We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - RWH018: How to be Happy w/ Tsoknyi Rinpoche & Daniel Goleman

Episode Date: December 11, 2022

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN: 06:06 - What Tsoknyi Rinpoche learned from his extraordinary father, Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. 21:26 - Why it helps not to suppress, judge, or resist your emotions, but to be aware of them. 24:09 - How to “handshake” painful emotional patterns that Rinpoche calls “beautiful monsters.” 26:34 - What science shows about the power of acknowledging & accepting our feelings. 36:31 - What to do when these difficult emotions feel too intense & traumatic to handle. 45:03 - How to settle your mind & reduce stress with a simple belly-breathing technique. 48:41 - How to practice “calm abiding” by focusing with gentle awareness on your breath. 50:37 - How to ease up with the help of Rinpoche’s subversive mantra: “Who cares? So what?” 57:42 - How to meditate with open awareness, watching thoughts & emotions arise & pass. 1:04:36 - How our minds catastrophize & how to prevent this emotional tailspin. 1:06:41 - What science shows about how meditation improves our focus, calmness, & productivity. 1:07:45 - How to deal with the worry that we’re not productive enough & are always falling short. 1:10:17 - How to nurture an easy-going, light-hearted sense of “happiness without reason.” 1:11:11 - How compassion, love, & care emerge when we’re free from our emotional baggage. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join the exclusive TIP Mastermind Community to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, and the other community members. “Why We Meditate,” a new book co-authored by Daniel Goleman & Tsoknyi Rinpoche.  Daniel Goleman’s books “Emotional Intelligence,” “Altered Traits,” & “Focus.” Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s “Fully Being” online meditation course. Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s books “Open Heart, Open Mind” & “Carefree Dignity.” David Hawkins’ book “Letting Go.” William Green’s book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – read the reviews of this book. William’s previous podcast with Daniel Goleman: “The Emotionally Intelligent Investor.” William Green’s Twitter. NEW TO THE SHOW? Check out our We Study Billionaires Starter Packs. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) here. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: TIP Finance Tool. Enjoy exclusive perks from our favorite Apps and Services. Stay up-to-date on financial markets and investing strategies through our daily newsletter, We Study Markets. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the best business podcasts.  SPONSORS Support our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: River Toyota Range Rover Fundrise AT&T The Bitcoin Way USPS American Express Onramp SimpleMining Public Vacasa Shopify Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

You're listening to TIP. Hi there, I'm really excited about today's episode of the podcast. My guests are two of the people I admire most in the world. One of them is Daniel Gohmann, who's the famous author of a classic book titled Emotional Intelligence. Daniel has a PhD in Psychology from Harvard and then spent many years as a science writer for the New York Times. Among other things, he's an expert on the science of meditation and how it can help us to handle our emotions, improve our focus, boost our resilience, and think more rationally. He was an extremely popular guest on this podcast a few months ago,

talking about how emotional intelligence can even help us to become more successful investors. On today's episode, Dan is joined by a legendary Tibetan Buddhist meditation master named Sukni Rimpershaye. They've co-authored an excellent new book about the science and practice of meditation. It's titled Why We Meditate. When we recorded this conversation a few months back, I'd just returned from a one-week science, meditation retreat with Rimpershay, which is a Tibetan word meaning precious one that's used as a title to honour the most revered teachers. I'm not a very accomplished meditator by any means,

and I have to admit I did a terrible job of staying silent during the retreat, which may not surprise you given how much I like to talk. But Rimposhae is a really wonderful teacher, and he's had a powerful impact on my life in the last few years. His insights on how to deal with our emotions have been particularly helpful to me, and I must say he's played a major part in helping me to become both calmer and, I would say, happier. Sogne-Rimshay often talks about the challenging emotional patterns that drive our behavior and make our lives more difficult. For example, we might suffer from an intense fear of criticism or a fear of abandonment because of something painful that happened when we were young. Or maybe we have a deep-seated anxiety that we're somehow inadequate

or incapable or unlovable because we felt unappreciated and unloved, well, we were kids. Sobne-Rembesh has a wonderful phrase to describe these difficult emotional patterns that have been imprinted on us by our formative experiences. He calls them Our Beautiful Monsters. What I love about his approach to dealing with our beautiful monsters is that it's very kind and gentle. Instead of suppressing these challenging emotions or judging them or trying to to escape from them. He suggests that we simply say hi to them, smile at them, and allow ourselves

to feel them more fully. His term for this strategy is handshake practice, because we're greeting these difficult emotions warmly, shaking them by the hand instead of blocking them or pushing them away. Rempeche believes that our beautiful monsters open up and gradually heal when we treat them kindly and don't resist them. I have a post it on all of my study at home with a lovely quote from him that says, one day, all of our beautiful monsters will trust us and be our friends. I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, but for me personally, this practice of meeting difficult emotions with awareness and warmth and kindness has just been incredibly helpful. So I really wanted to share it with you too. In this conversation, we'll talk in detail about.

how to handshake our beautiful monsters. We'll also discuss some other very practical techniques that can help you to become happier, calmer, and more focused. For example, we'll talk about a belly breathing technique that can restore your sense of well-being when you're feeling a lot of restless, speedy, unsettled energy in your mind and body. Rimbusha will also share his instructions for two different types of simple meditation. You'll also hear his wonderfully erroneousal reverent mantra, which is, who cares, so what? Whatever happens happens. Whatever doesn't happen, doesn't happen. I try to remind myself of this mantra once in a while when I need to lighten up and take myself a bit less seriously. In any case, I'm really thrilled to be able to bring you

this conversation with Sogni Rimpershey and Daniel Goldman, who happened to be staying with each other in America for a few days before Rimpershay flew back to his home in Nepal. Our conversation may not make you richer in the strictly financial sense of the word, but I have high hopes that it's going to make you wiser and happier. Thanks so much for joining us. You're listening to the richer, wiser, happier podcast, where your host, William Green, interviews the world's greatest investors and explores how to win in markets and life. Hi, folks, it's an honor to be here today with some very special guests. I've been joined here by Sokney Rinpoche, who's one of the greatest Buddhist teachers and meditation masters of our time. And we're also joined by his close friend and my friend

Daniel Goldman, who's been a guest on the podcast before. And Dan, as you know, is the author of Emotional Intelligence, which is an iconic book that sold more than five million copies. We're also lucky to be joined by Adam Kane, who often helps Rinpoche by translating from Tibetan into English. Rimpershaye and Dan have just written a new book with help from Adam. And in the epilogue, they write, our vision with this book is to help create healthy people in every sense, grounded, warm-hearted, clear-minded people who have the energy and natural inclination to help others. A simple slogan captures this vision, grounded body, open heart, clear mind. So I'm sure all of us would love to feel better, physically, emotionally, and mentally, because it'll, no doubt,

help us in every area of our lives. So that's really what we're going to discuss today. Rimposha, it's wonderful to see you. Today is actually my birthday, so speaking with you is my birthday present. So thank you for joining us. Happy birthday. Thank you very much. I wanted to start by asking you about your father, Tuku Uri and Rimpashe, because he was obviously a very extraordinary man.

I've read a couple of his books, and I wanted to ask you, who was he, what was he like, and why did he have this very profound influence on your life? He has a lineage of meditation lineage that he transmitted from his father, his uncle and whole his life. Of course, he studied Buddhism in the intellectual way, but mainly I think he focused on meditation and transform himself. And the love, the compassion is part of his nature. So whenever I connect with him, seeing him, of course he's my father, but more like he's my teacher. So I think I got a lot of whether I'm aware of not. So I got a lot of influence, blessings from that lineage, from their practice.

