challenges in meditation? And then the student will tell them the challenges. And then the teacher, like a good physician, will be able to say, oh, I see, this problem comes about because you're trying too hard, or try this method instead, or if you don't like this method, try this method. And the idea is that that way they can help the person achieve success. And if a person feels like they are more confident with their technique, then they will develop more of the qualities of meditation,

Starting point is 00:20:26 which everybody treasures those, which are, I guess you could say that they're calmness, patience, and so forth. Are there different ways into meditation, say, for people who are having a very challenging time with following the breath. That's always sort of considered the basic meditation step, follow your breath. But are there other methods in for people who are struggling there, or is it really about you've got to master that before you can really take on anything else? Believe it or not, the way I learned it, the shamatha or calm abiding practice, is it's about placing your attention on something. This is really important. Many people come to me and they say, oh, I'm unsuccessful at meditation.

Starting point is 00:21:15 I cannot clear my mind of thoughts. And I say, well, there's the first thing we need to discuss. Because the purpose of meditation is not to take a broom and sweep your mind clean so that you don't have any thoughts in it. Because number one, it's impossible. And number two, it's impossible. Your mind manifests, your mind experiences, your mind thinks. So the key piece is attention. What are you being attentive to? If a lot of thoughts arise and you are distracted by those thoughts, well, yeah, we need to deal with that. But we're not going to chase them away with a stick. Because if we try to chase our thoughts away with a stick, they're going to come around behind us and bite us from behind.

Starting point is 00:22:04 to chase our thoughts away with a stick, they're going to come around behind us and bite us from behind. So the idea is when you put too much pressure on your mind, it rebels. And then you'll feel very frustrated by your meditation. So breath awareness is not for everyone. Some people feel a little, actually even a little claustrophobic when they attend to their breath. So for them, I would recommend using a visual object. Now, because I come from the Buddhist tradition, Buddhist meditation texts tell you to use the image of a seated Buddha. At first, you allow your eyes to rest on the image. Now, we all know that your eyes could probably look at it forever, but your attention might wander. And so when your attention wanders, whether it's wandering from the breath or whether it's wandering

Starting point is 00:22:59 from a visual object, the response is always the same. When your attention wanders, you notice that it's wandered. You label it thinking or distraction or not now or you basically notice the distraction, You basically notice the distraction, you note it, you consciously drop it, and then consciously take your attention and return it to the object, whether that is an image of the Buddha or the breath. To me, this is the key reason that people have trouble meditating, is that they don't understand that it's about attention and it's about noticing and discarding distraction. If you notice and discard the distraction and then return your attention for a fresh start to the technique, whether it's looking at an image of the Buddha or observing your breath, this fresh start can help a person be more successful in their meditation. Or you can use sound.

Starting point is 00:24:10 For example, we're sitting in a building where in the deep distance, we can hear the movement of traffic on the highway nearby us. You could actually just let your attention rest on the sound of traffic, because it's continuous. When your mind wanders from that sound, you bring it back. So you can use several different things. Some people like to meditate with music. This can both be good and problematic. If you are emotionally involved in the musical piece, it's probably not beneficial. Or if you are admiring the technique of the artist, or if you say it makes you feel a certain way, it's probably not the best for you to be attentive to. It's better for you to

Starting point is 00:24:59 be dispassionately attentive to just the sound without getting involved in the technology of the music or the meaning of the music, just being with the sound. And then when your mind's attention wanders, you bring it back. 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?

Starting point is 00:25:48 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

Starting point is 00:26:04 going to drop by. Mr. Brian 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.

