[Music] hey fell G and tears those of us like our spirituality with a Twist um I was afraid I was gonna be a little bit Rusty on that one Daniel and [...] that up again but I didn't you're good bro got that tagline out perfect you got it you got it down we haven't recorded in a couple of weeks I'm coming out of retreat mode so we'll see how I sound uh I had really good Retreat so that's like still maybe I'm still in Retreat mode and we'll see what that does to an episode of our recording yeah but uh while I was on Retreat I was definitely thinking about this episode it was something that we had talked about pre- Retreat and the idea was to talk about kind of the the the Koda the conclusion of our nine things that can [...] up your life and you had had this really interesting idea about well what if you just can't get on the path or something the path or can't get on the path and I thought was just a really interesting thing I've wondered about that a lot too uh so I was thinking about on the retreat definitely and thinking about this episode but um as you and I talked about pre Mike beforehand maybe it would make sense that you just kind of give your idea of that right and then we'll yeah we'll start from that because you had a real interesting idea in mind for sure yeah and of course you know not of course but as usual our minds are aligned but at different times but then simultaneously you know so and it was trippy because I was like reading about ground path result just kinky dinky on the retreat and I was like oh this is perfect this is exactly what we've been wanting to talk about yeah so Okay so we've been we've been you know for probably an inordinate amount of an inordinately long amount of time I've been baging on these you know nine obstacles that I that I label different things because they touch on different aspects of life so you know really for the bulk of this year really this has been the theme of what we've been doing and we've had some other guests on here and there but this has basically been what we've been talking about is these sort of obstacles in the way that are coming out of this you know book the teachings of Chun and L and um you know so we've come to the conclusion we've sort of finished all the obstacles but there was one more idea that I had that wasn't really listed and and so these obstacles are talking about what can derail you now what could derail you from getting on the path or what could derail you while you're on the path I don't know we could just call them you know opportunities for derailment regardless of where you're looking at your situation right and what do I mean by being on the path well this is exactly kind of what we wanted to talk about and we've been wanting to talk about this and we have in in previous episodes but we're going to put some specificity to it you know right now so in Buddhist teachings they kind of have these there's always stages they're very logical they love to lay things out so that you can follow along uh but we've talked about it's been a couple years Eric since we've talked about this but they call this ground path result and you know from my understandings ground path result is kind of like the ways in which you will move towards Enlightenment so that's the easiest one to discuss Enlightenment that's the result yeah yeah okay so that now that that's onethird now we got twoth thirds left to talk about right ground is sort of all of the things that are currently habituated in your life so all of the situations that you have your work your love life your family life we can call it your genetics your ancestry your comings and going of your daily life whatever that might be what you're into what you like what you don't like what you're ignorant of all the things right the psychological States finances all of these kinds of things but really it's more geared towards like we can say I don't want to say spiritual Perfection I'm going to say like you know empowerment self- empowerment Soul empowerment something like this making yourself uh you know a more compassionate being however you want to look at that what you I don't want to like kill your flow on it but I mean should I you want you want to go forward or can I drop a thing do it so what it hurts me with this you know my mom was having a colonoscopy nice uh and I was writing up these notes as I was thinking about my mom's situation my mom is fine fellow G in tears but um you know she was a little concerned about but as I was sitting there in the hospital I was going okay ground path result ground path result and the one thing I wanted to add to it was sometimes like if you want to get real uh if you want to get real uh Asian thought about this you could say this could be like the three Treasures are kind of the ground to from a Dos point of view just to give a little bit of that kind of stuff you know we gotta explain what those are yeah so uh so sometimes Chinese medicine folks who are listening will have some familiar familiarity with this or doist people when they talk about the three Treasures they say this is what you kind of have almost from like the moment of your conception yeah where you have what they call the Jing or the essence which is kind of your underlying genetic inheritance and the constitution of your body that grows from that yeah like your DNA chromosome type things yeah and then like certain acupuncture channels and certain parts of the system that really strongly grow out of like to form the core of your your physical constitution of who you are right yeah what do they call that like um the way in which that the fetuses develop from you know like Endo Ecto I can't remember the all yeah yeah yeah yeah sometimes we'll talk like yeah major major of these deeper acupuncture channels that kind of reflect that right yeah yeah yeah so if people are interested in this from a Dallas Point of View you could sometimes talk about the eight extraordinary vessels which are not acupuncture channels that go to organs but are kind of like deeper in the core of the body right um and they have cool names like the conception vessel and the governing vessel and and things like that but anyway so that's kind of like the the Jing part one of the three treasures and then you have your Chi which most people amiliar with the energies of the body right and