And Dan, you also knew Tulkururje and Rempershe very well. You wrote an introduction to a memoir that he wrote and described him in the introduction as among Tibetan Buddhism's greatest masters of the 20th century. I know that you spent many weeks with him, and I know this is, I guess he passed away in about 1996, so this is a long time ago, but I wonder if you could give us a sense of, A, what made him special, and also to give us more of a sense of what Sokney Rinpoche just said about the importance of their family, because I think Sokne is being a little bit modest about how eminent this lineage of great meditation teachers really is.

So I think let's start with the family because it's extraordinary. Tokurigen's grandfather was one amazing meditative visionary named Chokir Lingpa, who founded actually an entire lineage of practice. His daughter, who was the mom of Tokugin, I think. I think Tcha Jiu Lingba is the great-grandfather. Oh, great-grandfather. Oh, okay. At any rate, there's a grandmother who was also a member.

amazing meditation master, most everyone in the family was. It was just part of growing up in that family, I think. And so the teachings that for other people might take a lifetime to get, I think maybe you got in childhood. I've got a childhood. I think when I was in 14 years old, I was studying in India, so I come back. So one morning he was giving mind teaching, which is quite high teaching, you know, you're looking or finding your real true nature of this mind. Not the, you know, mind has many aspects like thinking and like a pause, a lot of disturbs, emotions. Yes, that is part of your mind, but there's another mind like a mirror, clear and open with a space. So introduce me the innermost space. And I, I have,

I think I got it somehow. Of course, take time. So I think that space is very precious to me because I can perceive everything without pushing away, without blocking, but I can sort of rest, be with that inner openness. And through that openness, innate nature, like compassion, love, understanding,

just come. Because a part of your own true, nature. But without introduced the openness, and I think there's so many things are blocked and we cling on and we don't know what to do with that. So we sort of suck into it. So that transmission I received when I was 14 years old, of course, so many ups and down in life, but somehow that was, I call my inner refuge, one of the inner refuge. So what Rubberyshe is describing really captures the essence of what it was like to be with Tokurjan. He was utterly peaceful, utterly present, utterly loving, and very empty behind it. He didn't want anything. He was just there

for you. Empty in the sense of free. Exactly. Not like a hollow empty. It's very rich empty. When you look at him, we know he's there. He can talk to us, everything very beautifully. but if you look more into it, there's an openness, freedom. Sometimes it's very hard to relate, but we love to relate, but hard to relate, because I cannot find some thick stuff that his personality is blocked by something. It's just transparent, beautifully open, but ready to respond to you. But the whole he responding is through love, compassion, really like normal human being. I call sometime more normal than normal being.

Yeah, it's funny. I was going to read a paragraph to you from this book that Dan wrote the introduction to, which is your father's memoir. And it's an amazing one paragraph summary of his life by your father that's the most unarrogant, like it's the least prideful description of a life. He says, I was born in Central Tibet. He says, I didn't want to say. Yeah.

He didn't want a memoir. How? He wanted to talk about amazing beings he had met. He really never talked about himself. Yeah, and it really is about your ancestors. It's about his teachers and what he learned. So here's his summary of his entire life, which takes up four lines. He says, I was born in Central Tibet, taken to Cam, then went back and forth between the two several times.

I fled the communists to Sikkim and finally moved to Nepal, where I am now living as an old man. That's my life in a nutshell. I haven't accomplished any great deeds. mostly it's just one sad event after another. It's very humble. Yeah, it's extraordinarily humble, right, given, you know, the fact that he presumably had an impact on many thousands of lives. And in fact, you know, William, he traveled around the world, taught everywhere.

People came from all over the world to study with him, too. But he doesn't mention that. And he was your teacher, Dan, right, among other teachers. He taught you and your wife, Tara. Tara and I came because Sogir Rimpichet said, you really should come and meet my father. We met him 30 years ago, the first day he came to America, straight from JFK, actually. Right. Yeah.

And he just felt very close. They're the natural feeling. Yes. And one of the wonderful things that Rimposha has done for Tari and I is to connect us with amazing teachers, starting with his father. we were there to study with Niosha Ken Wimperchay, another great master who you had come to study with also. And then later, Sondi Wempshay took us to China, and we met with one of his amazing teachers, Adi Wimper Shee. So I would say those are the three remarkable teachers in this tradition that we were fortunate enough to meet. All thanks to you.

And of course, Riz Tarr and I studied with an amazing family. Rimposhae has three brothers who are also Tokus are recognized incarnate mamas. Mingyur Rinpoche was remarkable. Chokinima Rumpeshay, an amazing teacher. Choling Rimpichet has passed away, but he was amazing. So we were fortunate to study with the whole family, but I think each of them benefited from being the child of Toku Urgian in the same way. And just to clarify for people who don't understand the terminology,

Rimposhae means precious one, right, which is an honorific for an important teacher. Tulkou, how would you define Tulkou? Well, you need to jump into the kind of Tibetan belief system a little and assume there's such a thing as reincarnation. And if you make that assumption, people who are highly evolved, who have done a lot of work, can come back to help other people. That's what a Toku is. So it's a reincarnated Lama, a great teacher who's reincarnated basically to come back another time and help us.

And who's often identified in childhood and raised in a particular way so that they can fulfill that mission. And some say, oh, you know, maybe they made a mistake. I mean, people who are called Tokus sometimes are very humble about it. And people, Toku is venerated in the Tibetan context. Yes. So Rimpashe, when you were, I think, about eight years old, you were in this little village in Nepal where your family was living in the mountains in a remote village in Nepal. And you overheard, I think, your mother and your grandfather saying a letter has arrived.

And I think it was news from His Holiness the 16th Kamapa, who was head of one of the four principal orders of Tibetan Buddhism, saying that you were a reincarnated llama. and that you needed to hop into action and come study. Can you tell us what happened there? Because it's a kind of extraordinary story. I mean, it must have turned your life upside down. One evening, I heard the conversation between my mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, about this news.

So I have some sense because I have two older brothers, but also Trujou. I didn't know I had a Trulgo or not at that time. So I got their news. So I was a little bit upset, you know, I have to leave the village. At the same time, a little bit exciting that my other two brothers are also doing that. But then, you know, a little bit confused, so I don't know what to do. And then some point we went to Kathmandu. And then my father was staying in Kathmandu at that time.

So then he talked to us, yeah, Kamapa. He has a Kamapa letter that I was, you know, this and this, this and that. But then, you know, it's because I was child young, so it forgot for a while. So then age of 12, the real thing happened. Then say, now you must go to India to study under the Kambrurumbhya in Tashjong, Himachal, Pradesh. Then I go a little bit upset. Like, I don't know anything about Kambrucce, I don't know anything about India.

I never saw train. They say you have to go by a train. The train is look like 40, 50 houses joined together and moving on the wheel. It doesn't get in my head. So I was thinking, I'm thinking how all of that. Then one day I went. My father asked someone to help. So I arrived at Tashi-Jong, India.

So eventually I met Kambrohichi. So I stayed there and study about 12 years. When I was Tashi-Jong really up and down my emotional. went up, down, then, you know, so many things happened because I called Truku imprint. I was developing. Truku imprints is everyone to expect you as your previous life. So I was confused which one is mine? The second sonny is mine or this one is mine.

So I got a little confused at the beginning, a lot of, a lot of confusion. This is because you were reincarnation of two different Sokney Rinpochees, right? there was the first one who'd been born in the 19th century, who was a great figure, and then a second one? I don't worry about second and first. I'm worried about me and my before one. So which is me? The boy, a young boy coming from village, is the me or the Great Lama was born in Tibet.

