The One You Feed - Mingyur Rinpoche on Falling in Love With the World

Episode Date: July 20, 2021

Mingyur Rinpoche is a much-loved and accomplished Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. When not attending the monasteries under his care in Inda and Nepal, Rinpoche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide. In this episode, Mingyur Rinpoche talks about his book, In Love With The World: A Monks Journey Through The Bardos of Living and Dying.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, Mingyur Rinpoche and I Discuss How to Fall in Love with the World and …His book, In Love With The World: A Monk’s Journey Through The Bardos of Living and DyingThe power of choosing where we place our attentionHow the opportunity to experience yourself differently is always availableWhy it’s important to differentiate between yourself and your emotionsWhat his father told him about his panic attacks as a young childObject-oriented meditation vs. Subject-oriented meditationThe power of letting feelings come and go while resting in awareness, which is something biggerThe only reliable liberation from suffering That it’s our preoccupation with a problem that nails it in placeHow to work with difficult feelings and situations in life so that we suffer lessHis 4-year wandering retreatThe lesson he learned: If you love the world, the world loves you backHis near-death experienceMingyur Rinpoche Links:Mingyur’s WebsiteInstagramTwitterBiOptimizers: Just 2 capsules of their Magnesium Breakthrough taken before bed gives you all 7 forms of magnesium so that you sleep better at night. Go to www.magbreakthrough.com/wolf and use the promo code WOLF10 at checkout to save 10%.Upstart: 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 Mingyur Rinpoche on How to Fall in Love with the World, you might also enjoy these other episodes:Belonging and Connection with Sebene SelassieAwakening in Life with Ryan OelkeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you're in the river, you cannot see river. But when you see river, that means you're out of river. But river is still there. You don't have to block the river. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Minyor Rinpoche. He's a much-loved, accomplished Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. When not attending the monasteries under his care in India and Nepal, Rinpoche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide. Today, him and Eric discuss his new book, In Love with the World, A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying.

Hello, Mingyua Rinpoche. Thank you for being on the show. I'm really excited to have you and welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very happy to be here. It is a real pleasure to have you on. You are a very esteemed figure in Tibetan Buddhism, and I'm excited to get to talk with

you. We will talk about lots of different things. One of the main things that I want to talk about is your book, In Love With The World, A Monk's Journey Through The Bardos of Living and Dying. But before we do that, let's start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, 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 grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. And he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather 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. Yeah, so for me, since childhood, I learned meditation. So according to our meditative teaching, we all have fundamentally wonderful nature. Sometimes what we call basic innate goodness or the original purity or the inner well-being. So there's many names. But then at the same time, what we call, because we are not recognize our fundamental qualities. Sometimes what we call, if we have 10 qualities with us, nine is positive, one negative. So normally what we see is only one negative one. And maybe we

lost with that negative one. We exaggerate that. And even though we have nine good qualities within us, we don't see and we ignore that so that is what we call ignorance so therefore from the ignorance then there's a lot of mental disturbance what we call pleasures and the suffering like all the not pleasant and the difficult things may arises but we have wonderful great wonderful nature what nature, what we call, we have skills, love and compassion, awareness, potential, wisdom, all these are there. So yeah, we can say there are two things within us, but the important is, first important is how you recognize these qualities within you. And second important, how you act on it.

I want to talk a little bit more about what you said there, because I'm going to just read a line of yours that I read that I think is really important. And you say, if you're determined to think of yourself as limited, fearful, vulnerable, or scarred by past experience, know only that you have chosen to do so. The opportunity to experience yourself differently is always available. And I think that's what you're speaking to here. It's not that those things aren't true, not that there's not some, yes, maybe I have been damaged by past experiences. Maybe I do have, as you said, the negative quality, but it's where I'm putting my attention and that I can learn to experience myself very differently if I stop sort of hanging on to these fixed qualities.