Starting point is 00:26:20 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. So when you hear the parable that we described, What first comes to mind for you? The first thing that comes to mind for me is the universality of truth, really, because all of the great wisdom traditions, all of them, all of the great human wisdom traditions speak about good and bad. They talk about virtue and non-virtue. They talk about constructiveness and destructiveness. And I think the parable of the two wolves

Starting point is 00:27:18 is an example of the universality of this truth. Everyone understands that it is from within us that happiness and suffering arises. Happiness and suffering is not something that is done to us from the outside. It arises within us based on what we emphasize in our own minds, in our own lives. If we are emphasizing things that are positive, things that are kind and loving toward ourselves and toward others, the positive will grow in us. Happiness will grow in us. That's the teaching of the Buddha. And I think it's wonderful that you're doing this work because I think that Buddhism, for example, may not speak to everyone. But there may be other traditions, other wisdom traditions that do speak to people and do permit them to recognize the true causes of happiness and suffering and to recognize that it's within them. It's not the things that happen to you, it's how you respond to those things.

Starting point is 00:28:33 And being able to develop methods of response and framework for perspective, why is this happening? What does it mean? Or what am I going to dwell on from this? Am I going to see this negative thing that is happening to me as the completion of something? Or am I going to see it as something that is like a monster that's going to eat me alive? is like a monster that's going to eat me alive. The idea here is that if we look at what is going on outside of us, it's frequently a reflection of what's going on inside. You know, we're one of many, many podcasts that are out there talking about similar themes, talking about similar themes and you hear a different wise person every week. And you're really sort of stressing a little bit of a more traditional background that says that having a particular method or plan is a lot more effective than sort of scattering your energy across a lot of different places, which I

Starting point is 00:29:45 am certainly, you know, I do that. And your statement about it's a way of not committing is really sort of an interesting thing to think about. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. As a matter of fact, I was introduced to this idea of choosing a tradition by the great master of eclecticism, Baba Ram Dass. Now, he was a very popular, he's still alive, and he's a very, very popular teacher. And he was very popular in the 70s, especially. He wrote a number of books. I was first introduced

Starting point is 00:30:26 to this idea through one of his books. It was called, I believe it was in his book Grist for the Mill. I could be wrong, but it's the title I do remember. And in Grist for the Mill, there was a chapter called Lineage. And I'm going to just paraphrase loosely what he says. He speaks and writes very eloquently. He said, okay, I confess, I'm an eclectic. And I took a little bit from one column and a little bit from another column, and I mixed them all together, and I made my own religion. He said, but I don't recommend that for any of you, dear readers. He says, if you want to make progress, you will choose, you will look around and evaluate. And then once you have looked around and evaluated, you will choose a tradition. He says, I recommend a tradition that has a lineage of awakened masters in it. You take that tradition and follow it to its conclusion.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And I remember where I was sitting when I read this. I was sitting in my car in front of the Newark, Ohio Public Library waiting for a meeting, and I said, that is exactly it. That is exactly what I want to do. I want to find a tradition that is authentic, and I can meet a master from that tradition. That's what I want to do. I want to find a tradition that is authentic, and I can meet a master from that tradition. That's what I want. Two weeks later, I met Khenpo Kharter Rinpoche. So to me,

Starting point is 00:31:53 that idea was introduced to me, and then I met him, and I said, okay, I get it. Thank you, universe. But to go back to really what's the heart of your question, the heart of your question is, what is the difference between self-indulgence and the pursuit of an appreciation of spiritual tradition? I mean, you know, because, I mean, really, there's a difference. There's a difference. Because you can look at all of the spiritual traditions of the world and see the commonality. And see the commonality. So practice the commonality, not all of the techniques. Does that give you a point?

