The One You Feed - Sharon Salzberg

Episode Date: September 8, 2015

Sharon-Salzberg the one you feed  This week we talk to Sharon Salzberg about the essential questionSharon Salzberg is one of the worlds best know Buddhist teachers and has been leading meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. She teaches both intensive awareness practice (vipassana or insight meditation) and the profound cultivation of lovingkindness and compassion (the Brahma Viharas). She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and The Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.She is the author of many books including the New York Times Best Seller, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program, Love Your Enemies: How to Break the Anger Habit & Be a Whole Lot Happier with Robert Thurman, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience and Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Sharon's latest book is Real Happiness At Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace.Our Sponsor this Week is Spirituality and Health Magazine. Click here for your free trial issue and special offer. In This Interview Sharon and I Discuss...The One You Feed parableHer view on Lovingkindness after teaching about it f0r 20 yearsUnderstanding the ways that we are all connected to each otherThe difference between lovingkindness and compassionIdiot CompassionThat lovingkindness and compassion don't equate to weaknessThe fundamental teaching "Everyone wants to be happy"How it's never to late to make a changeLife lessons manifesting during meditationAvoiding the all or nothing mindsetHow nothing stays the same, especially our mindsetHow the mind is naturally radiant and pureThe "visitors" that obscure our mindHow what we resist persistsThe essential question to ask ourselvesBalancing repression and indulgence in our emotionsHow mindfulness is sometimes called "The Place In The Middle" For more show notes and links to Sharon's work please visit our webpageSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can learn how to start over, you can learn how to begin again, and that's the most important thing. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts

or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Sharon Salzberg, one of the world's best known Buddhist teachers and a leader in meditation retreats worldwide since 1974. She teaches both intensive awareness practice, Vipassana or insight meditation, and the profound cultivation of loving-kindness and compassion. She is a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society in Barr, Massachusetts, and the Barr Center for Buddhist Studies. Sharon's latest book is Real Happiness at Work, Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement,

and Peace. I should also mention that we have a few spots that just opened up in the one-on-one program with Eric. If you've been wondering whether or not the program is right for you, this may help. This is what Anthony, one of Eric's former coaching clients, said when he was asked what he got out of the program. He helped me rethink the way I was approaching my own problems by just asking me questions. And it was really easy to talk to him.

He was super insightful. There was things where I would tell him my problems and he would just tell me these like tiny little things like, hey, what if you thought of it this way instead? And it would just be totally mind-blowing. He just has a very nice way of looking at things. In addition, the one-on-one coaching introductory pricing goes up in two weeks. So if you've been thinking about joining the program, now is a great time. And here's the interview with Sharon Salzberg. Hi, Sharon. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to have you on. I have read your books for a number of years now and visited the meditation center that you were a co-founder of,

so this is exciting for me to get you on. We'll start the show like we always do with 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. Then 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. I think I have a somewhat unusual take on it, as well as maybe a more common source of strength and inspiration from it. The unusual take is the so-called bad wolf, you know, where rather than feeling hatred or disdain or kind of incredible dislike for that aspect, those qualities, learning a kind of compassionate awareness so that that wolf may not be overpowering. It may not take over, but it can sort of accompany one in a gentle way throughout one's journey. So there's that part, which I think is somewhat more unusual. The more usual one, which does give me a source of inspiration and strength, is the concept of choice, that so many forces may arise in our minds and so many different kinds of conditioning and habit and so on. But we really do have a choice and we have a tremendous amount of power because of how we

might relate to those different forces. Some we do want to nourish and nurture and strengthen, and others we want to more gently let go of and not have them be so strong. So you have written a lot of books about a lot of things and given countless talks, really across the spectrum of Buddhist ideas. But one of the things you're probably most known for is the idea of loving kindness. Can you just share briefly what that means to you now? You've been talking about it and writing about it for a long time. So what does it mean to you now after all these years? It's an interesting question. My first book was called Loving Kindness, and it came out 20 years ago. And I'm working on a book now called Real Love. So it's almost like that very question is