Yeah, yeah, totally true. So I had panic attacks when I was seven, eight years old. And then I learned meditation when I was nine years old. So normally my father said, our innate quality is always calm, free, pure, just like sky. So in my hometown, we have wonderful sky. just like sky so in my hometown we have wonderful sky but our ignorant and clashes and all this ups and down and for me the panic that time panic is like storm in the sky although we might have very storm and very turbulence of weather and storm but the nature of sky is still free still present still always there the storm cannot change the nature of sky so of course we all have problem we all do mistakes everybody has some events in the past, some encounter with problems, obstacles in our life.

That's normal. But the very important is sometimes what we call obstacle is the opportunity. Actually, we learn from problem. We learn from mistakes. We learn from suffering and obstacle. So, you know, one time my my father said if you're going somewhere and if you reach the dead end there's a huge wall in front of you. What you should do? First take out your backpack and throw the other side of the wall. So once your backpack is on the other side of the wall now what you will do you will cross them this huge wall but you may not

cross like directly like that way maybe that that way is impossible but we have to accept that also but there's a which and ways you can cross the wall so that is really important we all have capacity we all have potential. We all have wisdom, love, and compassion within us. So it's really important that which side of us we should look and discover and nurture and be with that. I think this is very important. I think this is very important. Staying on this same topic, you say that we often talk about ourselves in static mental postures, such as I am an angry person.

And that our attachment to these things narrows our experience and it induces them to repeat themselves. Yes. So I think very important that normally we have to make difference between me and my emotion me and my mistake me and my panic so my mother you know when i was young when i did something mistake and my mother said oh your this action is no good but she never say you is not good. So I think this is a really important that we need to learn. That I think fundamentally everybody want to do good. Sometimes what we call the nature of tree and the habit of tree. So the tree, the nature of tree is straightforward and the balancing the branches, but because of the wind, because of other situation, tree may go this way or that way.

But that is not our true nature. So it is really important that to gratitude, appreciate, recognize about our fundamental qualities. I love that. I've never heard that habit of tree and nature of tree. It speaks to this idea that sort of what you're saying, this underlying goodness, you used a lot of different terms for it. The one I've heard in my Zen tradition is Buddha nature, right? We all have Buddha nature, right?

Similar idea. But then we have all this conditioning that comes from the world. We are conditioned this way. We have this experience and we're treated that way and we have this fear. And so you're talking about dropping back into that underlying reality. How do you do that? Because that sounds great, but it's very difficult to do. So we can do a few things with that. One of the easier is if we are not familiar with the meditation, then we learn to appreciate and gratitude. So maybe in the ancient time, what we call counting stone. So we have bright stone and dark stone. And then we count whatever we see, try to observe, try to see the good things within yourself. Actually, there are so many good things there. But what happened at the beginning,

we see negative part. So whatever we see negative, but we don't judge, dark stone. And positive part, bright stone. But nowadays, sometimes not easy to find stone so you can write down so let me tell you a story one time a couple came to me and this couple is really stuck and they are having kind of like uh argument and fighting every day the husband is always want to control everything. And wife is worried. She's always worried. And then the both of them came to me and asked me, please pray for us. They're expecting some magic, you know, power of blessing that I give them. Then their problem will be solved. But actually I told them, I don't have that capacity or power. Sorry, I cannot help.

But I can guide you something. And they both said, whatever from you is okay. So then I told them, okay, from today on, every day, you both, you know, dedicate 30 minutes of time to talk about positive things each other and they both said oh yeah yeah that's good idea and they went back after a few weeks later they both came and they said half hour is too long you know they try to discuss positive thing each other then uh yeah when i first time met you and you are really look kind, but you know now. But that was 20 years ago.

So then they cannot discuss and become quiet. So then they asked me, what should I do? And I told them, okay, okay, I will give you a discount. So now just five minutes. And they both are very happy. Five minutes, we can do that. And they gone. And I haven't met them for one year.

And after one year, they both came and they said, this five years changed their life. Actually, now, even 30 minutes is not enough. I was surprised. What happened? You know, I asked them and they said, because they just discussed over five minutes and they kind of like lost stress.