then you have your Shen which is kind of like your mind your Consciousness your even all the way up to your spirit so you can make it like a three Treasures thing that's kind of a way to talk about it too I me you agree with that right Dani that yeah yeah totally so the circumstances of your life you're talking about the karmic circumstances are part of the ground talk about that way I also thought it would be good just to remind about like uh the five Aggregates in Buddhism too yeah right which is another way to think about a similar idea which would be the four form aggregate of who you are your physical body kind of like that Jing idea um but you know Jing and shei those kinds of things and then the rest of them are a little bit more psychological like your emotional makeup your intellectual makeup and your Concepts your deeper drives and goals and then eventually like the foundational parts of your Consciousness or something right the patterns that are really deep in your Shen so it's kind of like the five aggregate so we've done things on that too so I was just you know it's cool the way you did it too I totally agree I hadn't thought of it that way you know the circumstances of your life are the ground but then these are kind of like the ground of your being almost or something ground yeah the ground of your being of your being as an individual and it's cool they call them Treasures right because they're valuable right and it's really making up the point of like this is a valuable thing to have a life a human life to work with so it's a very positive view in some level right you got this thing that you can do something with this you know yeah so you know opportunities uh don't waste them but you know it's based on the idea of like a treasure an opportunity that you have to do something great with yourself yeah yeah and so the way that I kind of look at it because I'm you know practical in in many sense many senses is it's like you are going to build some something from Ikea which requires generally a PhD in engineering you know um but you have the ground is like it's the pieces or of material that are required to build the thing it is also the intelligence that it takes to build the thing it's the house that you build the thing in it's tools that you have to build the thing the building of the thing is the path and the result is what you get when you're done and so then you have a skull nerger or something I'm trying to come scan sounding you have a floing shelving unit yeah that's right you have a chair um but so so that's kind of that's the ground right it's all those all the pieces that are that are you know there for you po those that's the potential right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah hear what you're saying and then the path is the is the way through that's the whatever it is that you're studying that's the philosophy that you're using that's the meditative techniques that you're using that's the sort of um taking your life as the teacher taking teachings from wherever they come whether it be from your experience whether it be from a book whether it be from a person or a song or whatever it is right absorbing learning but then but then also transforming them because it's moving you further along the path it's moving you further along the way to where towards the result um and so as we're talking about you these nine things that could [...] up your life well what do we consider your life your life is the path your life that's the way right and so in that sense it's cause and effect really it's very logical from what you're saying very practical it's like okay here's the ingredients here's your three Treasures here's your five aggates here's the karmic factors that you know are kind of built around the life that you got this is what you got that's the ground what are you going to do with them that becomes your path right and it's going to produce a result it's just going to do it like automatically kind of right because whatever you put in is going to be the it's going to be the path right and I guess if we're gonna if we're going to use the the uh Ikea anal ology that piece of furniture is going to be built even if you build it in your sleep you're going to be a sleep Builder you know not a Sleep Walker but a sleep you're building it it doesn't matter even if you don't want to build it it's getting built the the question is are you going to shape it intentionally or not that's the question in my mind it's very interesting because you know we were talking about Carl Yung a lot last year right we did a lot of these episodes where we talked about relationship things but we also had a lot of young stuff in there and he makes that point this is going to be go to CH this is going to go to chairess no matter what so is it gonna be a rough ride to cherness or is it gonna be a more smooth ride to chairess you know what's the ride gonna be like because the ride's going to go to the same place anyways I don't know if like in the Buddhist World they always say it that way that the chair is the guaranteed result at the end I don't know that it's an interesting question you know um I I'm okay with both of those ideas on a certain level to be honest that you know everyone's gonna get enlightened is it gonna be a rough ride or an easy ride you could think that right and I got no issue with that uh but I don't know if they always talk that way it raises that interesting question of like you know are you gonna get a chair at the end or you just gonna get a bunch of like scrap [...] that's like put together into some Rando pattern that one that's that's what I'm talking about yeah it's an interesting question right it kind of like the metaphor is a good one it kind of assumes at the end it's supposed to be a chair okay maybe that's it's supposed to be enlightened at the end if we want to talk that in the biggest picture way yeah um but you know sometimes if you just go like just based on cause and effect whatever you're going to run these ingredients through is going to produce something at the end just by cause and effect yeah you know is it going to turn out like crappy uh you know or is it going to turn out to be something something that you know is a delicious uh thing with good plating and like right on British Bake Off they would give you a handshake