It was me. That is the me. So there's two me going on. Someone said, oh, Sonnyan Bichet, not me because they met previous Sonia Rune Bichet. Do I respect me? So there's a lot of, you know, it's called Turku Schemmers, which I learned from Tara about Schemis, his wife, and Danny Goldman's wife. So later, then I went back to Nepal.

Then I got more teaching from my father, Kianzir Mbache, and then later Adirumbache, so I sorted out that. So you must have had a great sense of pressure, enormous sense of pressure. Well, you have to imagine. The village Rumpur She grew up in was a six-day walk to the next town. It was really isolated. So it was like growing up in a medieval age. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

And then all of a sudden he's in this more modern situation with a lot of pressure. Study, you have to do well because you are the sogony. You know, the name of the sogny is coming from my sister's. So it's a great master. He has so many students. He did very well. You should behave this way. You should sit still.

You cannot look this and that. Like the old man's character is putting on the young child. And this young child don't know how to hold that. A lot of emotional problem. But the good news is I met a great teacher. So I can call I'm right now 75, 80% transformed. But some in print I now call a beautiful monster. are still with me. But I'm okay with that now.

We'll talk a lot more about this idea of beautiful monsters, which is a, it's, can you explain the term now, though, just so that people understand, but we'll come back in great detail to this idea of beautiful monsters. What are they? Because I was gone through that stuff, that training, that expectation. I lost myself between the previous Sonnyunabuchi and the my person. So there's a lot of things. there. But then later, because of practice, because of meditation, because of awareness, kindness to myself, my two nature, which is introduced by Tugu Jirumbichi. So I found at the end, wow, those difficult things are great. But it is kind of monster, but there is a beauty in it.

So these beautiful monsters really, to use the word you used before, schema from Dan's wife Tara, They're like these childhood patterns that we, like, wounded love or the lack of respect that we got or a sense that we were unworthy or fear that we're not good enough. These psychological wounds from childhood, is that right? Yeah, the healthy one I would not call it a beautiful monster. A little bit goes straight, like it blocks our normal feeling and perceptions. And we identified that is me and mine. So there's a way you can look into it.

I call the practice of handshake and then to differentiate, oh, this is a healthy fear and this is a distorted fear built in you. Now it looks like a monster, but actually it's not a monster. You can learn so many things from that fear and you will understand yourself much better and you will understand others' feeling, others' emotion. Wow, there's so many things you can learn. It becomes a learning ground. Then the beauty starts.

So how did you deal with this in your own case? If we take this as an example of how to deal with these difficult patterns that we've adopted from early life, what did you do to deal with your own fear that you weren't good enough or that you weren't worthy of this lineage or that you weren't good enough to be your father's success or any? I mean, it just must have been so much pressure. How did you greet and handshake your own fears and overcome them? I smile. I feel that blockages.

I feel that feeling. And I say hi to it. I stay with them or with it. And keep smiling. Feel that beautiful monster. Stay with it or stay nearby. And not indulging, not suppressing, not running away from it. I'm there, I'm there with you.

But doing nothing, no giving any commentary, no beautiful lectures, just listen and be there. I call fully being. Just fully be with that. And then time to time, smile. Hey, this is not me. It's my left over imprint,

activated. Okay. and to kind to the beautiful monster. I know it's not me. This conviction is important from your cognitive mind. Yes, it is a leftover star. It is not me. It can open up.

When it opened up, there's a lot of beautiful things we can learn. We can be transformed. Wow. But it is painful right now. So I have a mantra called, It is real but not true. The feeling of pain is real, but it is carrying wrong message. So eventually, you should talk to each other.

The cognitive mind, the feeling world, need to talk to each other. But at first, they need to come together. No conversation. Just smiling a little bit and listen. And one day, the beautiful monster started to open up. I'd like to know more. Why are you so calm? You're always telling me something, do this, don't do this, this is good, this is bad, I like, I don't like.

But this time you're quite relaxed, you are there for me, but you're not scolding me. You're not suppressing me. What is that? What happening? Then the beginning of opening from the feeling world starts. Sorry, it's too long. No, it's perfect. And it's such an important subject.

And this subject actually, Rupertie has, it's had an immense impact on my own life over the last couple of years. I've been studying this idea of handshake practice a lot. And as you know, I came on a one week retreat with you very recently in New York State. And I asked you a question about this because I was saying one of the things that was shocking to me was as I was trying to be silent, which it turns out I'm almost incapable of. This will surprise you. A lot of emotions came up from my teenage years where I felt like this sadness and, you. a kind of, yeah, just like a sort of disappointment and a memory of that loneliness. And I asked you how to deal with it. And you said to me, well, you know, stay with it, be with it. Feel the emotions in

your body without trying to judge them or change them, kind of resting with it. But you also said to me, smile at it. That was incredibly helpful to me because I feel like I take all of this stuff much too seriously. You seem more lighthearted and more accepting when these painful things come up. You're happy to sit with them in a gentler way. Really? Yes. I feel, as you say, and I just stay with that and not hoping that it will go away, but it goes away. So whenever you have hope, oh, I am doing handshake practice.

Oh, through the handshake method, handshake practice method, my beautiful monster will transform. Oh, yeah, yeah. This is a great method. I think you have to handshake that feeling, that thought. this is your original beautiful monster then the handshake comes wow handshake is so nice

wonderful technique wonderful method I'm going to apply to my beautiful monster and this is become monster again that thought that feeling want to transform transform by this method so again drop the first one just say hello

to the second thought second feeling and relax with that just relax And then there's a space. I think in the West, a lot of us... If you relax here, relax here, then always like this. So you have to relax together.

Yeah, always clashing. If we're... Hand shake me and relax. But at the beginning, your mind hand can be relaxed, but in a beautiful monster might bang you a little bit. Then you go back. So Dan describes it in the... book, I think, as radical non-resistance. So in a sense, Dan, can you talk about this? Because

you also know a great deal about the science of this. I mean, you have a PhD in psychology from Harvard, and you're also married to someone who's an expert, both in mindfulness and in a lot of these ideas of how to deal with patterns from our childhood. Can you add your own perspective on what's going on here by not suppressing this stuff when it comes up, but actually greeting it, welcoming it, handshaking it warmly, and not necessarily applying an antidote to it. You know, from a Western scientific perspective, I was quite surprised when I looked at the literature to see, for example, there's very good research at Stanford University on how people can just simply be with and accept without judging, without trying to fix it, as Rimpasier was saying, without avoiding it, just feeling the feeling the

feelings and accepting the feelings turns out to be very powerful. There's good brain research on this now that shows that if you can have this kind of accepting attitude, it dissipates, as Bumpersheir was saying. And this was a lab study had nothing to do with your approach, but it's absolutely convergent data. Absolutely, yes. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. All right. I want you guys do imagine spending three days in Oslo at the height of the summer. You've got long days of daylight, incredible food, floating saunas on the Oslo Fjord, and every conversation you have is with people who are actually shaping the future. That's what the Oslo Freedom Forum is. From June 1st

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hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash WSB. Go to Shopify.com slash WSB. That's Shopify.com slash WSB. All right. Back to the show. It's interesting. There's also, there's a book that I separately started to read multiple times a couple of years ago by a former psychiatrist called David Hawkins, who I think became kind of an enlightened mystic. He passed away a few years ago. And he talked about a letting go technique that's very similar, a mechanism, where he said, the thing that keeps the energy behind these emotions, these difficult thought patterns or emotions going, is actually the resistance to them.