Starting point is 00:32:36 I mean, because if we look at all of the spiritual traditions of the world, they all teach overcoming selfishness with love and compassion. They all teach it. It's the golden rule. What is it? The charter for compassion. All of those people talk about the universality of love and compassion as a method. I think where we go wrong is when we pursue sparkly things because we like them and because they please us. And so we might look at these sparkly intellectual gems or sparkly spiritual gems and say, they please me. Berkeley Spiritual Gems, and say, they please me. But I always ask these people the same question is, who is the teacher? Who is guiding you? Are you guiding yourself? And if you're guiding yourself, you might wander for a while. Because as my friends say, all of my best thinking has brought me to this place of chaos and confusion. So the idea is if we are guiding ourself,

Starting point is 00:33:47 selfishness could always secretly jump into the driver's seat without us noticing. And then the next thing you know, we're on a road we had not planned to take. And that's because egotism can co-opt everything, including spirituality. And that's why the Tibetan master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote the book Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. And in that book, he describes spiritual materialism, how it arises, and how one can correct it. So I totally understand what you're saying.

Starting point is 00:34:23 But the good thing is that by exposing people to many paths, hopefully they will see one of those paths. They will see one of those paths and they'll say, you know, I'm going to try that. I'm going to do that. And hopefully they will find something that resonates with the unselfish, evolving part of themselves. And they'll miss the out on the other part. I met you years ago when I was going through a very difficult time. And I started to start to get into the traditional a bit. And one of the things I wrestle with is that in any of the classic spiritual traditions,

Starting point is 00:35:06 in any of the classic spiritual traditions, there becomes a point where there is some belief out there that starts to stretch, at least for me, the imagination of, you know, there are things out there that I don't know that I believe this or I believe that. So how does somebody engage in a tradition? Because I see the value, right? There's a path that is laid out. And for a lot of people, I think it's very, you know, a clear path is important. And yet these sort of things come along the way like, what? I don't believe that. Or that's ridiculous. And how does somebody engage with a more traditional path if they're wrestling with some of those questions and doubts? This is an excellent question because so many people experience this. It's a perfect discussion to have. And I think we have to look into a little bit of the causes of this type of experience. Now,

Starting point is 00:35:57 of course, I'm a Buddhist, so I'm going to explain it in terms of karma. But regardless of what explanation you give to it, we have ideas in our mind. We have preconceived notions. We have, I guess you would call it an operating set of preconceptions. They're operating. We've had them for a very long time, and we haven't really questioned them. They've actually done us some good over the years, these preconceptions. But what will happen is these preconceptions may actually interfere with our ability to connect to something genuinely. And this is why I was saying earlier, we have to be able to tell the difference between when ego is in the driver's seat and driving us away from something that is getting too close to touching our core so that we can avoid being touched and avoid being changed.

Starting point is 00:36:51 We have to watch for that. And when we watch for that, we can notice it and then we can begin to question that assumption. We can begin to question that preconception like, oh, you're interesting. You've held me back before. I know you. But that's one of the ways to explain why we run up against these particular difficulties. And what you might find is that the difficulties you run up against will be the same difficulties in every faith tradition or every spiritual tradition that you study. against will be the same difficulties in every faith tradition or every spiritual

Starting point is 00:37:27 tradition that you study. You will always come up against the same preconceived idea. Well, I don't believe that. I don't agree with that. This is not right. It'll happen. And it comes from our previous karma. Our previous life experience has given us a specific habit of thinking. And that habit of thinking, whether you believe it comes from previous lifetimes or from just this current one, it comes about for a reason. These preconceived notions come about for a reason, and sometimes they're useful and helpful. So, what do you do when something bumps up against these notions? So, what do you do when something bumps up against these notions? Sorry to go back to 12-step literature, but I'll never forget.

Starting point is 00:38:19 Khenpo Kharthar Rinpoche, when he first started teaching, his translator actually quoted a 12-step slogan. He said, when you listen to the teachings, take what you need and leave the rest. That's what he said. Take what you need and leave the rest. Meaning, set it aside if you don't agree with it. Set it aside. Nobody's going to force you to believe something you don't believe. If it's not useful, set it aside.