And they found actually a lot of good things within each other actually they really deeper level they kind each other but they also know they both have personality one is one to control one is you know worry and they give humor about sense of humor about each personality when the husband go out come, he knocked the door and he said, the most powerful person is coming. And the wife opened the door and said, welcome. The most glorious person in the world welcomes you. So they have a sense of humor about their own personality, but they never give up, continue to transform. I think this is really important. Yeah, it's interesting because here in the West, there's a number of scholars of relationships.

They study relationships and they found that, you know, it really takes like five positive remarks to make up for like one negative remark. And so you've got to make an effort. What can I see in this other person that's positive? And I think we'd apply this right back to ourselves looking inside. And I heard you say once talking about your panic attacks, and you said that your father said to you, even in your panic attacks, underneath it is love and compassion. Explain that. Because I think that's a really important point, that even in what we consider something negative about ourselves,

if we go deep enough, we find something else. Yeah. Actually, we find what we call awareness, love and compassion, and wisdom. And these three is the actual fundamental quality of panic. Why panic exists? Because of awareness, love and compassion and wisdom actually. Without that, panic cannot exist. So what we call ocean and wave. The wave is panic. But what is ocean? It's the water. Sky and cloud. Cloud is panic. But without sky, we cannot have cloud.

So actually, of course, there's a step-by-step practice. Normally, I teach this as course. I do level one, level two. So of course, it takes some time. Maybe I will say, okay, now maybe I focus on the love and compassion. So when we really look at what is love and compassion, love meaning looking for something nice, looking for happiness, looking for virtue, looking for meaning for you, for others, for everybody. So there's a seeking, there's a longing, there's a motivation. So that is the love to help this to you and everybody.

is the love to help this to you and everybody. Compassion is wanting to free from problem, obstacles, mistakes, uneasiness. So that is the fundamental essence of love and compassion. So why we have panic? Actually, we don't like something or we are craving something. We are looking for happiness, may not happening, and we don't like that. So everybody looking for happiness, actually. Maybe you are now listening to this broadcast. Why you are looking for happiness? And why you're listening now? Maybe you're drinking coffee or tea, looking for happiness. And each movement of your body, each glimpse of your eyes is looking for happiness. So that is actually love and compassion. But then normally we don't go deeper level into panic.

We stop on the service level. So service level, there's a panic, there's a concept, there's a depression, could be hatred, so many different things, but then when we go deeper and deeper, deeper, actually there's genuine love, compassion, awareness, wisdom.

Can you share briefly the difference between those three? So love and compassion, awareness and wisdom. We've talked about love and compassion. Let's talk about awareness and wisdom briefly and how those are used in the terminology you're using. So awareness meaning knowing. Our mind, the fundamental quality, what we call clear and knowing. So mind actually is, in another word for the mind, sometimes what we call clarity, luminosity. Normally when we think of a mind, it's thought, emotion, feeling, memory. But these are what we call function of mind or mental factors or sometimes what we call radiance of the mind, not the actual mind.

So what is the actual mind? Clear and knowing. But that is not easy to find because it cannot be grabbed by conceptual mind. You need to find when you know how to be with it. So rather than looking or controlling, just be. And that luminosity or clarity or awareness is the fundamental of panic, essence of depression, essence of thought, essence of memory, like ocean and wave. The wave is ocean, actually. Without water, how you can have wave? So awareness is basically the space that everything is happening in. Would that be another way of describing it? Yes. Yes. Great. So the awareness, love and compassion are one actually.

And that is the basis of whatever happening in our mind, the basis of all this thought. Then wisdom. Wisdom, yes. So wisdom is, I think, although recognizing all these are wisdom, so wisdom is quite difficult to understand. So we need to practice step by step. Got it. So you do talk a lot about this ocean and wave idea, and I like it. And you say that when most beginners start with the idea that meditation is supposed to be peaceful, right? If they feel peaceful, they conclude they're doing it right. If we're not, then we conclude we're doing it wrong. And when the waves come, we say we cannot meditate, or we assume the presence of waves means we're not meditating correctly. Say a little bit more about that. Yeah. So there are two types of meditation, I think, in the world. So for my lineage is what we call object-oriented meditation and