And so he said, when you stop resisting and you just let it be and you just abide with it, whether you're meditating or just in regular life. Because everything is impermanent, as we know from Buddhist philosophy, things change, and the intensity kind of dissipates. Does that resonate? Is that a fair description of what's going on? Oh, yeah. I think that many different traditions have come to the same insight,

different avenues. So I didn't know David Hawkins, but it makes total sense, both from a scientific point of view, being with, without resisting, without attaching, just accepting, that's what the science is telling us. But it's also what your tradition is telling us. It's what he's saying, too. I think it's all the same thing. It's very profound to me because I think actually life-changing,

because we grew up in the West, we weren't really taught how to deal with our emotions, right? And when negative stuff came up, like if you felt inadequate or you felt embarrassed or ashamed or not good enough, you couldn't really deal with it. So you would deal with it maybe by judging somebody else or by hating yourself or by working harder or by beating yourself up. And so there were all of these techniques that I think actually worked in my life. They made me more successful in many ways, but they don't make you happy. And so I feel like we weren't taught a good technology if it makes sense.

We were talking today about developing a program for schools for kids to help them with this kind of inner growth. so that they won't go down the usual path, which is what you're describing. I mean, our society rewards us for doing well, not for being kind or for being calm or be clear. We have to find that later in life, you know, as you're discovering. But if we could help kids get that from the beginning, I think that would be a great gift. There's an extraordinary line, Rimposh from your fully being course, which I have listened to over the last couple of years,

and I'll include this in the show notes along with references to your books, links to your books. There's an extraordinary line where you say, one day, all of our beautiful monsters will trust us and be our friends. And you also say, rest in the kind home of non-judging.

And I thought that was just really interesting, this idea of non-judging, not judging ourselves. Can you talk about that attitude of non-judgment, non-self-judgment? Yes. if we do the handshake properly, then there is non-judging. Because there's no way to judge.

It is with almost like a oneness with the beautiful monster. So there's no space there. So it opened by itself. So you just be there, not like a separate. At the beginning, maybe you stay nearby, the mind, the ego fixation, stop staying nearby, and smile, listen. Slowly, slowly, just stay together. Once you stay together, the non-judging is natural.

And then, of course, you can apply sometime. You can trust the capable or innate nature of the beautiful monster. As you say, impermanent, it changes. It's not your inherent thing. It just came about, and then there's a right cause and condition and it will open up. So mainly you trust the beautiful monster and the beautiful monster eventually trust. And then that's it. The openness happened.

So there's a sense that you're saying to the beautiful monster. You can stay here as long as you want. I don't need to get rid of my fear, my sense of inadequacy, my sadness, my jealousy, my anger. It's like it's part of being human. I can see you there and I'm okay hanging out with you. Is that an okay summary of that attitude? There's some kind of attitude like that, yeah.

But it changed. The secret is it changed. But you cannot expect too much at the beginning, wow, if I practice handshake, everything will be okay. But it is. It will be, this beauty will come out of that. You have a whole chapter on this subject of beautiful monsters in the book, which I really encourage people to read.

And it describes the four steps for handshake practice where you're meeting the beautiful monster, this upsetting emotion. or pattern and you're being with it, feeling it, listening to it, and waiting, staying with it, and then, I guess, communicating with it and using the mantra that Rimposha said, which is it's real, but not true. This feeling is real, the pain may be real, but the narrative's not true. So I really encourage people to look at this. It's very, very helpful.

But you do mention in the book that sometimes the emotions that we're sitting with are actually kind of too intense and we have to back off, particularly if it's something that's been traumatic, really traumatic. Can you talk a bit about this idea of what to do when the emotions that come up are too intense when you're doing handshake practice? How do you deal with it? Because obviously, you don't want to re-traumatize yourself if something really catastrophic has happened in your life. How do you deal with it if it's too intense? Of course.

So you have to come back to some of your well-being areas, maybe on the breath first or just rest in the sensation of the body. maybe not to go close to the inner feeling world, not too close to the beautiful monster, or maybe you have some place in your being. There's a safe, relax, open place, and go there and nurture that, and keep nurturing that. And then time to time, say hi to the trauma and the smile,

and then come back to your breath, your, I'm sure even the traumatized people have something in their being. There's some well-being and like a secure feeling. So go there. And that I call it base camp. So it's like you're going back to the base camp and then you go back to climb Mount Everest and deal with the difficult stuff. Yes.

And you can do a little bit of walking meditation. Even I like this just feel. rubbing your hands together for people who are listening relaxing breathing and just little bit like this for people who are just listening

Rimposha is rubbing his arms gently with his hands so he's kind of soothing himself I would say then just awareness land there you land with that feeling and relax and then maybe

through that door you can connect with a beautiful monster. And then time to time, if you can change the cognitive belief also. Cognitive belief. What you're thinking about, in other words.

Thinking starts to change. Be kind to thinking. Oh, I know thinking is thinking will think this way. But it's just aware of that. Relax with that. Then slowly you will feel I call tea bag.

Tea up there. There's a back there. So that feedback could be a trauma or trauma plus something else. So you can handshake maybe with a retinue of trauma, not the main traumatic feeling. So one open up, second open out, and less reinforce, less reaction. Although we have intense trauma, but there's always openness around it. So we are trying to find that openness. And that openness will embrace or hold the traumatic experience. So it's, again, an attitude of gentleness and warmth rather than fighting.

No, no, no, no, not fighting at all. If I fight, sometimes I call it trauma might beat you a little bit. It's just take it. Okay. Okay. And then too much, then you go away a little bit. and then come back again. Stay nearby and stay nearby maybe good place,

maybe good memory, maybe a calm place, just find some relaxation in the body. Yeah. And interesting that this parallels a therapeutic approach to trauma because when you work with a therapist with trauma, you're doing the same sort of establishing a trauma, trusting alliance, and you feel safe.

And sometimes in this approach, they talk about dosing yourself, which is really, I think, a different way of thinking about being near or approaching. You take it only as much as you can and not too much, because your question was really, what do you do when it's too much?

Always take little risk go in every time. Little bit coming in, Little bit coming closer, a little bit coming closer. But gently. Of course. Very gentle. Very kind. Very kind.

You said something striking to me during that retreat where you said, you know, your beautiful monsters can't hurt you now there. You know, you don't need to be afraid of them. And it was kind of reassuring to be like, okay, you know, this stuff feels intense, all these memories of childhood and youth. But yeah, I think so much of the time we build this very strong defense, against anything that's painful. Maybe particularly for men, if you're like an ambitious man,

you're like, I've got to be strong and tough and pretend that I'm not vulnerable. And so in a way, it was a real relief to hear, well, actually, you can be a little gentler with it, a little more amused by it all. So thank you. You're allowed to feel, you're allowed to, you know, cry. You cry, but not judging.

It's just an offering. And you can laugh too. You can laugh. I'm going to try not to cry during our interview. I'm going to wait till afterwards. So Rimfesh, I wanted to turn to another challenging subject that I know you've thought about a great deal, which is the whole issue of stress and what you call speediness. And obviously, you've traveled around the world a great deal for more than 30 years now,

teaching in the U.S., and the UK, and Denmark and Taiwan and Hong Kong and many other places. And I'm wondering first what you've observed in countries like the US about this kind of this challenge of stress and busyness and what you call speediness. Can you talk about culturally what's going on here and also how it's manifesting in our bodies? And then we can talk a bit about what to do about it. I think the culture really encouraged to everything past from childhood. It doesn't give any time to wander or like always need to do something. in the fast mode, otherwise you might not accomplish. So that constant message from environment

goes into our, I call our system, our subtle body, the gross body and the cognitive mind, but in between there's a feeling world, I call the subtle body. And that, you know, I went into the system. And then you move that again, and I'm going with that. When you are young, it's quite okay. but the one day that become out of control,

out of balance. Your mind want to be a little relaxed. Your physical also wants to be relaxed. But this movement in the energy world I want to, I want to go, I want to do this, I want to move.