Starting point is 00:38:49 And this has really helped me a great deal. Because that allowed me to set aside some of the things I had trouble with. And to go further, I read an either, I think it was probably an article by a modern Buddhist teacher who said, when you read a spiritual tradition, you should have two baskets in your mind. One basket is the, I don't get it basket. And the other basket is the, I don't know basket. The I don't get it basket means, that is a complex thing and I don't get it. And the I don't know basket is the, I get it, but I don't know about that. I don't know if I believe that. He said, if you read a spiritual tradition, read it with those two baskets operating. And then if you see something that belongs in the I don't get it

Starting point is 00:39:38 basket, throw it in the I don't get it basket. And if you see something that falls in the I don't know basket, just drop it in the I don't know basket. He said, put nothing in the trash. Put nothing in the trash. And I think that really is, that's the way to go. Because that way, that way you can take what you need, the meditations, the techniques and so forth, and then just let the rest go for later, because you'll either get them later or understand how to get them later, or you will know them or find a way to work without really saying, oh yeah, I absolutely believe this. Because let's face it, there are some things we don't necessarily see. Who among us can see, really see, past and future lives? Very few people are given that kind of insight. However, we can,

Starting point is 00:40:37 we can, what's the word, we can presume the existence of past and future lives through our experiences in this life, those feelings of deja vu, those feelings of instantly liking something or instantly disliking something. Obviously, we have history with people, situations, ideas, things that comes from the past. Plus, we have all of the examples of people who remember their past lives and who remember exact details from their past lives. So I have used, even though I cannot see past and future lives, these examples and these evidences of my own preconceived thoughts and ideas, they show me that there are past and future lives. And so I believe in that. I can't see it, so I can't say with scientific precision that they exist, but I

Starting point is 00:41:33 feel they do. And that informs my ethics, and it informs my ability to be kind to myself and to be kind to others. That, you know, past and future lives is a great example of, I think, if you look at, and I certainly don't want to get into a debate about Buddhism and the Western, you know, is that there's a, you know, at least I resonated strongly with things like Buddhism without beliefs that sort of talks about the meditation, the compassion, the practice. Because once it starts to get off into past lives, my brain starts to wrestle with, well, I don't know, is that makes sense? And if I hear what you're saying,

Starting point is 00:42:10 you're saying it's okay to engage in a tradition because there's value in the teachings, there's value in the community, there's value in all that. Even if some of those things don't make sense, it's okay to put them in the, I'm not sure about that basket, and leave it there while you move forward. And it's, you know, you don't throw the baby out

Starting point is 00:42:30 with the bathwater. Absolutely. I completely agree with that. Because that way, if those preconceptions are motivated by something that is trying to hold you back, then you set them aside. You set aside the ideas that are troublesome for you, and then eventually your relationship with those ideas will change, especially, as I say, if those preconceptions come from something that's trying to hold you back. Yeah, it's interesting.

Starting point is 00:43:07 conceptions come from something that's trying to hold you back. Yeah, it's interesting. Where are we bumping up against genuine things that aren't right for us? And where are we letting ourselves out easy? I mean, I come from a 12-step tradition, right? And the first time that I got sober, I forced myself into believing in a higher power, but I didn sober, I forced myself into believing in a higher power. But I didn't. I forced myself into it. And then when I had a crisis, I had nothing. And so the second time around, I've had to say, that's not me. I don't think I'm trying to avoid these things, but I have to have a spirituality that works for me.

Starting point is 00:43:44 And so I think it's very interesting, these sort of trying to – because I think we get – the one thing I see with a lot of modern spirituality, which is A, originally attractive, but then becomes very troublesome is sort of the idea of magical thinking. And there's a whole lot of that, that if you just do these very simple things, then suddenly you're going to, you know, it's the beer commercial approach to spirituality, right? Like, if you just have this one beer, then you've got the girls, you've got the, there's a spirituality equivalent to that, which says, I don't have to do the hard work. And I think that the benefit of a, at least as I look at the benefit of a tradition like this, is there's no nonsense about that. There's no belief that there's an easy, fast solution. Boy, I tell you, you've really brought up a good topic there, and that is expectation. And that's because I think that expectation is really what gets us into trouble. That's what makes the beer commercial approach effective, is that people have an expectation.