permeating my day. I think of loving kindness most profoundly as a sense of connection. And I think about all the ways we are connected in that I or we experience connection in life, which, you know, isn't necessarily something mystical or spiritual, but just through economic understanding or environmental understanding or the ways we see our lives really have something to do with one another. And I try every day to, with that sense, see how I act with people one-on-one or collectively. How much attention am I paying? How much am I recognizing? Yeah, we do have something to do with one another. And because my work is so centered around loving kindness a lot of what i try to emphasize is loving kindness is not a weakness it doesn't make us silly it doesn't make us give in to things but it's its own kind of strength to

to recognize connection and to respond from that place now Now, loving kindness is often, you know, it's used synonymously with compassion often. And, you know, there's been teachers in the Buddhist school who have referred to something called idiot compassion. Help me understand the difference between loving kindness and idiot compassion. Okay, well, first, there's actually a distinction between loving kindness and compassion. Great. Although they're very close, and they certainly support one another. Loving kindness is that fundamental sense of connectedness with ourselves and with others, ultimately with all beings.

And it's often based on the recognition that everybody actually wants to be happy. We make incredible mistakes because of the force of ignorance. Like we forget where happiness is to be found or we can't figure it out to begin with. But everybody actually wants to be happy that we all share this. And compassion is considered the trembling or the quivering of the heart in response to seeing pain or suffering. So it's a movement of the heart, and it's a movement toward to see if we can be of help. And that's based not so much on seeing everybody wants to be happy, but on recognizing our universal vulnerability, how everybody is vulnerable to change to loss we don't all share the same measure of grief or unhappiness that's clear but everybody is vulnerable so compassion is not like a top-down

experience it's an equalizing experience and so compassion has a kind of tenderness around the sense of seeing suffering or the possibility of suffering and that's one of the distinctions between loving kindness and compassion uh somebody once said compassion is love that experiences suffering that opens to suffering idiot compassion was a phrase of trumparimba chase um it's tibetanama, really talking about when compassion is not accompanied by wisdom. And I think one of the things to understand with loving kindness or compassion is that they're not meant to define what action will take to something, some provocation or some situation. They're talking about the heart space that we're coming from, the motivation or the intention. So you might be coming from a genuinely compassionate place and your discernment, your understanding,

your best guess of the most skillful way to act in that context, in that moment's really fierce, really strong. Saying no, having a boundary, doesn't mean you're not coming from a compassionate place. It just means that's what wisdom is telling you to act with. And so the idea of compassion is more like you think you always have to say yes, and you have to be kind of squishy, and you have to just give in all the time or give them all your money or whatever it might be. Yeah, that idea that everybody wants to be happy and that everybody suffers was one of those teachings that I think changed me on a pretty profound level when I really got it. profound level when I really got it. And I go back to it all the time as a, you know,

just looking at people and going, well, underneath, if you, if you strip everything else away, that's the fundamental truth of all of us. And we can all relate with that. And it's, it's a really powerful teaching. Yeah, I think it is very powerful. And it's very, it's very interesting just to use it. You know, you're in a meeting or something and you look around the table, you look at the people in the room and you think, well, you want to be happy too. And you want to be happy too. And you know, what does that change? What does that do? Yep. It certainly helps us not feel so isolated or different. I'm going to read a couple lines from one of your writings that we talk on this show a lot about changing habits and, you know,

the voices in our head, the things that we say to ourselves over and over. And I just found this a really moving thing. So I'll just read it to you and then maybe you can elaborate upon it. It is never too late to turn on the light. Your ability to break an unhealthy habit or turn off an old tape doesn't depend on how long it has been running. A shift in perspective doesn't depend on how long you've held on to the old view. When you flip the switch in that attic, it doesn't matter whether it's been dark for 10 minutes, 10 years, or 10 decades. The light still illuminates the room and banishes the

murkiness, letting you see the things you couldn't see before. It is never too late to take a moment to look. Wow, I said that. That's great. Yeah, it's just, I love that idea of it doesn't matter how long it's been happening. It's always worth trying to make a change. I think it's really true. And one of the things I've loved about meditation practice is how sometimes the really big life lessons manifest in meditation in these itty-bitty little packages. So, for example, in meditation practice, if you're practicing in a way where, say, you're trying to rest your attention on a certain object, like the feeling of the breath, it's usually not 9,000 breaths before your mind wanders.