and five stars or something British off I had to watch it yeah my son was obsessed with it never even heard of it um uh so people who know British B off okay Daniel has no [...] interest in that whatsoever I don't like baked goods and I don't like uh British reality shows yeah there you go um and then case I mean it's interesting in that the point would be you know regardless something's going to happen it's going to be a path no matter what it's gonna be a path yeah yeah and so I guess the leading you know that is like the Uber long Preamble um what I wanted to kind of like discuss was like okay so everybody has a ground you don't need to do anything to have a ground that's already there that's there but and we're talking about obstacles and again the way that you and I talk about it is you're saying what we've been talking about you know over the last few months which is um you know some of these kind of like things that are like you know the need for food and clothing uh demands from family and and obligations emotional attachments material good and fame uh inability to kind of cultivate yourself impatience to find the right people to help you uh being confused confused things like this you know arguing over stuff like these are the things that I'm I'm referencing I consider those to be obstacles on the path because this is if if if I don't believe that you will view them as that if you're not on the path if you're on the path and I don't mean to be let just let me also say this I don't mean to be dualistic and saying you're either on or off the path I'm just using that as a discussion point for how I am orienting my view my perspective with this that if you're not aiming for the result of you know deepening of oneself right or Enlightenment however you want to call this right then you don't look at those things as obstacles those are just Facts of Life well those are life that's life and that's life anyways you know that's yeah those things are F to happen you and I G to talk some okay well we'll see whether we agree or disagree as we go forward with this this is interesting but go ahead so okay so all those things are those things those things are there okay and we're all going to have issues with Partners families of origin money being distracted by wanting recognition so on and so forth fine but I believe if you're orienting your life towards again Enlightenment self-development philosophy opical leaning spiritual type experiences that you can see how those can be provide opportunity for potential downfall for you to get trapped within but again trapped within the path tra Within These Things their sticking point but if you see that there is a path that you're working on then there are obstacles on the path and what I'm saying is that I don't even know if people are aware that there could be a PA for them to follow and therefore for me that would be the first and primary obstacle to get over now does that mean that you have to necessarily know what you want or that you have to follow a particular line of teaching or a particular tradition or whatever no no what I'm saying is that I think on some level you have to deeply recognize your own soul and then say I want to connect more deeply with that and now whether you think that your soul is on the inside of you and you want to go more inside or you think that your soul exist somewhere outside and you want to go there or however you view it or both or none but you at least in my opinion want to deepen the connection you want to experience more of that and then that moves you forward that becomes your path and then all the things that are along the way that we've talked about those sit directly in front of you right and so I guess what I'm saying is that like the result and the entrance to the path are two sides of the same coin because if you don't recognize on some level that you have something Beyond just the Aggregates Beyond just your the limited life that we lead full of all these obstacles that are also part of regular life or spiritual life you're not going to be motivated or drawn towards the path that sees them as something in your way to learn from they're going to just be life that's going to be the end of it you know what I'm saying does it does this you get what I'm saying yeah let me like okay let me let me give a little bit of my thoughts on this too and see how this harmonizes out because we're both gonna come at this from our own perspectives sure and we're gonna end up we're gonna end up saying the same thing in the end but let's just see how this goes right because you know so I hear what you're saying let me get my two cents because I was like doing my colonoscopy notes so let me jot it out you could just call them notes man yeah well I mean it's a memorable day for me I was like you know sitting there doing this thing thinking about my mom thinking about her life it was funny you know because at the end of the whole thing my mom is a trooper she's an 84 year old Trooper so she went this this whole thing and then she was like well take me out for Mickey D's and I was like Mom I'm not taking you out to [...] Mickey D's after this colonoscopy I'm not doing that sorry no uh but we went out we got some lunch and it was like you know take this 84 year old lady to go head go home and rest but she was like no I want to go out take me out so I was like okay we're going out so you know she wanted me to go to this cheap ass Chinese place like the junkiest [...] Chinese I was like Mom I'm not buying you this [...] food I went in the place and it was like in a strip mall and like you know there were like folding tables that they were making the [...] on I was like Mom I'm not you just had this call and ask me I'm not feeding you this stuff so we eventually found the spot but we spent the whole day talking and by the end my mom's having some cognitive problems there's some worry about dementia with her but we spent the day together and I was like Mom you're very sharp now because we're talking a lot and in the end we had a really really deep conversation that was kind of ground path result driven things about her life and uh and how I felt about things I talked with a lot with her a lot about how I saw my life and the choices that I made were my choices on path you know um and so it all end up kind of fitting