subject-oriented meditation. The object-oriented meditation meaning whatever kind of meditation, you have to have objects. Objects are important. Breath, body, feeling, thought, emotion, objects objects important breath body feeling thought emotion whatever the object is important but the mind lineage is subject subject meaning the awareness so awareness is with us all the time actually and you don't have to really not need to even meditate normally what we call just be let it be as it is but you can use object of course but object is to support awareness to recognize the awareness so for that case when we begin to learn meditation for my lineage is even when you watch breath the awareness important breath. The awareness is important. Then there's a thought, emotion, feeling, whatever. Let them come, let them go. You can even aware of dull. Eventually you can aware of panic, depression, hatred. Then everything becomes support for awareness. So what we call when you see the river, you're out of river.

So what we call when you see the river, you're out of river. So if you're in the river, you cannot see river. But when you see river, that means you're out of river. But river still there. You don't have to block the river. Maybe you can enjoy the river, you know, do some exercise, walk along the river while watching the river. And if the river become waterfall, even better, you know.

But normally what happens, we fall in the river, lost in the river. Then if river becomes waterfall, dangerous, you know, big problem. So sometimes, I make a little bit funny name for this. Horizontal liberation and vertical liberation.

So most people expecting horizontal meaning the gap if i meditate in my mind there's no balabala no yada yada i need to have peace empty spacious think of nothing but that is the horizontal the gap between past and future but the vertical meaning you can have thought, you can have emotion, everything, but you are being with that. So awareness becomes bigger than thought, bigger than panic,

bigger than emotion. And you are not the emotion. You are not the thought, actually. We can have both, of course. We don't need to choose whatever comes to us. But eventually, by practicing like this awareness,

then we will free ourselves, not by controlling, not by creating, just being as it is. Right, because you described the fact that no matter what happens, these waves are going to keep coming. That's the nature of mind. You know, the nature of mind is it's going to think it's going to have thoughts, it's going to have emotions. So even if we were to take your horizontal, you know, I want this gap between things. Those gaps are by the very nature of the way the mind works somewhat limited. You just we don't sit down and shut it off. I like to think of it from a neuroscience perspective. It's not like you can sit down and start meditating and just power down all the neurons in your brain. They don't have an off switch.

I love this concept of horizontal versus vertical. Vertical says I don't have to have space between thoughts. I need to have space around thoughts. Yeah, correct. And so one way I've heard this described is, so you start with an object, like you're saying, okay, I'm paying attention to my breath. That's the content of awareness. But then I turn my attention to what is the content arising within, which is the awareness. Yeah. So then we don't need to look for peace, calm, joy, or dull, confusion, because all these are just cloud anyway, eventually.

So the most important is the awareness become more salient. Love and compassion become more vivid. So once we found the space, we can have cloud actually. We can have thought and emotion. Nothing wrong to have thought and emotion nothing wrong to have thought and emotion in fact it's good you know if by meditation then thought and emotion all are gone then we are become like robot or become like zombie so then life become very dry 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 brian kranson is with us how are you 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. Once upon a time, I did not have my financial life in order and I ended up with a lot of credit card debt. So what I had is a bunch of different credit cards with a bunch of different balances, with a bunch of different due dates and a bunch of different interest rates. It made it confusing and it made it expensive. So consolidating all of that into a debt consolidation loan was one of the smartest things I ever did.

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Loan amounts will be determined based on your credit, income, and certain other information provided in your loan application. Go to upstart.com slash wolf. You say, I finally discovered the only reliable liberation from suffering, not trying to get rid of the problem. Say more about that. Yeah. So that is the really fundamental teaching that I've been practicing. So once you discover this basic innate goodness, the awareness, the clarity, love and compassion, wisdom, no matter what happens in your mind, it's always there. There's no need to do anything. Just be who you are. And you are perfect from the beginning. So sometimes what we call self-liberation, liberated by itself, not by blocking, changing, or fighting with the

thought and emotions. The problem becomes solution, actually. You say elsewhere that it's our preoccupation with a problem that nails it in place. So I think this is a similar idea that we're saying here. It's by trying to get rid of the problem or our preoccupation with the problem, we basically are grabbing onto it and we're not allowing the nature of impermanence of change to happen because we are grasping at it. But what is the most problem during those days? The panic of panic is worse than panic. Fear of panic. Aversion of panic. So that makes panic longer. That is the feeding food for the panic. So you can try.