It's usually like two, right? And then you're just gone. You're way gone. It's usually like two, right? And then you're just gone. You're way gone. And then comes this magic moment when you realize, oh, I haven't really been with the breath. And that's considered the crucial moment because that's the moment we have the chance to, first of all, forgive ourselves, gently let go, and come back to start over.

It's a sense of renewal. It's a sense of resilience. And you have to do it a billion times. You just do it over and over and over again. And I think that's one of the most important things we ever do in meditation practice, because that's the kind of thing we take right into our life. You know, you have an aspiration, you blow it. You have to start over. You have to begin again. Something happens and you fall down and you have to pick yourself up. You have to start over. You have to begin again. Something happens and you fall down and you have to pick yourself up. You have to begin again. I think the way I say it now in life is that I don't really believe anything in life is a straight shot. You know, we're always like having

to start over and start over and start over. So in some ways, meditation practice, I mean, for me, and for many people I've witnessed, really, it forms the training ground for that ability. And that's why it's never too late. Coming back is coming back. It doesn't matter if you've been gone for an hour or, or 10 weeks, you know, you're back. Yep, I think that's so powerful. And we one of the things I notice in a lot of people that I work with in and myself is, this is sort of all or nothing mindset, when we make a mistake, it's like you just, oh, screw it, right? I, you know, I blew, you know, I messed up, and you just drop everything and walk away versus recognizing that's just part of the path, it's gonna happen, it's normal. And, you know, just keep moving forward. Which I think that's the essential lesson. And it's interesting, I think even the way we frame things, like in language, because, and I too do it, but, you know, I hear people say, they ask questions like, how can I keep this level of mindfulness? Or how can I maintain this kind of concentration after the retreat? And I always say, it's not going to happen.

Don't even think that way. It's not going to happen. But you can learn how to start over. You can learn how to begin again. And that's the rest of the interview with Sharon Salzberg. You talk about the idea that, and it's the basic Buddhist concept, that our minds are naturally radiant. But that we have, I've heard you refer to them as visitors who come and... I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts?

His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all.

Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah? Really, no really. 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. Sort of obscure that view. And you talk about how, A, it's really natural that those visitors come, and B, not fighting them so much. Can you talk a little bit about what those visitors that obscure our mind are and your thoughts on the best way to handle them? There's a beautiful quotation from the Buddha I've always liked, where he said, There's a beautiful quotation from the so i get up and i open the door and there's greed hatred jealousy um all those kinds of visitors that uh we are so tempted

first of all to fling open the door and say welcome home it's all yours like forgetting who actually lives here or as i've certainly seen many times, we're tempted to shut the door desperately in their face, trying to pretend we never heard the knock, only to find that the visitor then comes in through the window or down through the chimney or somehow makes its presence known. So I've often thought of that skill of what happens just as we open the door and we see something like greed or fear or rage or hostility, jealousy, they're visiting. Can we remember who actually lives here? Remember who we are in effect in a deeper way? Stay centered, here, remember who we are in effect in a deeper way, stay centered, recognize, this is what I meant about the so-called bad wolf, you know, not freak out and not be afraid of the visitor and not

hate them, but realize, I'm not going to let you take over. You know, you can just go. And there are whole schools of Buddhist methodology which, to vastly oversimplify it, would basically say, invite the visitor in for a meal. Keep an eye on them so they don't take over, but you don't have to be so afraid. And I was once teaching actually here at the Insight Meditation Society, and I said that someone in the room didn't like that. So I said, how about invite them in for a cup of tea? And they didn't like that either, and they said, how about a cup of tea to go?