together in a logical way because I had done these notes in the morning and then we had this really deep conversation and it was my mom at her best kind of right especially because my mom isn't always at her best now it was actually kind of a moving day so I'm I'm remembering it in the context of that you know it was my mom sharp yeah my my mom in her best moments you know uh my mom could go to this place throughout my entire life and she went there and it was like okay we're going to talk about the most deep things the most deep and honest things and we did you know but this is it these are the most deep and honest things right if you take this [...] seriously right you know um so okay so hence my referencing referencing back to the time I wrote the notes but so to my mind when I was Jing this down I was thinking well what are these nine things right and uh I was thinking about the Dal Lama and the Dal Lama will always make this point in Buddhist Tantra which is kind of my home base now right Zen background DS background this Buddhist tantric background and I got a love for cabala and Sufism as we would say you know we have these spiritual loves but you know in the tarri Buddhist World they really say there are two things to be have to be overcome right if you think about obstacles and they call them uh mundane conceptions and mundane appearances right those have to be overcome this is like the heart of the Buddhist tantric path to overcome bondan conceptions and mundane appearances and to me as I was thinking about what these nine things are they're the mundane conceptions and appearances that's what they are for me and it really struck me that that recognition is it it was is important to me so I don't that's framing it exactly the same way you're framing but I see these things as the mundane appearances sure as the mundane conceptions and those are the things are to obstruct you and so I see that the goal is to transcend these things yeah so on the one hand you could frame these things as the materials of your life somehow but I don't think that's the way I want to do it or I don't think that's right exactly I think what they are is the mundane ways that the world can be seen that have to be transcended and so these things either have to be trans formed into something that's not mundane right or they have to be transcended completely and then you're kind of flying above them but I see it through that context does that make sense to you too and so the problem the way I see it and we don't have to all agree on this or you and I don't have to agree on this yeah but I see these things as similar to the way I think about um other episodes we've had like when we talk about like Wilhelm Reich he talks about the emotional plague you know people getting stuck in the ideas of the world that hold them down I think those are the mundane conceptions and appearances and in a certain sense I see those as indistinguishable from these nine obstacles if you don't do anything with them to to transform them or in Carl Yung he uses this phrase the procrasti in bed that people get stuck procrastinate bad we had it some episodes ago it's some old Greek myth yes there's this evil son of I he's a son of Saturn so a bastard an [...] and he ties you to this artificial bed and uh uh you're stuck there and if you don't fit he cuts off parts of your body till you fit into this thing so it's basically getting jammed into something right that doesn't fit who you are and Jung talks that way right and so I see these nine things as that or in Carl Rogers World I see these as the conditions of worth that we sometimes use right where the world forces you to take on the things and uh now you're saddled with them and they [...] your [...] up essentially right and they block you so I I tend to think of it like that that these things are the mundane materials that get kind of forced upon people sure right and um it fits into me with you know that kind of whole way of thinking I was listening to a to an interview around the time I was doing these little Notes too I was uh I think it might even when I was driving out to get my mom uh he was talking with this existential philosopher Paul tiik who's not a super famous person but you know in the little existential world if you know think about existential philosophy he's a Christian existential philosopher and so it was Carl Rogers famous psychologist that we've talked about in different episodes and then Paul till and they're talking back and forth and Rogers framed it in this interesting way I'd never heard him say this before but he said you know if you want to get people to become who they really are their authentic version of themselves you need to give them clinically conditions of freedom and I was like you know he never says it that way but he said it that way in this interview and I was like yeah that's what it's supposed to be what does that mean well I think he normally talks about conditions of worth that push people into confused versions of who they are the outside world [...] with their head scrambles their brains they get diluted ideas about who they are and they never tap into that Soul you were talking about right right they never get a chance to find that thing sure so and then he says the conditions to improve that is you have to get people in a clinical setting where they're accepted where they're understood and where there's honesty he sets these three criterias but he flipped it this time and he said no what I what you have to do is you have to put people in a condition of Freedom meaning unobstructed un obstacle people have to have a certain kind of freedom to be able to find out out who they are right and I it really struck me as I was putting the notes together I was like yeah that fits into this somehow for me too you know it was one of the the great quotes there he also said agreeing with tiik he said the anti-oral act the ACT that's not a moral Act is the one that stops people from realizing who they are that's the crime that's the immorality you know comes from that that's the bad act so I was like yeah so I when and again I don't know how this sounds to you but as I was going through it I was like yeah this is this is how I'm thinking about these things these are the procrastin and bread the conditions of worth you know the uh the