Starting point is 00:44:45 And where does expectation come from? It comes from egotism. Because I have an idea of how the world should be. My ego says the world should be my way. It should please me always, and nothing should ever displease me. And I should have control over absolutely everything. Nothing should ever displease me, and I should have control over absolutely everything. And that expectation is what is continuously disappointed by the fact that everything in life is not planned.

Starting point is 00:45:21 You can plan the best you can, but things are still going to pop out of nowhere and upset that expectation. And I think that expectation is really where we run into trouble. We do have expectations. And I think that's where magical thinking comes about. 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?

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Starting point is 00:46:51 You've been a Lama a long time. You've done a lot of retreats. You've done a ton of spiritual work. How hard is it for you to feed your good wolf these days, or is it on autopilot? Well, I'll tell you what. I think that for me personally, it is an everyday, it's an everyday responsibility, and it needs to be top of mind. It's an everyday responsibility, and it needs to be top of mind. It needs to be something we remain mindful of always. The reason for this is if we do not remain mindful of it, it falls away.

Starting point is 00:47:28 It falls away. I don't think that autopilot is wise because until a person has achieved Buddhahood or awakening, they're still working. And they're still in danger of being co-opted at any moment by their selfishness. So what helps me these days, right now, is the practice of lojong. Lojong, lo means mind and jong means training. This really is what, it really keeps me going. And that is, it's the training in bodhicitta, which we talked about previously, the mind that wants to awaken, the mind that wants to not be asleep in the sleep of selfish ignorance. And so Lojong is training the mind in love and compassion. And there's a book that I use as my guidebook, and it's called The Great Path of Awakening.

Starting point is 00:48:24 a book that I use as my guidebook, and it's called The Great Path of Awakening. It was written in the 19th century by a Tibetan teacher named Jamgun Kantrol the Great. And in that book, he says that you need to every day, every day, start your day by thinking, may everything I do today benefit beings in some way, and may we all come to awakening. And at the end of every day, you say, wherever I'm going tonight in my dreams, may I benefit beings there. This is just a loose paraphrase. He basically says the wish and the aspiration to benefit others should grip grip you day in and day out, hour by hour, whatever your activity, you should always wish and be aspiring for the benefit of everyone you meet. And so having the subconscious or planting the subconscious thought, may I be of benefit to you, changes every relationship. It changes every interaction and it makes every moment of

Starting point is 00:49:27 your life meaningful. For many people, the worst case scenario that they could ever imagine is that they're laid up in bed, unable to move, unable to act. But as long as you can still breathe, you still have meaning and purpose. Because the Lojong practice tells you that when you breathe in, you can think, I am removing suffering from the world. And when you breathe out, you can think, I am giving goodness to the world. And because you have Buddha nature, you have an endless supply. You have an endless supply of goodness to give, and you have an endless experience of openness to accept all of the suffering of the world.

Starting point is 00:50:11 You can actually do both. I think interesting that you talk about how you still every day sort of have to do these things. And when you're talking about magical thinking before and beer commercial spirituality, I think a lot of us have this great wish that the work will be done, that I will do something, I will go to some course, I will read something, and then I will wake up and I will no longer struggle with these, whether it be selfishness or sadness or grief. And it's always somewhat sobering to hear someone who is, if you look at a spiritual path, so far down the path and saying, nope, it's not going to be over. You can't cease effort. Well, you know, and I'd like to invite you to look at that in a slightly

Starting point is 00:51:00 different way. Just as we spoke about looking at the higher power in a slightly different way, we can also look at the idea of effort in a slightly different way. Effort is not struggle. It's not the same. Struggle implies confrontation, or struggle implies some aversion. Oh, this is so hard.