So I said, that's okay. How about, you know, just give them a cup of tea to go. The idea is that our own resistance and resentment and fear actually makes that visitor stronger. And it's better to have a calmer, more balanced, compassionate relationship. Right. That saying, you know, what you resist persists, you know, seems to really be true. You talk about an essential question to ask ourselves. And this is not one that I have done a whole lot. So I find it really intriguing to think about. But the question is, what do I really need right now in this moment

to be happy? I knew you were going to say that when you started. I thought, what is that essential question? Yes, I use that question a lot. And I find it very profound, partly because I think we have so many kind of manufactured desires in a way. We're told by society or other people or the culture that we need certain things in order to be happy. And we don't necessarily question that. And so much of our life can be in the pursuit of those very things. You know, we need a certain level of fame. We need a certain kind of stature. We need success as packaged in a certain way

we need this many uh objects and i just had a move a physical move from one apartment which i sometimes sublet an apartment in new york city even though i live in massachusetts and i had to leave it so that meant everything had to leave. So I was just shocked. And I made all those determinations. Like, I'm going to give away half those books. You know, it's ridiculous. But we're taught, you know, you need this much accumulation. You need these many things.

And then you'll be perfectly happy. And it takes, first of all, a kind of courage and a great strength. And it's so liberating to step back from that and say, what do I really need in order to be happy? And, you know, and we take that to psychological and emotional realms, too. Like, you know, maybe we've been taught that vengeance is strength and endless competition is happiness. But let's take a a look how happy does it make me actually yep i love that idea particularly too of you know what do i need in this moment because if i stop and i think about life that's such a grand thing and it's easy to think well i could need that and

then that would be good and but if i stop and go right now right where i, what do I need to be happy? And I realized that in the moment, if I were, you know, if I were to, if the visitors weren't maybe so present, I would have everything I would need. It's right here. There's nothing, you know, the moment can be enough if we allow it. Well, the visitors may be present, but if they weren't so overpowering, you know, that's another way of finding that kind of happiness. There's a couple questions that come up on this show over and over again that I ask because I'm particularly intrigued by them

or I wrestle with them. One is there's this idea of dealing with emotions. And on one hand, there is sort of the idea of repressing the emotions, you know, pretending they're not there, ignoring them, you know, making them go away via alcohol, whatever. And then on the far other extreme is this idea of sort of indulging in them, wallowing in them. How do you find the middle ground between those two areas? I think that any training in mindfulness is precisely that. Actually, we sometimes call mindfulness the place in the middle, and it's practice.

We practice and practice and practice. And craving for alcohol is a harder place to practice. We start with whatever is happening right now and work toward the harder places as well. But that's the precise practice. Something comes up, we have the habit either of diving into it, getting overwhelmed by it, especially having it guide our choices and our actions, or we hate it, we fear it, we can't stand it. And to find that place in the middle where we can say,

there's a visitor. I remember who lives here, but something is visiting or this is what's happening right now. This is just the truth of the present moment. Look at that. I can be aware of it. I don't have to dive into it. I don't have to fight it. Look at that. That's almost like the definition of mindfulness. And, you know, rather than thinking of mindfulness as this kind of magical quality that some people have and other people don't, I just see it as a training. And that, you know, we just practice and practice and practice. a training, my ability to do it has gotten a lot better simply by doing it. I mean, I've been reading, you know, mindfulness related things. You know, you wrote your first book 20 years ago, I probably started reading books like that about 20 years ago. And for years on and off, I just had the most inconsistent meditation practice, you know, I'd meditate hard for a month, and then not the rest of the year or, and finally, over the last few years, I've just gotten to every day, I'm going to sit down and do this

for a little while. And it's amazing what that consistent day after day practice does. It's not, you know, it's not anything, it's not like a miracle. It's not like I'm always happy. It's just that kind of like you said, I can see more clearly what's happening in my brain. I can go, oh, this is what this is, and this is what that is. And it doesn't make, you know, I think one of the things that I thought was if I became mindful or meditated, I wouldn't feel bad. Once I recognize, like, oh, I'm sad, that I would no longer be sad. And that's not really the case. It's just that, like, I like what you said.