emotional plague right I'm framing it like that now we don't have to agree I'm totally fine if we don't but I was like yeah I think that's how I want to think about this you know and if you know in terms of teaching people about this as we go forward and whatever way we do that yeah I kind of tend to think of it that way in Buddhism they sometimes use these this phrase concealer truth that the truths of the world around you that everyone agrees on but they're not really true you know they're in certain sense they're lies they're just what people agree on right and so when I look at these things I'm like yeah those those are kind of like the obstacles to the way I'm framing it for myself at least you know yeah um and I got some Zen stuff but let me get your response to it first as I find my little Zen things on this because it's kind of interesting I don't if that Vibes with you or not and if it doesn't it's cool yeah I mean it it does in some level and then it's like you know slightly like how how you see things on on a different level so it's not about vibing or not vibing I feel like it's just it's a slightly different perspective from the outside in you know because a lot of what you're saying is like like Society pressures on one hand and I think and I think what I'm saying is sort of like the inside out not that you're saying everything is only outside in you know you are but I'm just saying like a lot a lot of what you're also saying is like there's societal impact and and what I'm and I'm not really addressing that I mean I am in a sense but not not in the Crux in the Crux of my argument is not that the Crux of my argument is that like the initial obstacle before you even get to those other obstacles is you finding your own Shen your own soul and then deciding that that's a thing that you want to orient your life around so I mean isn't it like okay so if we just take American society tell me what you think let's do American society first talking we're getting we're getting to Venezuelan Society third yeah I'll see what deep opinions I have about that tell the Venezuelans about Venezuela that's right Venezuela Spain um uh so I mean I was just kind of going like when you got to that part I hear what you're saying there's going to be an obstacle to that right off the bat that's going to be sociocultural like immediately because for the people who believe in that kind of thing they're Christian in America and Christianity For Better or For Worse has tended to like get more and more narrow in what it means in America it's almost owned by a group of people who are kind of like the more far-right Christians to be honest those are the ones that kind of won you know so I don't think it had to be that way and uh but it seems like those are the folks that won do we kind of agree on that when you go to most people I think Christianity became this more kind of Niche thing that's more owned by the more conservative voices yes but I think I'm talking about I'm what you're saying is true again looking at it from a societal perspective and you're not in you're not incorrect about it but I think I'm just talking to people individuals regardless of what their ideology might be whether it's Christian or something whatever regardless of how you see that even if and we're gonna you know we and we don't often talk about this but it's probably going to take multiple lives I guarantee it's going to take multiple lives to do so even if in this lifetime you happen to be I don't want to say saddled with that sounds heavy um but even if in this lifetime you happen to be born into a a family that has very strong religious views that may or may not completely Vibe with you or you don't question it but you are still studying a philosophy orienting yourself around good you know compassionate living in a sense I don't know that's NE that that is necessarily like off the path if you will if I can say it that way you're just doing it maybe in not your own most authentic way without those things but those two things might be running kind of parallel at the same time I feel like though you're going to have to eventually accept whatever path that you are on as your own and if that means that you follow a different one than when you were born into then you have to do that or like in the um in the case of maybe Thomas keing so there was a book that uh I read uh running towards Mystery by uh tenzen priod Dari who is the uh he was at one point at least a professor of Ethics at MIT very good read uh and he was on with Robert Thurman on one of his podcasts which is how I heard about it and so that I read this book and he was at uh MIT and Thomas keading uh did the Lord's Prayer prayer at some beginning of one of his talk he gave a talk an ethical talk and he opened with that and tenzen padari again the author of this book running towards mystery said that he felt that was one of the deepest Fe recitations of any teaching that he's ever experienced and he ran away from his Indian family to study Zen Buddhism when he was like nine you know you know what I'm saying like um and what he was reading the Lord's Prayer which has been said you we you know many people have heard this in in many different settings for a very long time I don't you know it's a nice prayer but I don't consider it like a super deep thing but he said by the way that he said it the way that he shared it to him touched his heart you know what I'm saying and so I'm using that as a sense that like even if you're in a path that you maybe necessarily didn't choose if at some point you consciously adopt it well then now that becomes your path and if you're still oriented towards you know communing yourself with the the Holy Spirit or whatever your aspect of your Shen that you like I still consider that okay you know I still consider that like I'm not being like anti-christian or anything I'm just more like I've been wondering what the mystery is of this because it gets to this has been going on for a long time for me too thinking about this question how do you get people on a spiritual path in this culture at all yeah like how does it [...] happen and the reason I brought it up wasn't to like you know be negative about Christianity like it was more like if you're kind of a person in American culture you're kind of given two options right one is sort of a