hey pH G and tear doph was like our spirituality with a Twist we're we're smiling when we shouldn't be because we're about to go and to talk about some of the most difficult [...] in the universe we've been talking about love that's difficult [...] too now we're going to talk about something else unfortunately we're going to talk about war and violence um and I think this really is coming from a place of passion for Daniel yeah as we were talking off mic it was the idea of there's really nothing else he was you know you were saying Daniel there's really nothing else that you could be honestly talking about now because it's so important and so many people have been really coming to you to discuss this and coming to you in the in the course of your uh medical practice and what you're doing like just to talk about this yeah and try to get some perspectives on it so we wanted to try to do the best we can with this you know um a little bit free for me we'll do the best we can to kind of be here here for y'all fellow g& teers we'll do the best we can like to kind of discuss these things and I'm really anxious to hand this baton off to Daniel so I'm gonna hand it off yeah yep there It Go pass it on yeah yeah so first first to our audience thank you for listening um you know we appreciate all the the feedback and the love that everybody gives us and you know we've done a lot of stuff on love this year uh a lot of stuff on various psychologists and psychologies and and things like this so we're really kind of like we're still in the same vein of of psychological viewpoints in the world actually and and talking about how Society how what we think what we view what we do might be outside of society's norm and this to me is actually in the same vein it's an it's an extension of that and I think because we have been talking about that for so long it's sitting more at the Forefront of my mind and as I'm as we're talking and as we're recording I am thinking about my you know my friends my patients the and some of those people who are listeners to this and so I am this episode this you know little uh Soliloquy or dialogue when you know when you come in is is for these people it's for the people who look around the world and wonder you know where is the compassion it's for the people who are sitting at home saying this is [...] up like not just one side is [...] up all of it is [...] up and and I think that that Viewpoint unfortunately is not as prevalent as I would as I would prefer as I would like as would sit well with me I always expect that there is polarization amongst every single topic and partly because of how people were raised cultural influences Karma whatever you know life experience and I'm not necessarily poo pooing that you know uh one of my main flaws is that I'm a Chicago Bears fan and as we all know they're terrible so every week it's a little death a little mini death you know and I wonder how many more times they could lose before I just totally give up on them probably never you know because it's a character flaw um you know but that quarterback for the Bears just broke his hand over the weekend so yeah yeah yeah no problem you know what else is new yeah but so as you know we're and you know for those who don't know we're talking about the you know kind of referencing the conflict in the Middle East currently and so I'm just kind of like watching watching the coverage looking at people's reactions on social media hearing conversations and and I'm taking all of that in as many of my patients I can't say all of them but I'm going to say 80% or more when they come into the clinic they want to talk about this particular subject with me and they don't want to talk about this that much with the other practitioners that don't I that I know because I have asked and I just began over the last a sign of trust I mean people are sharing with you not that they don't trust the other people who are in the practice but when people bring these things up it's because there's a certain trust there yeah and I was talking with on this issue and they want to share it yeah and I was talking with the friend of mine last night who's also a regular uh listener and I was asking her why does she think why you know knowing her her knowing her who knows me why would she think that people would do that and and she said I believe that people trust like Eric to your point but that they're looking for a different perspective maybe even yeah that's what you said when you wanted to say you wanted to talk about this you're like yeah you should get out there and at least for the people who are listening to us try to offer something a little bit different that maybe a little bit different you know she used the word the words benevolent perspective and I told her oh there's no pressure in that at all you know that's we got that you know well I had like a a couple of things with it on the one hand I've been in Paris week so yeah s so uh it was a funny thing in that funny I don't know it was an unusual thing in the sense that I was there these events were going on but I was very removed from it so when you kind of brought this up that you wanted to talk about it today I almost had to start I mean I had the general sense but I had to start trying to inform myself more you know I talked with my brother and I said you know Daniel wants to talk about this he thinks it's really important and my brother's reaction was don't do that mind stay away from that no and I was like no I've already agreed to do it and he was like no back out don't do it call it sick call it sick that's it no I was like it's okay I gotta do this uh you know and obvious in the way that we want to talk about things that are important and you you're expressing that this is a thing that's important to talk about from the reaction that you're having with people so that was part of it but what would what did strike me is someone who's been away from this hasn't been seeing it and all of a sudden I mean I knew it was going on but I haven't been really paying attention all of a sudden trying to immerse myself in it one and we were talking about this a little bit off mic as we were kind of thinking how do we want to do this but uh like how polarized yeah instantaneously polarizing it yeah is in very like obscure ways so I kind of taken a variety of media sources more of a lefty person shocker but um no one's perfect uh by take in like different sources but the ones that were more Pro one side absolutely Pro one side yeah ones that were more Pro the other side absolutely the pro the other side and I thought this is such an odd terrible horrific awful situation to try to take like a one-sided thing on I can't see it you know and no matter how I run the mental caucus in my head and we don't want to go through and rehash all the atrocities people can turn on the news and get all that coverage for themselves that's not the point of this discussion you know in in looking at it I'm like well