I'm better able to think about what my reaction, my behavior is around those things. I think that's totally true. And it's so, first of all, I think it's great that you've been practicing consistently, truly, because it's also not easy, you know. Right. But I think it's the most important thing and also makes it the most inclusive thing, you know, because it's not up to, the most inclusive thing, you know, because it's not up to, you know, to succeed or to make progress in meditation doesn't mean you have to be a certain kind of person or have a certain kind of life or a certain sort of situation. It means you have to do the practice. And anybody who practices can develop those strengths. And it's within everyone's capacity to do that and so um even though it can be incredibly hard to find the time which is so ironic because we're not talking about eight hours a day you know right you're doing like 10 or 20 minutes a day it can be very hard to find the time or

you might feel like you're too busy there's too much else to do or even sometimes people say i felt selfish taking the time for myself it's it's really an incredibly important thing to do, or even sometimes people say I felt selfish taking the time for myself. It's really an incredibly important thing to do. So if I'm just having casual conversation, and I sort of explain some of the concept of Buddhism and the Four Noble Truths, one of the things that comes up a lot is this idea of, well, am I just supposed to not want anything then? You know, if we say that, you know, that it's this craving that is at the root of our suffering, people are, am I just not supposed to want anything? And even myself, I look at the world and it looks to me like this idea of growing and striving and changing

is fundamental. It seems like it's built into the fabric of the world, of nature. And so how do you, I always say to people, well, I'm sure a good Buddhist teacher could tell you why that's not exactly what it means better than I can. So now I'm going to ask you to tell me why that's not true. Yeah, you're right. Well, part of it is a confusion of language. You know, there are lots of words in Pali or Sanskrit that are very precise, and maybe not so much in English. So the question of wanting or desire is, I mean, that's a word that is used to translate lots of different words in Sanskrit or Pali. Pali is the language of the original Buddhist texts. And so a lot would depend on one's motivation. You could want and aspire and have tremendous intensity around something really positive. And you can want and aspire and have tremendous intensity about something that will really damage you or really harm others.

And so the intensity is itself kind of neutral it depends on what's accompanying it you know so like uh i'm actually looking at that beautiful uh painting behind your shoulder since we cannot see each other um on skype and uh you know i could do a riff on i really want that wow that's kind of incredible wow i have to have that and you know there's not really room in my apartment in new york city or my house in massachusetts so maybe i need a new apartment in new york city and you know maybe i need a bigger apartment in new york city with more wall space so i can hang more things but that would be kind of expensive. Doesn't matter, right? So that's the kind of wanting we get into because we're not

thinking about what we might have to compromise in order to get what we want or who we might hurt or what we might be giving up to get what we want. But we can think about that, you know, and that doesn't mean you never buy the painting. It means that you do it in a climate of wisdom. Yeah, and I think the other thing that I've realized is I used to think that all striving and ambition came out of a place of deep dissatisfaction. And I think that I've found that striving and ambition and all that can come out of a place of the joy of creating, of making, of changing, not out of the I hate where I'm at place. I think that's very true. And as you started speaking, the word creation came into my mind, creativity. And, you know, so I would completely agree with you. I think that there is that creative impulse and even compassion, you know, in many translations,

it's described as compassionate energy. It's a manifesting energy. So, you know, compassion doesn't mean you sit around and feel bad. It means you go toward to see if you can be of help. And that doesn't mean you go into in order to burn up, you know, or crash. But you go toward. It's got a manifestation of creativity to it. If it just meant sitting around feeling bad, then you're not helping anybody, including yourself. I won't even try and say what is your most recent book, because it's hard to keep up with, but one of your recent books was written with Robert Thurman. It was called Love Your Enemies, How to Break the Anger Habit and Be a Whole Lot Happier.