Maybe sometime I make one funny meditation called pizza meditation. Maybe we can try pizza meditation. For the pizza meditation, for a few seconds, you are not allowed to think of pizza, okay? Now, no pizza. Cannot think pizza even one second. What happened? Pizza comes. So when we say no pizza, actually more pizza will come.

So that is what we call the service level of mind, the monkey mind does. So monkey mind always does the opposite. When we say no, monkey mind say yes. When we say yes, monkey mind say no. So then actually, you don't have to do anything with the monkey mind because essence of monkey mind is awareness, love and compassion and wisdom. So be with that. My producer Chris is finally interested in meditation though.

He has listened to hundreds of these episodes, not cared about meditation. But now that you've mentioned pizza meditation, I think we finally have him on board. He has been doing pizza meditation for years. He's a meditation master of pizza, apparently. Wonderful. You have a phrase that you used in the book that is used in your lineage, which is adding wood to the fire. Describe a little bit about what adding wood to the fire is and why on earth would we want to do this?

So although my lineage of meditation awareness is important, so awareness, love, and compassion, wisdom with us all the time, but then in order to discover that, it's quite difficult at the beginning. Sometimes it's difficult because too easy and too close to us. So it becomes difficult. So first we need to learn a step-by-step practice of meditation, meditation with objects, then let go of object, what we call objectless meditation or open awareness meditation. Then eventually make what we call transform clashes,

ignoring as support for meditation, hatred, craving, pride, jealousy. So clashes transform into meditation. They become support for meditation. And then they lose their power, but we don't need to block them. Self-liberate, poison become medicine. Then suffering.

So eventually panic, depression, stress, or physical illness, whatever. But of course, we have to balance. If you're sick, you have to check with the doctor, of course, it's very important for the relative level. But just checking may not solve the problem. So the problem might be there, and we transform this suffering as support for meditation. Eventually, you know, whatever problem comes in the life, then all this becomes adding wood to the fire.

So fire is the recognition of awareness, love, and compassion, wisdom, whatever comes in our life. So at the beginning, we have to make fire with tiny wood, with the protection of the wind. Once the fire becomes bigger, let the wind come, and we can add various wood, even big wood, the fire becomes bigger. So that's the analogy. I think it's interesting because your book,

In Love With The World, Journey Through The Bardos of Living and Dying, you actually leave your monastic living to go out into the world and essentially add wood to the fire. And what I think is interesting is that you sort of had to go out to find wood to put on the fire. Whereas I think it's almost the opposite problem for a lot of people who live life outside of a monastery is it's almost as if when we start, there's too much wood in the fire already. We didn't get to train with the little wood, right? It's been burning all along. And now at whatever age we get to 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, we go, oh, I want to start to train in developing, or I think the word you would use is not developing love and compassion, awareness, discovering or recognizing because they're already there,

right? So recognizing, I want to start to recognize them, but boy, there's a lot of wood on the fire already. So would it be safe to say that in to use your analogy of, you know, you start by putting little pieces of wood on the fire. If we're going to work with our afflictions, if we're going to work with our suffering, that maybe we work with some of the easier parts of it to start with versus the hardest parts? Yes, that's correct. That's correct. So at the beginning, we always need to start with versus the hardest parts? Yes, that's correct. That's correct. So at the beginning, we always need to start something easy, something safe, something you can do. So transform small things.