more of a like a scientific materialist way of looking at the world right and then you just don't think you have a soul you know like you just don't think there's anything beyond you than that's like kind of like a biological robot right yeah we love that I me we talk about lcal materialism robot yeah or if you look around if you're just like a person you're going well I guess there's some religious people but I'm not into them either because they seem to be kind of conservative you know and they want to like pack the Supreme Court in the United States with people to like make the laws and I don't want to be around that right you know and it like whether this is right or wrong I mean we probably don't think it's right but that's just how this [...] turned out right and so I mean I look at it even with my own kids if I talk with my son he's like I don't like Christianity boo boo his you know and I'm like okay well you know anything about it you know but he's like well it's just all the conservative people and I'm like well you're not wrong that's the only thing he knows about it you know what I mean but otherwise it's just this other point of view and like that's more the biological robot thing so then how do you even get started you know I mean I think you can only you can I mean for me you can only talk to individuals you you you so I think what we're real quick let me I think what we're doing is we're disagreeing maybe a little bit on how strong conventional truths are I to tend to think of conventional truths being really really strong for people and that they have to be strongly overcome and maybe you're more you're more mellow on that point than I am and I might be more harsh on that point which is fine well I guess that's kind of what I sense is like that you know I think that might be a just a different way that we're coming at that what I'm saying is that like I agree with you I'm just like you can't you cannot they're not those things are not overcomable only within yourself can you overcome them so whoever it is that we're I'm gonna be meta for a moment whoever is listening right now is listening to us you know what I'm saying I know that's an obvious statement but it's true and so if you're listening to if you're listening to this whenever you're listening to this whether it be when it comes out um in September of 2024 or you're doing this at some later date in the future or in the past I don't know who knows fucktime you know but like or the Future Past um you're hearing it and so the conventional truth still exist and you're listening at the same time so the only people the only person who ever has to has to overcome the conventional truth is you you Eric being Daniel the one who's talking and listening and the person who is listening to us that's the only relationship that has ever going going to exist in this in this um conundrum that we find ourselves in in this podcast you know what I'm saying so that's how I see it so I mean I agree with you I think this is a question of like how each individual has to come to terms with what it is that is making up their own internal psychoemotional intellectual complex yes but it is it's sociocultural too okay the other thing that hit me with this here's my little prop it's funny because we were just talking about The Little Prince earlier today with my son and my daughter The Bookmark of this thing is The Little Prince it's like we were just literally talking about this but I'm using it as the bookmark for this old book readings in comparative religion yeah from theal University in Chicago uh I had a girlfriend that like back in the day I think we might have talked about this in our TMI episodes this first introduced to Zen this essay she had taken too many classes she was like can you do this essay for me I was like okay fine it's on Zen it's on some interesting sounding [...] I don't think about this I'll do it so I read this essay in my shitty apartment in Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago and it was by it's by uh masawa who is a Japanese philosopher AB Musa uh from the Kyoto school and I read this thing and I was like uh it it hit in this deep way so let me drop this on you and we'll see how this connects to you um for how we're talking about this Daniel you tell me what you think but I wanted to give this thing from rinai who's one of these really famous Chinese Zen Masters before it was even Zen in Japan when it was Chan and China and um China yeah that's the Trump version of China China China okay uh so here's what renai says he says encountering a Buddha killing the Buddha encountering a patriarch killing the patriarch encountering an arhat killing the arat these are all just different versions of Buddhist practitioners right and then he says it like he goes a farther away he says encountering mother or father killing mother or father and Counting the relative killing killing the relative only thus does one obtain Liberation and dis entanglement from All Things thereby becoming completely unfettered and free and the free thing is interesting because it goes back to Rogers was saying somehow you have to get free yes to begin to find this so what's the point here are you really going to kill your mom no it's a metaphor no because she's been training Jiu-Jitsu for the last three years dude she's totally got me dominated she's been whipping your ass for years why why would you beat her now yeah no exactly you nothing one of those Gracie holds on the ground yeah with your femur popped out or [Laughter] something um we've talked to your mom on this podcast I would not want to wrestle your no on the road although I am I am gonna wrestle a sumo wrestler this coming weekend so I'll tell you about that are you really yeah I got his ass bro he's 570 pounds but he ain't got [...] on me you know what I mean this I got Buck 70 we're good okay well we're gonna hear the report next week hopefully hopefully be around to give this report that's right yes H yeah um so what's being said here obviously the idea is you're killing the concept of these things right it's a whole bunch of Concepts and you know part of these things are even the obstacles the obstacles of the family the obstacles of your relationships in the present or something those things have to get killed right yeah and um you know not in any