So I call it's an unbalanced of speed limit. So it's always like I call like car is in the neutral. Neutral. And the full accelerator, a car is going nowhere, just speeding.

Like if you need to go to airport after four days, but your speediness is went to airport many times before you really arrive there. And everything about a rush, oh, back, I need to pack. I'm going, talking to the friend, all this loom-y, I call that, the airy, B.C. That actually is the cause of stress, I found it. If you're aware of that, and then you can keep the right balance with some technique or meditation practice,

then the healthy speed is moving in your energetic body. So let's talk about how to do this in some detail, Rimpershe, because the book offers some very specific ideas for how to bring down this energy when One of them, though, there's a breath control method you talk about belly breathing. Can you just give a basic description of how you can use belly breathing where you, I guess you either lie on the floor or you sit on a chair? And what do you do? You're focused around your navel?

How do you do this? When you are in the speedy mode, so everything goes up into your neck, head, the speediness. like this. So by the help of breath and the mindful awareness, slowly breathe in, bring down. And you do a belly breathing, deep breathing, and of the breathing in, stop a little bit. So your belly is like a balloon, right?

And it's expanding out as you breathe in. And then you hold the breath? Yes. For like eight seconds, something like that? No, no, yeah, at second, five second, four second. Whatever is comfortable. Yeah. A little bit, hold it.

And then let you go and breathe in. And one day that becomes very natural. You will know when you are really in that speedy, everything went going up. And William, it turns out that the scientific studies of these methods show it works. It really shifts you from the sympathetic nervous system mode, which is the stress. speediness to a parasympathetic, which is rest and recovery. And it happens physiologically. It's a very powerful method, it turns out. And so in Tibet, it was discovered spontaneously from India. From India. And, you know, you find the same methods in yoga, for example.

And now the scientific studies are saying, you know what? This really works. I'm not breathing too much up here. Yeah, not so much in the chest and more down in the belly. More like belly is doing like this, expanding when you breathe in and then hold a little bit there. And then one day you do less and less, less, and then you know, okay, my speedy energy is down there. I'm more free, my neck is free, my eye is more cool, and my perception is really, more like a kind kind of life. And then you hold that while you're working, while you're in doing your business. And you know, you can do that. And in the scientific part of your new book,

Dan explains that this has a whole array of positive benefits. I think one of them is that you're triggered less by troubling events. But one of them is that you recover better, I think, when you're in this kind of relaxed state that you're more resilient. Is that right, Dan? Yeah, the technical definition, for example, in laboratory science of resilience is how quickly you recover from the peak of upset to getting back to calm and clear. And it turns out the more you do these methods, the quicker your recovery. So that's one of the strong effects we found when you looked at all of the literature on meditation and on breathing and so on, is that there's a dose response.

The more you do it, the less triggered you are, the less intensely you're triggered, and the more quickly you recover when you are. So let's talk more specifically about meditation because obviously we've talked about a couple of the techniques that you describe in the book, this breathing technique and the handshake practice. But the book is called Why We Meditate and it's clearly a central part of what we're discussing here. There are a couple of different techniques that you discuss in

the book for how to settle the mind and cool us down through meditation when we're feeling scattered and unfocused and confused. Can you Rimpershe give us some very simple instructions for how to settle the mind by meditating first on an object of support, whether it's the, I guess the most common one is the breath. Can you explain how we would do that? Yeah, I think before that I will do a dropping meditation, like a neat gesture, attitude in the mind, and breath, three things come together, you drop. Like attitude, okay, whatever happens, happen, whatever doesn't happen, doesn't matter, I'm going to let it go.

And at the same time, your hand just drop like that and the breath out. It's like this. So for people who are listening to this rather than watching, it's essentially that you're kind of, you're dropping your hands onto your lap and you're exhaling. So it's like, ah. And so you're dropping the attitude in your mind. And you're, so you're bringing yourself more out of your thinking mind, Grimpechea, more into your body. Is that what's happening? Well, thinking mind, body, everything.

Like, you know, thinking mind is up there, thinking all different kind of things, you know, busy. You cannot see the actual relaxation. So you have to say a little bit to know to the thinking mind and the drop thinking mind and aware of the body. And just stay there for why. And then you have still the knowing mind. You have still the awareness is still there. Clarity is still there. But not chatting.

Chatting drop. You haven't looked inside my mind, obviously, Rempershey. When I'm in this state, I mean, what do we do here when your mind is racing and you're like, okay, I want to relax? And so you say, I'm going to do this dropping, I'm going to start calming down. So you sit there on your cushion or on your floor, on your sofa, or on your chair, and you kind of, you drop your hands down to your lap, and you exhale, and you kind of let go, and you try to feel your body. And then your mind starts racing, and you start to say, but wait, I've got this deadline,

and I can't believe my wife just said this. And really, she wants me to pick up the kid? Like, what do you do then when your mind starts racing? Then you see it is really necessary that I need to pick up my children, then don't worry, forget about meditation, go and pick up. But it might not be that. It might be some other stuff. You know, I think there's some powerful mantras that Rumpurche has that you can use with a dropping which help you with the thought racing. One of them is, who cares? whatever happens happens.

If you can tell yourself that as you drop, that means you can let go of whatever preoccupation is capturing your mind. I'm not saying four-hour drop. I'm saying at that moment. So it breaks the cycle for you. I think kind of like the handshake practice where there's a very gentle approach. When you do the dropping approach, which also is described very well in this book and in the fully being program online,

As Dan was saying, there's this mantra, so what? Who cares? It's no big deal. And I feel like for someone like me who takes everything too seriously, including myself, it's, and all my responsibilities, just trying to learn, which aren't really such major responsibilities anyway, but I act like the world is going to end if I don't do them. Sorry, don't go all the way about linking your life. There's a responsible. Of course, you have to take responsibility. But you have to have some space moment that we can cannot hold a cup forever, no? Well, what happened?

Your hand is attached with a cup. Can you hug your wife? Cannot. So, drop the cup for a while. Now, the hand is free. And stay with that freedom for a while. Then you can, you're fresh open. Then you can hug Danny.

Otherwise, I'm holding all the books, everything that carry me. I'm carrying that all the time. I cannot really do well. I cannot make friends. with him. I have to drop or pull down. But put down sometimes cannot, is the mind. Because it's not solid things holding. But solid things hold, then you can put it down. But this is like a psychological, subtle border stuff is hanging there. So you're a little bit like

courage way, courageily, drop. It's okay. Doesn't matter. It's whatever happened, whatever doesn't happen, happens. So, okay, whatever doesn't matter. Okay, now it matters. now my healthy care comes, my healthy responsible come, I'm a little bit open and rested. So what shall we do? What can I do for you to solve the conflict problems? So the wisdom come out of openness, wisdom not come out of this like a speediness. Yeah, and clenching.

I feel like I'm always clenching. It's like I'm fighting the world and fighting my responsibilities. It's always like, you know, and so I think what I like about your approach. Rochranpeche is it gives me permission to be a little bit softer and more humorous about it. Yeah. Be child a little bit. Child heart for a while. Then come out.

You need to rest. Proper rest. If you're holding on that, you're not resting. When you don't rest properly, you're not experiencing openness. When there's no openness, the inner booty not coming. So, okay, let's say we've done the dropping. One thing is. Okay, you can drop, drop, but something you cannot drop.

Even you want to drop, that is the little fine one, strong imprint. You cannot drop like that. So there you need handshake. Where are you? I'm coming. That you want to drop, cannot drop that. But many things can drop. Many two things cannot drop.