I don't know how in an event like this you could polarize into a corner I can't see it so anyways that's one of the things that certainly wanted to bring up and I mean you expressed the same impression I got like a blast of it because I wasn't paying any attention to it and all of a sudden okay here I am I'm back in Chicago you know um just within the past like day and a half or something and so we G to talk about this and I was looking I was like oh my God this is so all the coverage is so absolutely polarized in a predictable way I mean I know the sources that are more I listen to are more war Pro one side than the other side or whatever but it was like it was and I thought God in this situation with just so much um horrific going on all over the place I don't know so I know what do you think about that I mean what do you think about I me that's obviously a major part of this but yeah I mean and that's and that's that's you know I want to have this discussion so you know so people have been asking you know not what to do but some people have asked what to do but less people what to do more people just wanted to kind of like vent and share their what kind of things have people been saying about it I mean I don't want if it's close to the Bone we don't have to talk about but you know I think some they're they're hurt because it's just such a it's such a painful set of events it's just painful inside okay and and this and this is from people who scan the gamut of religions it's not and and it's it's Christians it's Catholics it's Protestants it's Jewish it's musl you know like it it goes over all of it now granted my patient population I'd say is probably close to a 90% college graduate rate rate of the college graduation rate is 90% you know so I'm dealing with educated people you know middle to upper middle class just to give this the swath so I'm not under any kind of pretense about who are the people that I am I'm I'm I'm working with in this lifetime at this particular time you know but they do Scan they do span uh you know the the religions many of whom you know um are are directly related to the the conflict you know not personally but you know via their faith or family members something like this they're tired they're tired they're tired of seeing I know how dist to I mean like I know people I mean I know I know people who are directly involved in this I know people who are immediately going to be affected by this I do that experience I'm sure you do too are directly involved both sides of this that are going to be impacted by this yeah and and I I mean every I mean it doesn't matter what side you're on everybody's tired of it you're tired of what you're tired of it you're tired of it all and so for for me as a person who is not unattached but I identify as an American citizen for better or worse as a yogi I'm a yogan that's it that's who you know that's the one thing that's come out for me that's that's who I am and so I'm I want to be you know a free Yogi to be able to see things and go oh wow that's unique let me try and see what that does to me on the inside when I look at something does it elicit a response yes I'm a human being so when I see children murdered I have a response I have the same response if that child is brown or green or it doesn't matter like it's it it list it's the same response and it's not a a you know a a means to make the situation seem oh it's happening everywhere well actually it is happening in many places in the world we're focused on one right now but this is happening in many places in the world which to me is almost mindboggling because so many of us have a really good life you know over here in United States I know we have some International listeners and I hope everybody who's listening has a good life of some you know in some way shape or form but how it that we don't remember that you know and then when things come up we're reminded momentarily of how good we have it because we don't have to worry about living in a war zone but then immediately we go and we point sides we point fingers at the one side or the other side not knowing the the depth of the cost of War which from somebody who was in Military and who has seen the devastation on the ground with their hands with their eyes you know of a war torn country the devastation that is done to not just the people who are alive but to the family members of those who are dead and to the psychology of everybody who is there it's a virus you know it changes the mood of things for years it doesn't just go away it's not just like a bad day you know talk to people who were victims or or in some of these mass shootings that have happened in this country over the LA the [...] the dozens of mass shootings have happened you know this is a it's a terror on the mind of all those who see it and who are connected to it and so it's just like mindboggling to me that people would never lift a finger in Anger ever because they don't have it within them to do it can lift their fingers to type some [...] online to say extremely disparaging things when they would never do that in person and I know keyboard Warriors have been around for a very long time but these aren't like some weird people sitting in their basement you know saying like my character in Dungeons and Dragons would kill you you know like this is not that these are mothers and fathers and regular F how serious how serious has that conversation been and what do you think that means to people I guess since you got to that point yeah because I haven't been having them I haven't been paying much attention to them so I don't know if I got a really good feeling about what's happening with this so I I have so there's two I have two kind of two thoughts on this part one thought is the polarized so the let me take the the polarized view first and because the because the situation is so complex and some people are listening to this maybe you might have a different view you might say no it's not complex it's very simple well that's your opinion I believe it is complex any geopolitical uh intervention is complicated because there is more than meets the eye right I don't know if I can I don't know if you can look at something like this how do you even say this and in any way say it's not complex I don't know in what world you could say this is not somebody could say they could say it's religious base and that's what the that's that's the Crux of it all at the end of it you know oh oh I see what you mean right be reductionistic in how you interpret what it means or something yes we were talking off mic and you know we agreed we're not going to do this but there's just this convoluted history yeah you know and it's just so you know and I as I was thinking we were going to talking about this I was going I was like had to commute for my work so I was just listening to like some things on the whole history again just reminding myself for events that I just even forgot I was like oh my