literal way obviously but you're killing the idea of it right but they don't dominate you because those things have to get gone now the trippy thing in this essay and it it worked out well because we went to the Jesus thing a little bit here too is uh you know this Japanese philosopher also pulls these things from the Gospel of Luke and he says isn't this the same point that's being made from more of like a western religious point of view or Western spiritual point of view and these kinds of quotes I never read these before but it says from the Gospel of Luke uh it says Jesus says if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters yes and even his own life he cannot become my discip mic drop what's being said there are you really supposed to hate those people obviously no right but the point is to the extent that there are things in your mind or things in how you approach life that become these nine things they gotta go they gotta go they gotta go and then so I was like when I first read this I was like what the [...] i' never heard this in CCD class you know my C my my uh Sunday School classes which were on Monday nights for me to be honest you know and they were just a chance to meet girls who went to schools that weren't your own school so we weren't taking our velosity too seriously but if they read this stuff my jaw would have dropped uh so it goes on and he says also in the Gospel of Luke Luke he says truly I say to you there is no person who has not left house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom who will not receive manifold more in this time and in the ages to come eternal life so it's the same Vibe he's saying yeah this is part of what spirituality is probably in some root way you know and we can see if we Vive with it or not together but like I was like yeah that's sort of how I think about it on some level and I probably was influenced this from the very beginning when I started doing this Zen thing you know back in the day I was like yeah there's a point that's being made here if you get the underlying point the underlying metaphor they're basically saying yeah these things that can constitute life quote unquote can become these nine obstacles and they got to go oh you know and it fit into the Joseph Campbell thing for me too as I was reflecting on this because Joey C Joey C Man classic Man classic g&t Joey C Bobby T um uh so uh you know with Joseph Campbell you know great expert on myths and philosopher right yes he was like presenting I was sing with my mommy watching his program on public television and he got to the point of talking about the Buddha and The Temptations of the Buddha the last one was you got to do these things yeah you know these nine obstacles the mundane concerns and appearances and the Buddha is like no they got to go right and so I was like yeah that's I mean I don't know how it is for other for you or for other people but I just wanted to share it because I mean that's sort of how I see it and in a certain way it's balled together with I think the psychologists I happen to like which are kind of the ones that are a little bit more radical you know that makes sense yeah where they're like you know it's Reich or it's Carl Rogers or Carl Young where they're going a little bit more radical yeah they're making a little bit more of a radical proposition and you know then you get this terminology of like isn't this kind of like something that should be gotten rid of like a disease right these obstacles are things that are obstructions now I don't know if like obstructions just on the path themselves or before you get on the path but what hits me is like if you don't do anything they're going to become the path that's what yes for sure this will be the path yeah and then just like running something along a conveyor belt when you run it through ping the results going to come out at the end yes and for me like you know just watching people around me over the course of my life like I don't think the results turn out that great I just don't think they do so you know I what I what I find in Reich or Jung or Rogers or these Buddhist ideas this essay by this you know Japanese philosopher talking about these Zen things or in the Jesus quotes too it's like those are hard words but I think they're being said from like a compassionate place if that makes sense right they're they're saying like listen if it is ground path results and if you don't do anything to transform these things or transcend these things that's going to be the path it's just going to spit out a result that's probably going to be mediocre or you know maybe worse just depending on how it gets spit out at the end well let's just say maybe it's not the chair that you were hoping to build yeah you know because I think that the I think the important part at least for me is that you're approaching these things consciously that you are as as they come up I mean not always in every moment are you aware where oh this is part of my this is part of obstacle number seven you know here it is I found it I got it now you know like no you're not but but maybe you should be maybe but at least maybe at least after the after the situation has has transpired then you can transmute it and go oh that seems like that might have been something you know that process that situation is not here to stomp me out and put out my flame and end all of my hopes and dreams it's a it's a transformational aspect of my of my path it was here for me to learn and to overcome and to kill essentially or let go you know or release or whatever do you know what I'm saying and so that kind of mentality that you're approaching it with a sense of awareness maybe even as you're doing it then changes the way that these obstacles reside in your life because they're not you know they're again they're not here to to stomp you out they're not here to Snuff you out they're they're here for you to overcome they're here for you to learn from they are the they're the coals on your fire they're the logs right in your in your in Your Flames um and they're and they become important they're they're part of your path but they're part of your path consciously as opposed to the the aggregation of things that just occur you know what I'm saying there there's a like you know the Silver Lining kind of idea yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah how the toxins get transmuted to become the nectar or something like that correct yeah correct um maybe wrap up in a minute or something maybe The Closer on this for me and I got like maybe we'll do one more little thing on this but but because it's a deep subject matter and I think it's really important one to share right like this about as deep as you get I think uh is there's a the kind of a Buddhist thing of like Buddhas know the results of paths it's one of the things that's talked about the more you get along in your spiritual kind of development in terms of helping others the more you can go and say you know there's a result to pass and this path is going to go to this result right so and I think I used to think of that when I first heard that as some deeper metaphysical thing like they can see the secret Karma of everyone right but as I've gone along I also can see yeah there's a very like I don't want to say more everyday but like very practical level of that that is just like yeah you know if you're on a path that's going to consist of mundane conceptions and appearances it's going to produce a mundane result okay that's a problem sure that's a problem in it's not just a problem it's a problem in the sense that like maybe you won't get enlightened maybe you won't get mocha but it's also a problem in the sense of like it just doesn't tend to turn out that happy and if part of the goal certainly for I think both of us in doing this podcast and thinking about spiritual stuff at all like what are your goals in doing this which is one of the things I tried to jot down as I was putting these notes together like what's the purpose of this and part of it is to overcome unhappiness right you want spirituality's job in part is to like make people happy right is to overcome unhappiness right I mean as far as Buddhism goes Buddha says that is like my goal is to overcome this dis fast factoring this this unhappiness right and to replace that with positives yeah yeah contentedness but you know like I think even you could jack it up when you get to like Buddhist Tantra or some of these other yeah you could definitely check like Bliss yeah you know like it's supposed to get you to something awesome yeah you know to end it on a positive note so yeah I think it's worthwh kicking around a little bit more if you're open to it maybe a short little closer episode on it you know and then we can wrap it but I mean I think this whole idea of ground path result really thinking about that I think that's just one of the most [...] genius ideas people have ever come up with right let's talk about this what is the ingredients what is the path look around you you know and you want to know what the result of a path is going to be look at the other people around you who are on it fair they're gonna tell you the result I was looking at like p masamba uh you know the great uh Buddhist tantrica and he said something like if you want to know what your future life is going to be look what your life is now it's going to be that you know if you expand that idea out you want to know what your result of your path is going to be look at the people around you that's going to be the result right and if you're on like kind of like I mean the sad thing coming from this place of not being a smartass or something but from a place of something we all Wrestle with if you find yourself on kind of this mundane path it's going to produce kind of a mundane result and you could just look around and see well this [...] doesn't look that great right people aren't as happy as they should be right that's true yeah people aren't like it's just just not the case like if you look at it honestly and it's funny because you know I had this realization back when I was a kid in 8th grade it hit me maybe we did this in the TMI episode too but it was my eighth grade teacher Miss Jacobs very nice lady and she could see something was bothering me so she said let's let's talk and for some weird reason she had me come to a class where she had a bunch of students and she sat me in the front like I was going to talk about [...] in front of this group of students I was an eighth grader was a bunch of sixth graders I was looking you're like what do you want me to say but she pressed me and she said what's bothering you and I think she thought I was was going to say something about bad times at home and these kinds of things and that was all true but my answer was man you adults look [...] miserable and I don't know what to do about this I mean I don't know what to do and she was like shocked by the answer she just kind of recoiled back and was like flumix as to what to say because there wasn't a [...] answer right and when I studied with the doctor I studied with from China he came to the United States and he was like I don't understand he [...] people are so unhappy it was his kind of generalization so it's not good enough you know it's just not good enough yeah yeah and it it could be better so then we do g&t to talk about this to try to encourage each other to go hey this [...] can be better if we can get out of these nine obstacles and get a path that doesn't consist just of this [...] agreed all right anyways that's my that's my pre at the end no that's perfect that's perfect it's a good place to stop okay cool yep as always thank you for being here my friend thanks everybody for listening uh like comment subscribe leave a comment in the YouTube channel you know smash the uh like button or I don't know I said it already do your thing man like you know support our work if you want to we don't we don't advertise uh you know everything we do is is legitimate real we stand behind our work and our words and and the things that we're trying to share with people um you know for those of you who are who are still listening at the end you're in the 5% of people who have a long enough attention span to listen to something for you know 45 minutes or whatever it is and we appreciate all the love and feedback so uh you know if on Instagram hit us up Jin and Tantra podcast or hit us up at the at the email if you want us to go over something or you want to give us a shout out you know we love to get feedback from folks Jin and Tantra gmail.com for Eric this is Daniel we'll catch youall on the next one peace [Music]