For me, although I learned meditation from my father and many great meditation teachers, and they always recommend that don't work with the panic right away even when you transform panic into awareness compassion whatever that practice you're doing if you feel panic is too strong you cannot watch you cannot find love and compassion within that then let go look for another emotion so what i did, panic is quite strong with me, but I don't have so much anger normally. So I create anger and meditate with anger. I feel good. I can find awareness with the anger, but sometimes I cannot find awareness with the panic. So it takes time, step by step,

step by step. I want to ask you a question about sensation. You say sensation is the link between the object and the mind. So we have an object in the outer world. It causes a sensation in us, and we register that in the mind, usually as I like it or I don't like it. Good feeling, bad feeling. In Buddhist psychology or analysis, I've heard that the first thing that arises is pleasure or pain or neutral. So I experience an object and immediately comes pleasure, pain or neutral. Is that somewhat accurate in your understanding? In Buddhism, first appear as object. So what we call, let's say, let's we can talk through the eyes. So we have eyes, ear, nose, tongue,

body. First, what we call the organ, the object, and the consciousness, they meet. First millisecond, whatever. When they meet, the eyes doesn't see the object yet. So like science saying the light touch, the eyes don't see the object yet. So like science saying the light touch to the eyes. And then next, whatever millisecond, the image appear on the eyes. And that time, maybe for you, image appears beautiful, not beautiful. Nice image, not nice image, neutral image. Neutral, yeah.

Then after that, neutral image. Neutral, yeah. Yeah. Then after that, sensation comes. The image nice, pleasant sensation. Image not nice, unpleasant. And from neutral, there is some neutral sensation, normally not easy to recognize. Then what happens? The conceptual mind grabs that.

Oh, this is good. This is not good. I need it. How I look for that in the future, I might need it. So then the blah, blah, blah, yada, yada comes. happened the conceptual mind grabbed that oh this is good this is not good i need that how i look for that in the future i mean it so then the blah blah blah comes but it's kind of what we call circle the suffering is circle so whether this object is a nice or not nice it depends on your habit, your past mental like trauma in a way or kind of imprint.

So for some people when they look at the pizza, nice image. For some people when they look at the pizza not nice image. For some people neutral. It depends on your habit. Depends on how the imprint comes to you.

So these imprints again go through this process and then make new imprint again, and we will see again that object become like circle. So object, seeing, then would you call that perception? Yes. And then sensation? Yeah. that perception? Yes. And then sensation? Yeah. Yeah. So if the detail level, object, image,

recognize, sensation, again describe and become imprint and stay in the mental stream. And so that sensation of pleasant, unpleasant, neutral is happening so quickly and so far below the conscious level based on these imprints that you're describing, can they change? Of course, you can change. So how do you go about doing that? So I'll give you an example from my life. Here in the US, people when they're doing outdoor work, they have these gas-powered leaf blowers. They're really loud. And when I hear them, I instantly don't like it. I don't like it. I'm irritated by it. I don't want it. But I recognize that like the gas powered leaf blower is just an object, right? It's just a sound. Okay. So, all right. I'm far enough along that I recognize, okay, the problem isn't the sound. The problem is how I'm reacting to the sound. And yet it's happening so split second. I can't seem to get in between those things. So how do you start

to change that on something like that? So normally what we call view, meditation, application, we have to work with three areas. So view starting from cognitive level, So view starting from cognitive level. Meditation start with the feeling or experiential level. Application start with the habitual level or the tendency level. So the view is you look for the reason. So maybe that noise is just you're disturbing for some other people. Maybe they hear unpleasant noise.

Or what is the cause and condition that really bothering you so you can look for many different reasons that you can find and you can you can start new belief what we call view view is belief and then second meditation you can work with that sensation normally suddenly your unpleasant sensation comes with body without knowing that maybe some sometime from heart sometime from the head sometime from the gut sometime from the shoulders certainly unpleasant like way we feel entire body in one second so what we can can do? Be with that sensation. You don't need to look for the reason. Just accept and be with the sensation. Sensation becomes support for awareness or find the love and compassion within the sensation or wisdom. So from the feeling level, experiential level, you can walk with it

and that has automatic healing also and by this too the view and experiential level the meditation together try again again again you have to build new habit z comes bring this to noise comes bring this to together then slowly slowly noise become it doesn't disturb to you and it's okay and slowly slowly the noise becomes, it doesn't disturb to you. And it's okay. And slowly, slowly the noise comes, awareness comes. Noise comes, love and compassion comes. And then that becomes support for love and compassion, awareness and wisdom. are there any things that we encounter you can't make that change with? So for example, physical pain seems like as humans, we all react to physical pain with go away, right? That's our natural reaction. Can we change that? Like the noise I'm describing, I can tell you that I don't know anybody who would be like, oh, that's a nice sound. Almost everybody would be like, imagine a really loud, bad motor running in your ear.