And in that book, you guys define four types of enemies. I was wondering if you could walk us through those. Sure. The structure of that book came actually from Bob, who's a Tibetan Buddhist scholar. So it's a system modeled within Tibetan Buddhism. The first kind of enemy is the outer enemy, which is the clear conventional enemy. Someone's tried to hurt you or feels like a threat to you or those you love. The inner enemy is our own rage, our own anger, our own fear. The ways that we get overcome, and that doesn't mean the appearance of those states, right?

Those are just visitors. But when we get overcome by, we get defined by, they become chronic states. They affect our choices. They really define our lives. That's the problem. That becomes like an enemy because we've given over a lot formulation is the construct of a separate self that we live under. The idea that we're independent rather than interdependent, that we should be in control of things, that there's something permanent and unyielding within us that we can count on. permanent and unyielding within us that we can count on, that's an enemy because it's all untrue. And so once we're living at variance to what's actually true, we suffer. That's what makes something an enemy. It produces suffering. And then, as Bob described it, the most secret enemy, because that's a Tibetan system, it's

the outer, the inner, the secret, the most secret. The most secret enemy is a kind of self-loathing where we don't understand the actual capacity we're said to have for change, for wisdom, for love, for growth. And so, of course, that capacity isn't always realized and it may be covered over, it may be hidden, it may be hard to find, it may be hard to trust, but it's always, always there. No matter what we may go through, it's always there. And so when we don't appreciate that, then that's also a kind of enemy. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir.

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

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I say that regardless of what type of enemy it is, the method to overcome those is, you know, follows a similar format. Can you walk us through briefly what, you know, what is the right way to deal with those

enemies? Well, I would take us back to, you know, sitting happily at home and you hear the knock at the door. Like a visitor has appeared. So there are a couple of things in the Buddhist statement that are really remarkable. The mind is naturally radiant and pure. The mind is shining. It's because of visiting forces that we suffer.

First of all, a remarkable thing is the appreciation that these forces are just visiting. They come and go. They may visit a lot, but they're still just visiting. They're not who we essentially are. And so we see something at play and we remember, I don't have to fall into this and I also don't have to fight it. I can find that middle way, that way of awareness to be with it, to recognize it, not get lost in it, not hate it, and then I'm free even as it's

going on. The other remarkable thing in that statement is that the Buddhist said it's because of visiting forces that we suffer. He didn't say it's because of visiting forces that we're horrible people or we're terrible or worthless or anything like that. He said it's because of visiting forces that we suffer. That means compassion is always relevant. It's always appropriate, including compassion for ourselves. Wonderful. So one of the things that you, you talk a lot about the idea of setting intentions, you say each decision we make, each action we take is born out of an intention. And that we, and then you've kind of follow that with we learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do, but why and how we do it. And I've just sort of started to be a little bit more exposed to this idea of intentions.

Can you elaborate on that? It's kind of a subtle and crucial part of mindfulness training where you just turn some of your attention to where you're coming from, what's motivating you, what you want. I say sometimes like if I'm teaching in a company, a business, I say, you know, before you go into a major meeting or you have a big phone call, just ask yourself, what is it I want to see the most come from this encounter? Do I want to be seen as right? Do I want to be helpful? Do I want to be harmful? Do I want a resolution? It's just one way of beginning to see that, oh, there's a motivating element here that's going to contour everything I say and everything I refrain from saying. And we continually practice that way. Like, where am I coming from? What is it I want? Because from the Buddhist point of view, the motivation behind an action is a crucial part of the action.