So there you need to come handshake. So if you're dropping and you have a sense that you're still a little overwhelmed and anxious and you're like, I'm never going to be good enough, I can never handle all of this, you look at that and you handshake that. That's it. Yes. And be relaxed with that. Oh, I cannot drop.

I cannot drop. Hello. That thought and feeling and handshake that. So just being with it gently and being like, oh, hi. Okay. Yeah, I see that old emotion coming up. Well, welcome to the party. So it's a little bit, so acknowledging the stuff that comes up that's just your familiar patterns.

But not only from your cognitive mind. Oh, yeah, yeah, I know it's coming. You're welcome. Not like that. You feel it. There's some honesty from the feeling world is connecting. I'm amazed at how much tension I feel in my forehead, you know. I look at it and I'm like, really?

It's like I'm trying to crunch all of these problems by frowning enough, you know, It's interesting when you see how you're dealing with this stuff in your body, when you become more aware of it. So I'm trying to stop fighting the whole time, fighting myself. No, welcome. And it's my and relax. You have to sit in my study reminding me of this Rimperset. If you could dial in on FaceTime, that would be very helpful. So to go back to the next step then, so we've done the dropping.

So we're dropping our hands onto our laps, we're relaxing, we're saying, who cares, so what, whatever happens, happens, whatever doesn't happen, doesn't happen, it's all fine. And then we want to start meditating for a few minutes just to focus a little on some object of support. Can you discuss this technique a little, which is a very fundamental technique that runs through all meditation traditions, I think? It's called cumabiding meditation. you choose one gentle object in this case can be your own breath so just aware of your breath

you know breathing out just aware breathing in just aware so keep doing that yeah this is called shamata with object yeah with support right

the support of your breath something to focus on. Yes. And shamata is a term for like resting or calm abiding. What does it mean? Adam. Adam, what's the meaning of shamata? Shamata, yeah, it means sort of abiding in calmness,

abiding in peacefulness. So the Tibetan word, she, me, remaining in a calm state. All right, that's beautiful. You've earned your keep. Thank you. That's great. And then there's another technique, Rimpershe, which is shamitar without an object, right? Where you're abiding but in a kind of open way without focusing on the breath,

which sounds a bit like meditating without a safety net. How do we do that and why do we want to do that? Yeah, I think we have to connect with the clarity of the mind, the vividness. The special unique quality of the mind is the clarity. Knowing clarity is not like when you are asleep or you lost consciousness or just awake daytime. Just away and find that wakefulness, openness and aware that clarity and then again relax with that. Just find that openness, clarity, aware of that and relax again and then thought comes. sometimes thoughts, emotion, it comes,

it will go by itself. Sometimes the thoughts, emotion, will disturb your clarity. Then you might need a little bit of handshake with that emotion, that beautiful monster. And of handshake, the intensity in the beautiful monster start to open up,

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All right. Back to the show. People are always complaining that their minds go crazy when they're meditating and too many thoughts come up. But it seems to me what you're saying is that this type of meditation, it's okay if thoughts come up. You just don't want to indulge them or chase after them. Is that fair to say you're just watching them? Correct. You cannot stop thoughts. But a lot of people have the false idea that meditation is supposed to be about emptying your mind and not having thoughts, which is a hopeless endeavor actually

because the mind generates thoughts continually. So the question is, can you change your relationship to those thoughts? That's what you're doing. We are not thinking about thought, but the thoughts can pop up. You know, when you meditate, you might feel some itchy or you meditate. The breeze, the wind touched your body. It's out of your control.

This is the beauty of life, all happening. and then same like thought pop-ups or some emotion pop-up, but where you're resting, where you're landing is the clear openness. And within that clear openness, thought can come. Anything can come, welcome, but not indulging, not joining. So you have to know your platform first. The platform is the clarity, aware of the clarity. So you're not chasing after the thought.

If you're suddenly thinking, oh, my God, I've got this deadline and I can't believe this guy gave me this unreasonable deadline. You're not chasing after it. You're just like, okay, yeah. How do you relate to this stuff so that you're not going off into a death spiral? This always there's a fact or is your delusion. So in fact, then you have to follow. Don't meditate. Write your book, whatever.

Make, you know, finish, whatever you know. need to do. But many is not like that. It's not a fact. It's just a distorted. But distorted, you think is a real, real and true. But actually, you still have a lot of time. And then if you be relaxed harm, I think whatever your deadline, you will do much better. I think this is true. We know this from psychology, that if you add to the idea, I have to finish this book, for example, very common to catastrophize. What If I don't. If I don't, then I won't get the money. If I don't get the money, then I'll lose my house. I'll lose my house. I'll be homeless. You know, you can go down a stream like that in a

second. And what Rimpichet is saying is you don't have to do that. You're aware of that. And then you'll be with that. And you talk to, no, no, no, it's okay. It's okay. You will, you will, we will get some wisdom out of that. It feels real, but it's not true. That's really important. It is real and true. Then you follow, of course. Forget about your session. Forget about mindfulness.

Forget about handshake practice. It is real and true. The tiger is in your house. Is it real and true? Then you must do something. But there's no tiger. But you feel like there's tiger in your house. And cognitively, you know there's no tiger.

But the imprint says, yes, there's a tiger. So this imprint. is the fall. So you have to be kind to it because one time that person has some bad experience with Tiger, but not in this house. And Daniel, there are also tremendous benefits here, not only in terms of calmness and the like, but in terms of this kind of training of the mind, there's a lot of science showing the benefits for focus, right? That there is a great benefit in terms of productivity, presumably. It's really a very strong finding now from many different studies, that if you do this very simple practice, for example, of meditating

on the breath, which is a kind of universal form of people call it mindfulness, they call it many different things, that the more you do it, more calm you get, and I talked about how you're less triggered or triggered less often, less intensely and recover more quickly. The other benefit is for attention, for focus. This is direct training in how to pay attention to what matters. right now. And that is a way to enhance productivity, to enhance your infectedness, no matter what you're doing. And that's another very important benefit from the beginning, I think, of meditation. Rimposha, one trait that I have that I know many people in the West share is this sense of,

it's related to that speediness and busyness, this sense of never being productive enough, never being good enough, never being satisfied, always feeling like we're failing. And I often feel like it's what drives me to be more successful and more productive than I would be otherwise, but it definitely doesn't make me happy. It makes me suffer from plenty of stress and anxiety, a lot of which is self-induced. And there was someone on your retreat who asked an extraordinary question where she said, look, I always feel like I'm failing and everyone else would say that I'm actually really successful, but I don't feel like it. And she said, I can't even really enjoy my marriage or my kids or anything because I always am beating myself up. And I wonder if you could

talk a bit about this subject, because I feel like part of what's happening for people like me or like her is that we feel like we succeed because we're anxious, because we're pushing ourselves very hard. And there's a fear, I think, that if we let go and we don't beat ourselves up the whole time, then we're going to fail. And how does that? How do you think through this issue in a healthy way? This is actually one of the beautiful monsters you're describing. It's the sense of sometimes it's called the imposter phenomenon, no matter how successful you are, you feel you didn't really deserve it, you don't really have the ability,

you'll be found out one day. This is the fear that goes with the, this is the not true part. The feelings are real and they drive us, but this is a very self-defeating. way to motivate yourself. Because what you're doing is creating anxiety and stress for yourself over and above, whatever the world is giving you. So I think the secret or the key here is to cut through that in the way that Rimpichet is describing, to say, okay, I have these feelings, I have these thoughts, but just to be with that and not to fight it, not to let it drive you. because William, I think the standard model of success in our society is actually quite neurotic.