You'd be like, well, it would be sort of jarring, you know. So are there some things that as our nature, we're going to never be able to relate to that way? Or is everything malleable in this fashion? In general, it takes some time. Of course, everything can be changed from the mental level, but you cannot change pain. Pain is there, but the reaction to the pain can be changed. Sometimes what we call getting old, sick, natural suffering. So sometimes we cannot change, but fear of getting old is worse than getting old. So that can be changed. Maybe we can set up your book here for a minute because I found it really remarkable. Can you describe the basic premise of what you were trying to do in the book?

Yeah, so this book is the mind. 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?

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It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. you get your podcasts. Last book, and I went to wandering retreat, actually. Just, you know, leave my monastery, everything, and go on the street without much support by myself. So I have a lot of wonderful experience, though they are very difficult, and I was kind of naive that just go on the street,

then I will be fine. It's not like that but actually I really learned a lot. One of the real lesson is what I call if you love the world, world loves your back. So then the title the book title name in love with the world. Why? As we discussed here awareness, awareness love and compassion wisdom is the fundamentally essence of all of us so when we more and more connect with those things and actually we find wonderful people cause and conditions and the courage and you will find a solution also if there's a problem so first month was quite difficult i was almost die because of the i think food poison but then i didn't die i come back then i have really great appreciation that just being alive and the street where i'm staying their street become like my home. Look at the trees.

Trees become like what I call the tree made by love. So now, before, what I feel is unsafe here. There's no problem. Oh, there's a danger. Of course, now I know the relative level where there's a danger. But still, everything becomes like my home. So now, there's the first one. And after that, I spent more than four years. Actually, everything is quite good. So what I

call, this is a really important part of the book, transformation, self-transformation, obstacle become opportunity. So you describe in the book that you leave your monastic life, you are a highly revered figure in your monastic life. And while you may not be considered wealthy, you lived a life in which you never really had to do things for yourself. You had people who took care of your basic needs so that you could focus on your meditation practice, deepenening your spirituality, all of that. So you had attendance, you had all this stuff, and you suddenly decide, I'm walking away from all of that, and I'm just going to head out into the world and see what

happens. It's a little bit like the Buddha leaving his, the legend of the Buddha, you know, had all his needs met, and he decided to wander out into the world. So similar thing. What I found so striking about the book, at least in the beginning, is how jarring this was for you. Like you went out and all of a sudden you go from living in a monastery and being taken care of to basically being on a train in India. And describe a little bit about how jarring these things were for you, because I think it's really powerful because it speaks to what we've just been talking about, which is your initial reaction to all those things. You were able to overcome that and now

relate to those things totally differently. Yeah. So my name is Rinpoche. So like in Tibetan tradition, it's a high title. Wherever I go, I have these attendees and someone taking care of me. So I can do study and teaching and learning all these things. And then I was teaching around the world since 2000, year 2000. And there's a lot of students. And I have a few monasteries. I become head of the monastery. And I wrote the book. The first book is lot of students. And I have a few monasteries. I become head of the monastery. And I wrote the book.

The first book is Joy of Living. That's become bestseller. So normally what I describe myself as like Dharma prince. So everything is wonderful condition, everything. Then kind of pride comes. Oh, I'm the teacher, abbot, writer, and teacher of a lot of students. So we have this practice about the wandering retreat. I have this in my mind. So when I was young, my mother used to read the great wandering meditators in the past, like Milareva. So it's kind of bedtime story.

People who wander, wander in retreat. Yeah. Yeah. Wandering in retreat. Then I have this idea that I really want to, you know, leave everything and do the wandering in retreat. So I did that. But at the beginning, I never went alone by myself anywhere.

So that time I have to buy a basic train ticket and everybody's lying there that i'm in india and everybody pushing each other i was waiting waiting many people come and i become always last last last then someone pushed me behind. So finally I got the ticket. Then we are waiting at the train station. Everybody pushed inside. When the train comes, the door is totally blocked by people. And inside people push, come out. And outside push inside.

