The Tim Ferriss Show - #793: How to Calm Your Inner Storm — A Guided Meditation to Tame Restlessness with Zen Master Henry Shukman

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This episode is part of a new experiment called Meditation Monday. The teacher, Henry Shukman, has been on my podcast twice before. He is one of only a few dozen masters in the world authorized to teach Sanbo Zen, and now, he’ll be your teacher.In addition to my long-form interviews each week, every Monday I’ll bring you a short 10-minute or so meditation, which will help you for the rest of the week.Over this four-episode series, you’ll develop a Zen toolkit to help you find greater calm, peace, and effectiveness in your daily life.Henry’s app, The Way, has changed my life since I first started using it. Unlike other meditation apps, where you’re overwhelmed with a thousand choices, The Way is a clear step-by-step training program guided entirely by Henry. Through a logical progression, you’ll develop real skills that stick with you.I’ve been using it daily, often twice a day, and it’s lowered my anxiety more than I thought possible.As a listener of my podcast, you can get 30 free sessions by visiting https://thewayapp.com/tim and downloading the app.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is a brand new experiment called Meditation Monday. That means in addition to my long form interviews each week, every Monday I will be bringing you a short 10 minute or so meditation which will help you for the rest of the week. Over this four episode series, you'll develop a Zen toolkit specifically to help you find greater calm, peace, and effectiveness in your daily life. The teacher, Henry Shuckman, has been on my podcast twice before. He is one of only a few dozen masters in the world authorized to teach what is called Sambo Zen. And I have found this particularly interesting and effective, and now he'll be your teacher. I've been using Henry's

app, The Way, once, often twice a day for the last few months, and it has lowered my anxiety more than I thought possible. As a listener of the show, you yourself can get 30 free sessions by visiting thewayapp.com slash Tim. So if you like what you hear in these meditations, which will be valuable in and of themselves, you can get 30 free sessions by going to thewayapp.com slash Tim. And for the time being, please enjoy this Meditation Monday with Henry Schuchman. Welcome back to Meditation Monday. Many of us, of course, have difficult emotions at times, and meditation might seem to exacerbate them sometimes because we're, as it were, more exposed to them. We haven't got distractions, other things we can turn to.

We're just sitting still and doing nothing. So if a difficult emotion comes up, there's kind of no way to hide. Now in early Buddhism, these kinds of emotions, things like worry, regret, frustration, craving, aversion or dislike, strong dislike, were viewed actually as hindrances to meditation. That they would make us not want to meditate, they'd make it harder to meditate. And I think it's quite a helpful lens to recognize that difficult emotions are a problem, as it were, in meditation, in that they will discourage us from doing it. So fortunately, we have tools for being with difficult emotion. And actually, what they often lead to is a kind of restlessness.

Get me out of here, you know, when we're trying to meditate. So I want to do a sit now that offers a tool for working with restlessness and emotions that might be associated with it. So I hope you find this helpful. Let's come into our seated comfortable position. And just a footnote, if you want to recline you go right ahead. We just want to be comfortable. That's the main thing because when we start relaxing, it's easier to be still. And in some ways it might be that the most powerful agent in meditation is simply being still. That all the lessons and learnings and shifts and transformations that meditation can offer

simply come from stillness. to be comfortable, to arrive here, to come into being here, into this space where nothing is asked of us, nothing we need to do. We're really getting to put down the burden of doing. All the responsibilities, the to-do lists. Leave them outside the door just for now. This is really a time just for you. So again checking that your body is comfortable and a little bit of progressive relaxation letting your your shoulders go, letting them sink and settle and letting your arms be limp like old rope

letting the face soften and it just sort of hang like a curtain no tension in it. Let it go. Let there be a warmth in the chest, a warmth in the belly. Softness in chest, softness in belly. Let your hips go, let your legs relax and your feet. So in this space of meditation, we're gonna explore how we might allow restlessness if it comes up. And I invite you actually to imagine that you are feeling just a little bit of restlessness. It's a familiar feeling for pretty much all of us, I think,

that enough of this. I want to go and do something else, or I want to move, or get me out of here. Now, instead of doing what it says, we're gonna be still and we're gonna see if we can find it, find the restlessness in your body. What actually is it? Could it be that it's just a kind of energy? Maybe like a little miniature dust devil or something of energy. Somewhere in the torso, maybe the belly, maybe the chest, possibly throat. Can you find some trace of an energy of restlessness within your torso? Whatever you're finding, or if you're not really finding anything, we're gonna let things be just as they are. We're going to allow any energy of restlessness, all the absence of it, to do anything about it?

What if we have it in us to just let it be there? Let it be here. No need to change it. Welcome it. Allow it. Let it actually be part of your experience. Rest with it. If you are tasting restlessness, you can name it in your own mind. Restlessness is present.

Say it to yourself. Restlessness is welcome. Try saying that to yourself in your own mind. It may be that you're sensing some other emotion that might be uncomfortable. If so, see if you can find the sensory correlates of it, the actual sensation in probably the chest area or perhaps the belly that associates with it. And let them be present. Let your shoulders be soft. Let your flanks be soft. Let your back be soft. And let the whole front of your torso, the front, the skin and dermis of your torso, let it also be soft like a kind of drapery hanging loose

and let the softness in any trace of discomfort. Let yourself just be with it. Being still, being quiet, resting with your own heart, your own emotion centre, that meditation can be, is also coming back to, you know, our feeling self. It's a beautiful thing actually that we feel like many like all other mammals we have we have emotions they're part of our to allow them is a real form of growth. Okay so let's come out of this sit, bring movement back into the body. You might do a inhale and an exhale. Move around anywhere you feel you'd like to. Fantastic. Thank you so much for joining me in this little exploration of a perhaps unexpected kind of tool that will help us with our difficulties

and sort of defuse them for our pathway into meditation and along the great journey of meditation. Thanks so much. See you next week.