Starting point is 00:51:29 Oh, this is so difficult. Oh, this is such a discipline. I just can't take it. Whereas when a person places effort behind the conscious wish to benefit others, there's no struggle there. Even if you make mistakes, it's okay. It's okay.

Starting point is 00:51:56 It's okay to make mistakes because you will. And the idea is that, as my friend said, the perfect is the enemy of the good. When we expect perfection and always have some sort of measuring stick that we fall short from, there's something going on in that that we need to look at. Whereas, continuously engendering the wish to be of benefit to others, okay, maybe someday somebody lies to us and we don't like it. We get angry with them. Or we read the news and we read about people who harm others and kill.

Starting point is 00:52:34 And we say, oh, that makes me so angry. That makes me so upset. And then we look at that and we say, look at me. Look at me. Aren't I funny? I'm sitting in judgment of the world. Those people who act badly, they are suffering. They are suffering. Mean people are suffering. Although, that doesn't mean we will let them run at large and so forth. But there's a Catholic mystic that I sometimes quote. And it's because I think she really had the idea.

Starting point is 00:53:20 If I remember correctly, I may have the name of the saint incorrect, but I believe it was St. Catherine of Siena who said, All the way to heaven is heaven, for he said, I am the way. Now, a mystic can interpret the words of a mystic. I'm not a mystic, so I can't quite interpret her words, because she's speaking about the way of Jesus. But the way of love and compassion, to me, all the way to heaven is heaven. All the way to enlightenment is a slow and gradual awakening. Some days you do well, other days you don't do well,

Starting point is 00:54:03 but you pick yourself up because it's worth doing. Working on love and compassion, okay, not easy. Some days, tough. Selfishness is always going to be there to kind of say, yeah, yeah, I got you. But you'll just go back and say, I understand, you're a habit, I can deal with you. Love and compassion, love and compassion love and compassion

Starting point is 00:54:26 that's what we have to keep doing and that provides a heavenly experience no matter what that provides purpose and meaning no matter what so I wouldn't think about effort as being a burden I wouldn't think of effort as being the same as struggle. It's not like there'll be a moment when you're done. Because, it's interesting, in The Great Path of Awakening, Jamban Kantral says, even when full Buddhahood has been attained, there is nothing for you to do except to continue to act and benefit others with love and compassion. Love and compassion that is universal, non-referential compassion, meaning, oh, I'll give my compassion to you because I like you.

Starting point is 00:55:20 I won't give my compassion to you because I don't like you. The idea is that even after you attain Buddhahood, what else is there to do but to benefit others? And that gives birth to the idea of the Bodhisattva. What does the word, spiritual is a word that throws a lot of people for a loop. What does spirituality to you mean? What's the heart of that term? I think if we look at the opposite of it, that will help us to see what it is. I think people joke around with me sometimes. They say, how does it feel to

Starting point is 00:55:52 be a Buddhist in what is essentially a Christian country? And I said, well, you know, sometimes I question as to whether I'm living in a Christian nation, because I feel sometimes that the number one religion in the United States is materialism, scientific materialism. And that people really do believe, as the old bumper sticker once said, he who dies with the most toys wins. And so I would say that the opposite of spirituality would be materialism. Materialism is the definition of happiness in terms of objects, things you own. But it's not necessarily material things you own. It could also be knowledge. Oh, I'm smarter than you.

Starting point is 00:56:42 Anything that allows you to place yourself above others is definitely a problem. It's definitely a problem. And so spirituality is that which reframes all of life in terms of what brings about the most benefit. It's a reframing of everything, away from materialism and toward what is basically good in all of us. Well, that is an excellent way to wrap it up. Thank you very much, Lama Cathy.

Starting point is 00:57:21 We've really enjoyed this talk. It's a wrap. You can learn more about this podcast and Lama Kathy Wesley at oneufeed.net slash Lama Kathy.

The One You Feed - Lama Kathy Wesley

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