So I don't have control, you know. I'm on the, eventually I cannot touch my feet to the ground then I lit inside the train in the train I was thinking I move a little forward but somehow I stuck I look back I have small backpack you know there's two person between me and backpack you know and in the train some of them goat comes cow comes very smelly so then i was really shocked you know i never thought like that way so there's a lot of emotion comes little fear or unsafe unpleasant sensation come will this train lead and when i arrive, what should I do? So many emotions come. So meanwhile, I try my best to practice, practice. I did four and a half years retreat.

Only thing that really protect me, save me is my practice. Yeah, it's kind of amazing as you describe the book to see you sort of overwhelmed with these very human emotions. It'd be the equivalent of a listener of this show, me going from living a somewhat comfortable upper middle class Western life to suddenly going and being homeless on the streets of Mexico. It would be about the equivalent, right? And that's what you did. And like any of us would, you have all the normal feelings. I'm afraid. I'm disgusted. I'm being given food that I'm like, what is this? And what's so fascinating in the book to me is how as all that's happening, you're applying your practice to it. And you are in real time working to transform these emotions using these qualities we've been describing, using loving kindness and compassion, using awareness, using wisdom.

You're actually transforming these things. And then you go on to get incredibly sick. I'm not sure if we'd describe it as a near-death experience, but you were very close to death. You finally get so sick, so dehydrated, you lose consciousness and you wake up in a hospital. But that experience of that close to dying also was a deep awakening experience for you. Right. Yeah. So actually, I don't have much money, a few thousand Indian rupees, So actually, I don't have much money, few thousand Indian rupees.

And that money gone within three weeks, actually. So I went from Bodh Gaya to Varanasi and Varanasi to Kushinagar. Kushinagar is where Buddha passed Nirvana, you know, para-Nirvana. Buddha died there. So first I rent a small, what they call dharamsamsala kind of like gas house, very basic. It's only few 200, 200 rupee. That means three, four dollars. And after finish my money, then I have to stay on the street. Then I move from the gas house on the street.

Then I have to beg food. So first, I never beg food in my life feel very shy and you know nervous and first i went to this street kind of like shop normally i buy food there it's very cheap so i went there and tell them oh all my money is gone can you give me some leftover food and that person knows me and tell me, come in the evening. So I went there in the evening and got the food. And from the food, then I start have diarrhea in the midnight. So four or five days, diarrhea, no medicine for, no money for the medicine.

Drink the water only. There's a pump, you know. Hand has to do like this. Then water come and we have to drink. So then in the end, somehow I cannot even look for water. My body become really failing actually. I cannot really see.

All the senses are gone and my body become paralyzed. And what I did is normally what we call dying meditation so there's a very clear description when you die what happens first stage second stage and all the stages are happening to me there's a disillusion of element what we call falling floating and then melting and then in the end, like blow away, like wind. All these experiences are there. But at the same time, awareness becomes more clear, actually, more vivid, deeper level. In the end, I cannot see, cannot think, nothing. But awareness is so present and even there's no really thought there.

So normally when we think about apple, so there's image of apple there. That is also gone. So there's no time, no front, no back, no up, no down. So peaceful, joy. And there's sense of love and compassion without object. What we call non-conceptual love and compassion. So I was in that state for a few hours. Then after that, I come back.

So when I come back, then everything has become really wonderful. The street becomes like my home. And the wind blows to my face and the body before wind is quite hot during that time very unpleasant feeling but now it's really unpleasant so this is really in my i described this very detail in my book but normally i'm saying that don't try don't try at home, you know? Yes. So if you want to really have this meditation, now when I think about this, it's kind of like,

it's like suicide mission. So don't try that at home. But in our life, we have a lot of problems, as you mentioned before. So try to transform whatever problem comes to our mind and make friends with that. Well, that is a great place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show.

It is a real honor to have you on. And I have really enjoyed this conversation and talking with you. Thank you. Thank you very much. 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. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.

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