It's that if we don't keep up, if we don't drive ourselves, will somehow fail and fall behind. And so we get all of the self-judgment, self-criticism, this sense of, I got to do it, the tension that goes with that. Rupichet is saying, do it, but drop the tension. Do it, but the find be with. essence love. The whole thing here is the essence love is missing. The basic okayness, basic well-being, the inner home is missing. And this driving for success is good. I'm not saying it's bad, it's good, but you have to have a help of the basic well-being. And together that you can be very successful at the same time, the basic being is happy. And then

There's two kinds of happy. Happy without reason, happy with the reason. So if you put all your happiness with the reason, but all the reasons are not really reasonable. They're thinking, no, sorry, they're changing, moving. They're impermanent, like everything else. They don't last. But it's important that he's pointed to something else,

which is an ongoing sense of okayness. because if you have that and you operate from that, it's a very different mode. You can be highly effective, but without driving yourself crazy, without the tension, without the stress. But you still will do same job and result even maybe better, but you are happy. You had a very interesting answer to that lady who asked you the question on the retreat, where you said to her something along the lines of you're externally successful, but I want you to be internally successful too. And I really did a double take when you said that because I feel like often that's where I'm failing, that it's like I can feel like, yeah, I'm externally

successful, but I never actually can really relish it because I'm so busy beating myself up. And so how do you tap into that sense of what you call essence love? this, like in practical terms, because it's a very vague idea, right, essence love, which you define as this sort of sense of being just basic okayness for no reason. How do you, when you're dissatisfied with yourself and you're used to beating yourself up and thinking, wait, I'm falling behind, I should do more. How do you tap into that state of essence love, of basic okayness, independent of your circumstances? I think a little bit training through mindful awareness. and you have to drop all this worry for a while.

It's not like forever removing from you. Just take your backpack and then true to yourself. What is down there? And then you might meet some beautiful monsters through hand-shake practice. It will open up. When it opens up, naturally you feel okay. Huh, I'm okay. Why are you okay?

No reason. just feel good. I feel okay. And we have to nurture that time to time. Reconnect with that, nurture that. Then that purifies the hollow inside. In deep down, there's a hollow. Many people have the hollow. And then there's no more hollow.

There's some rich, richness. And that is love, ready to love to other. some kind of I call basic spark shining. I'm okay with the busy or but I'm okay. Without that also okay. So I call the dance between these two two. One is social eye. One is like basic, healthy, mere eye.

And the mere eye is just, this is such a complicated subject. I'm hesitant to go into it, but can you give us a sense of what you call them? What would you like to say about this? Daniel. Interesting. So RIMFichet has a model of several different eyes. One is the needy, reified eye. It's the one that worries.

It's the one that says I have a deadline. If I don't get it, it's something terrible. It's that state of mind. And then there's what he calls the Mere eye, which is very different. M-E-R-E. Yeah, M-E-R-E-E-M-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E, where you're sufficient unto yourself. You have this basic okayness, as Rappashe says.

There's a social eye. That's your role. You do a podcast, you're a journalist, you write, and you use that effectively to help other people. But that is not who you are. You put it on and you take it off. You know, when you're William at home, you're someone else than William at work. Who you are, loving,

open normal good sentient beings, but then, oh, my social eye comes in, okay, use social eyes in the form of compassion way. And you mentioned something in the book, Daniel, I think you write about the Dalai Lama, who both of you are friends with. There's a beautiful example of someone who's brilliant at using his social eye, like he operates brilliantly in public. Yes, and what's remarkable about him is he's so, flexible with it, depending on the context, depending on who he's with, depending on what

people expect of him, he brings out a different social line. And he does it very seamlessly. Well, you were saying there was a study by Paul Ekman, I think, where he looked at the Dalai Lama's face, and he would mirror the expression of the other person in this amazing way. And then the other person would go and his face would go flat again. And then the next person would come in his face would mirror their face. Paul Ekman was the world expert on the facial expression of emotion. And when he met the dialogue, he said, I'd never seen a face like that. First of all, he freely expresses the entire range of human emotion.

And the second of all, he reflects whatever the person he's with at that moment is feeling. But then he drops it. And he said, Ekman said, most people can't drop it. It stays with him. But he's so adaptable and agile, and this is the way he manifests the social self, so that he's ready for the next person and the next person and the next person. So Rimpershey, when I try to sum up a lot of your teachings and see the link between your teachings of handshake practice, dropping, trying to avoid reifying our own ego, our reified eye and believing too much in who we are and how great we are or how solid we are

or how permanent we are. A lot of your practices seem to be kind of a letting go and a lightning up and then saying, if I drop all of these worries and all of these fears and all of these childhood patterns, then what's underneath it is actually a much simpler and kinder and less fearful and more loving person. Is that fair to say that that's what we're discovering? Yes. I think you know my book more than I do. I just read it last night, so it's fresher to me than it is to you. Yes. But it's a very nice view of human nature that underneath all of the nonsense and all of the worry,

you know, you talk about dropping the backpack of neuroses, you know, like dropping a lot of this nonsense. And underneath discovering actually for the most part, people are pretty good and pretty loving and pretty kind. And I find that myself that when I behave worse, it's usually because I'm stressed out. So when you think of your father, for example, or you think of the Dalai Lama, or you think of your other great teachers,

is this what they're representing in a sense, is this freedom where they've got rid of so much of this stuff that they're able to operate in a clear and simple way? Yes, clear, simple, and they are there with a loving and caring. but without baggage, without reaffir eye, without needy eye, I need that, I need that, without this frozen mind, frozen subtle body, it's very open, but radiance, ready to connect with you through love and compassion.

And under need, very simple, very open, ready to respond, but not reacting. Our problem is we react everything, whether we need or no need to react. But when you found that simplicity, openness, with the essence love, you are like, you know, like a big tree, but leaves, everything moves. But there's some groundedness and very open, emotionally, dot block, and loving emotion, carrying it. emotion all there. And the mind is not, you know, repeating after the same problem again, again. So, it's like fresh, open. And they're like that. You also write about in your book Carefree Dignity, which I was rereading last night, you write about being with your father in the last few months of his life and how he behaved. And you said, he always held others to be more

important than himself, even when he could hardly take one step on his own. And there's a lovely description of how someone would come to visit him and he would get his helpers to sort of hold him up by the window so he could wave goodbye to people even when he could barely walk. So it seems like compassion is a very big part of this, that when we're not so frightened and so anxious, a lot of compassion comes out. The original compassion come out because with the compassion is not always a blessing. Compassion is dealing with suffering. loving kindness is connecting with the happiness of other and yours.

But the compassion is really trying to eliminate a suffering. So when you engage compassionate way, there's a lot of stuff comes to you. Oh, like too many sadness, oh, I cannot help the whole world. What shall I do? I just help one person is not good enough. I want to do it. There's so many baggage come. At the end, you paralyzed.

But you're not helping one person, you're not helping the larger wall also because you think there's so much to you. So you've become frozen. But these yogis, they know how to let you go the frozen. There's good science about this too, by the way. It turns out that compassion means tuning into the suffering and pain of someone else. And what very often happens, for example, in nursing, there's a lot of burnout, compassion fatigue because people get a kind of contagion from the person in pain, they take it on, they

don't know what to do with it. So they handle it by tuning out. And in the helping professions, this becomes a kind of cynicism. The alternative is what Rumpur-She is talking about with his father and people like that, who are able to bring love. You know, when you have a little kid who's having a meltdown, you love the kid. love the kid, and so you're willing to stay with them in a loving way during the tantrum, because you know they'll recover and you love them. And it's a very similar situation.