We don't think that way so much in the West. But if you just look at something like generosity, for example, we know we can be generous from a whole variety of different motives. And Buddhism would say that it's a different action depending on what's motivating it. Like I might give you a book out of my tremendous pile of books because I like you. Or maybe I'm giving it to you because I don't like you. And I think writing that first paragraph is going to be something that's going to upset you. Or maybe I can't bear the fact that I have so many books and I've just got to give them away. It's kind of random. Or maybe I just gave a big lecture on generosity and all these people are looking at me and I want to

be thought of as a generous person. Or I see you have that painting and I want the painting. And I think, well, maybe if I give you the book, you'll give me the painting. You know, the physical act of my hand reaching down, picking up an object and moving it forward is identical, but the heart space that it's coming from could be a million different things. And that really figures from the point of view of Buddhist psychology, that really figures in our assessment of the action. Yeah, and I really like that idea of just trying to be more intentional about, like you said, what is it that I want out of this encounter, this moment, this day? You know, sometimes it's, well, I don't even do a good enough job on a broad scale, but I've just found it as I've gotten that idea lately of sort of going,

okay, well, what sort of attention do I want to bring to the world today? Yeah, it's great. You share an analogy that I don't quite remember where you heard it from, but I thought it was very entertaining and insightful, which was, watch your thoughts like a very elderly person watching little kids play at the park. which I usually use actually not even so exclusively as a meditation instruction. I use it as a description of the combination of balance and compassion that I think we're looking for in action. So let's say you're a really elderly person and you're sitting in a park, you're watching children play. You know, you've lived a life.

That's what being elderly implies in this know, you've lived a life. That's what being elderly implies in this example. You've lived a life. You've probably had to let go of a lot of things. You've earned some wisdom through life. And there you are. You're watching these children play. And you see this little kid completely freaking out because they've broken a shovel. So you're not all cold and mean. You don't go over them and say, hey, kid, it's just a shovel. Wait till you have a real problem. You're kind, you're tender, you're present, you're caring. But you also don't fall down on the ground sobbing. Because you know what? Shovels break. That's a part of life. You have perspective,

you have spaciousness, you have wisdom. So I talk about that combination of spaciousness and kindness as certainly I as a person, as an individual, if I were seeking help from somebody and I told them my very sad story, I wouldn't want them to say, hey, it's just a shovel. But I also would not want them to fall down on the ground sobbing. Then I'd really freak out. I want that sense of caring and tenderness and kindness and also spaciousness and some glimpse of something beyond the immediate situation I find myself in. And so I think that in general is what we want as human beings when we seek help. And I think it's something I think that's something we can also remember we can offer as we offer help. You know, people really don't get served by our falling down on the ground and freaking out. You know, but it's not coldness. It's not iciness. It's a real caring but with perspective.

Exactly. So I think I'd like to end with one of your statements again and ask you just to go into a little bit more detail about it. But it says that the difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention. I think that's true. We, you know, for example, something may arise in our minds, something uncomfortable, something distressing, one of those unpleasant visitors. And we may add so much shame and so much distress and feeling I should have been able to stop it, been meditating for more than 40 years for God's sake, why is it still there, that we've taken an uncomfortable situation and made it a million times worse. I'm all alone. I'm isolated. I'm the only one who's ever felt it. It's a million times worse. Whereas we can also have that uncomfortable thing arise, whatever it is, that distressing visitor. And we can envelop ourselves with a sense of presence and balance and kindness, remembering we're not all alone, that this is a

part of the human condition. We can have compassion for ourselves as well as for others. And it's a whole other world, even though that same thing is arising. And so too with beautiful and wonderful and lovely things that arise, we can be so distracted, we can hardly take them in, or we can really honor that. Look at that. You know, that's the wolf to feed. That's a capacity I have. And so everything really depends on what we do with our attention. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up this episode. Sharon, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, for all the writing and work that you do, and it's a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much.

All right, take care. Bye. Bye-bye. you can learn more about Sharon Salzberg and this podcast at one you feed.net slash Sharon. And that's the name Sharon, not like, Hey, you sharing this pizza with me, or do I need to go get my own?