This is what the science shows. If you can bring compassion and love and not just try to handle your own pain, but really care about the other person and be with them in a loving way, changes everything. I think we believe there's some liberation, freedom, liberation within yourself. Then that naturally brings compassion, and then that compassion is we call fearless compassion. I think the fear is, I'm going to be overwhelmed by the other person in suffering. Fearless compassion is, I don't care, I love them. I'm here for them. You used the phrase a minute ago, Daniel, when you talked about tuning in rather than tuning out.

And I feel like with a lot of, there's a great line from the wordsworth where he talks about the world is too much with us. And we're sort of overwhelmed the whole time. And I find myself sometimes in the evening just being like, God, let me just sit here and watch something dumb on Netflix or something. And it's tuning out. And likewise, when things are, you know, when you feel that sense of hollowness or impasseh that you talked about before, you know, it's like, okay, let me just eat the 23rd piece of toast or whatever, you know, to try to fill the hollowness. And it sounds like what you're advocating in general is instead of tuning out, kind of tuning in and being aware of your emotions, being with your emotions, not hiding,

but becoming more aware of what's going on and what you're feeling. Is that fair to say? Yes, and then you regulate yourself, how much you can do, how much you cannot do. And you know, maybe you have a capacity to do a lot, maybe, you know, smaller what you're doing without guilt. And if you don't have a, you know, like a big capacity, then learn more, study more, practice more, then you can do a bigger. It's not become discouraged. It's become a courage that, oh, my capacity is just like a 10. So I think I will improve 20.

Then one day I can do 80%. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So when you have that sense of internal freedom, you're a little bit more available to help and you're not beating yourself up so much, you're not suffering so much from guilt and shame. Then you can help because you're beating all of that.

Yeah. You can paralyze. So at the end, then you have a good. good thought, but you cannot do anything. And one day you are afraid of compassion. Please don't talk about compassion. You cannot take it because you have a compassion. And because of compassion, you don't know what to do, it makes you frozen.

That is not right way. You have to liberate those stuff. You seem very free when I watched you in action over the last week in Garrison, New York, on this retreat. you seem very joyful, very peaceful, very calm, you're helping a lot of people. But you don't, there's no atmosphere of you trying to impress people. It's like you seem very free and humorous. Do you feel like you've managed to free yourself after all these years? I know a little bit of dance.

Can you say more? Dance between the relative and the actual what it is. So the relative world is kind of the practical. world that we live in. And then there's this ultimate world that you live in. It's hard because it gets into esoteric Buddhist terminology, right? Yeah, you cannot really hold in

and you are just a simple human being. So in a way a lot of this is about becoming simpler so that we're being in the present moment rather than worrying so much? No worry, sufficient worry, not over

worry. I'm good at sufficient worry. Everything is sufficient worry, but actually we are over-worry. That's why you need meditation to look at, is this a really sufficient worry? This is a distorted base on sufficient worry. 10% is sufficient worry, but I'm worried about 50%. So this 40% is giving me suffering. That person is diluting me. So what should I handshake with the 40%?

and keep the 10% and 10% is quite healthy I call healthy fear healthy attachment healthy jealousy healthy anger not really anger but healthy something

but when you go out of balance and you build in the distorted one and bringing into the reality and you are wearing that from that lens you are perceiving everything through that

Then it gives something to you, it gives something to your family, it gives suffering to the world, because it's misunderstanding, miscalculated. And in practical terms, so that we can give our listeners something to kind of tangible and pragmatic to guide them, they're going to use, hopefully, if they read your book, they can play with these techniques like handshake practice that we've discussed in detail. They can use dropping, they can use different types of breathing to calm them. In terms of the meditation, which seems very central, a lot of people, some of our listeners are already keen meditators, some of them have dropped meditating, some of them are a bit frightened of it. What's a practical, reasonable approach to meditation should they be thinking of 10 minutes a day, five minutes a day, 20?

What would you guide people to do who are thinking, yeah, I want to be calmer and less neurotic and happier and more focused? start to with 10 minutes and then here and there throughout of the day aware of it and just sit down, sit a little bit or aware of your thought and feeling

just one minute here two minutes there and sometimes if we have an opportunity just there's so many time that you don't do anything and just sit and reflect and be kind to yourself

number one is kind to your thoughts and emotions. Hello. I'm here. I'm with you. I'm relaxing. It's okay. And keep doing that.

The result, the beautiful thing will come. Dan, do you have any last piece of advice on top of that? Be happy without reason. Happy without reason. That's good. I also love, there's a beautiful line that I wrote down from our retreat Rimpershey where about this idea of kindness where you said, be kind to yourself, be kind to your beautiful monsters, be kind to your children, be kind

to your parents, be kind to everyone. Like that seemed to me, there's a sort of generosity of spirit not only to other people but to ourselves, which I think is very hard for us in the West. Kind in the form of non-judging. So you're saying non-judging is kindness? Kindness, yeah. Kindness comes with many forms. One of the measure is not judging.

It's hard because I think that that brings up the fear for people like me that if we don't judge ourselves and beat ourselves up, maybe we'll be too lazy and we won't get anything done. You know, I'll be so busy being calm and that I'll just sit there eating toast. That is going to other way, to too much other side. You want to balance? Balance.

Any final piece of advice that you'd like to leave us with This has been incredibly helpful. Thank you. Danny. Oh, final advice. You know, the very best meditation is the one you'll do. That's my advice. And Rempershey, any last piece of advice from you that you'd like to leave us with?

Don't lose your inner humor. Connect with humor. I like that. Thank you so much. Well, Rempershey, thank you so much for joining us here. And as you can see, your teachings have helped me a great deal in my own life. I'm a work in progress. I'm not there yet, but I'm happy that we have the opportunity here to share them with a broader audience.

And Daniel, thank you so much for joining us as well. You're the first repeat guest on the podcast, so thank you. And Adam, thank you so much for your help translating from Tibetan. It's a pretty awesome skill you've got, I'm full of admiration for it. So thank you all so much. It's such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.

Take out. I'll let's see you all. All right, folks. Thanks so much for joining us for this conversation. As I'm sure you could tell, this was just a total pleasure for me. I have tremendous admiration for Daniel Goldman, whom I regard as a friend and mentor, and Sokney Rimpershey is one of the greatest teachers I've ever encountered, so to have them together in one conversation was just really special.

I hope you enjoyed it too, and that you'll benefit from the insights and practices they shared with us. If you'd like to learn more from them, I'd definitely encourage you to read their new book, which is titled Why We Meditate. I don't think the title really does full justice to the breadth and richness of the book, because it's actually about much more than meditation. For one thing, there's a terrific chapter entitled Beautiful Monsters, which is all about Rimpershay's approach of meeting our emotional challenges with kind awareness and applying his method of handshake practice.

I've found this approach pretty transformative in my own life, and I hope that helps you too. I'm also a huge fan of Rimpershé's online meditation course, which is called Fully Being. I've included links to this and various other resources in the show notes for this episode. Rimposha lives in Nepal, so it's a fantastic gift to be able to learn from him online. He's a really remarkable teacher, and I personally hope to study with him for many years or decades to come. I'll be back again very soon with some more great guests, including a terrific investor named John Spears. who spent almost half a century generating superb long-term returns at an iconic investment firm called Tweedy Brown. In the meantime, feel free to follow me on Twitter at William Green 72,

and please do let me know how you're liking the podcast. I'm always really glad to hear from you. Until next time, stay well, and in the spirit of today's episode, be happy. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billioners by the Investors Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin, and every Saturday we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision consult a professional, this show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network.

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