God I forgot all about that particular thing happened or that particular thing happening I was like this is just so ridiculously convoluted and in so many ways like uh and I don't want to Tang It Off maybe we'll double back to it but you know the idea that it's all so convoluted geopolitical yeah all these different actors have their own sort of agendas going on if you really want to try to understand it and I suppose in the spiritual point of view you try to understand the world yes right that's part of like understanding conventional truth as we sometimes talk that's why we're that's Eric that's why we're doing this because that's as spiritual minded people we're doing it we're going to go into the thing the way out is through yeah so we didn't want to sit here and talk about whatever our opinions are about the history and the this and the that or that event or this event but I don't know how if you're going to be a person who's seeking truth that's a yogi right uh a spiritual person speaking truth I don't know how you could look at this and not say this is the most convoluted [...] [...] in the universe this is so convoluted right and um in a certain sense the tragedy of as also it's so convoluted and the people who are really suffering are kind of caught in the middle of all these convolutions you know and I'm like breaks my heart I'm getting sad yeah it breaks my heart to see that there's all these people who are in the midst of all of like this convoluted Stu outside of their control outside of their ability to to do anything about it I'm sure outside of their desire to participate in it they don't want to be part of this I wouldn't want to be part of this if I were them and I think we can have normal human empathy to say that probably the vast majority of people don't want to be have anything to do with any of this people who are in the middle of the throws of this you know so I I I didn't want to like you know we're kind of doing it free form I don't want to get it from what you're talking about but I mean I guess it's the thing of like that too you know the um the convoluted and uh the people who are stuck in it and I think anyone who would try to say that it isn't convoluted is I think on some level it has to be being spiritually disingenuous I just don't see I'm willing to say that you know to to an audience if if you think this is somehow particularly obviously black and white is one of the most obviously black and white things in the world I just don't see how you could say that yeah I know I don't see it and for me that the to be intellectually and spiritually honest yeah yeah no no and then but but that that's fine because the reaction the the the emotionally driven reaction is black and white for many many many many many many many many many many people and to me that is exactly the opposite of spiritual practice that is the opposite in my mind of true religious practice the goal of it is to overcome disillusion to overcome the separation right to move Beyond dualistic viewpoints and find the singular one the one of the middle one and when people do that it not only is it from an emotional place and people can have their reactions I'm not saying to be an automaton a robot I've said that numerous times on on our you know within our work here but it is to say that like if you are simply drawn to or averted from anything of significance in life you are a pingpong ball no offense I guess that's not really offensive okay let me be more offensive you're a [...] pingpong ball that's you know that's yeah right does have more Edge to it when you put it that way and and I mean it like I know that's not really angry it's not really mean you know it's going somebody a ping pong you know but whatever but what I mean to say is that like you're going to bounce around in life as if someone else has paddles and they are just able to hit your emotions back and forth because you move at the whim of the wind I guess part of the idea here is that this is um being aware of your own internal emotional states and how they affect you and how they can kind of be pulled in Extreme Ways by external events correct that if you really took a step back and looked at that it would be like well this isn't really accurate to what this situation is correct so maybe that and then also the idea that um some of the world is trying to understand you know using the Buddhist lingo for this conventional truth take a step back and really see you can figure out what's going on you know um in a a realistic way right which is trying to develop a kind of a Clarity of vision yes right and in the absence of doing that it's very hard to have um equal compassion yeah right it's very hard to do that because otherwise you will be pulled into a one- Sidis that is probably if you took a step and really looked at it diluted it is diluted it is diluted so all so so witnessing the polarization then and like I said this earlier when we were before we were recording is a deep I'm not going to say a reminder because I don't want to be reminded of something that is disappointing but I'm going to say maybe a a a deep observation for me on the immense amount of disconnectedness that people have between we'll say first within themselves and their emotions or their thoughts and then between themselves and the external world and then obviously at the end of it between them and other people because you can be very quick to make some other person who shares literally 99.6% of your DNA exactly the same exactly the same and you can find within them some beliefs that would make them uh go from a human being to a target one that you can uh depersonalize and then feel justified in having the desire or the action to eliminate their life which I don't think anybody has the right to you know I just I just you know I just don't I was trying to think about this when we knew we were going to talk about it and I was running around doing the things I have to do on this day at these Mondays and Tuesdays when we're recording this these are busy days for me we're doing this on Tuesday night but I was trying to think okay so what's the since a lot of my core space I come from is kind of Buddhist I thought well what is the Buddhist space of this and I was like well I think in part there's this idea that you're going to own your in a very particular way in Buddhist thought that you want to demonstrate kindness because in a certain sense it creates kindness karmically back to you if that makes sense so even you know like the Dal Lama will say something like you know when you start acting nice to people the first person is going to benefit is you is you right you know that's the line right partially because it'll feel better to come at things from a kind space it feels subjectively better and we know that from our Chinese medical point of view too right that to come from kinder spaces is psychologically and physically healthier right so in Chinese medical thought to come from a place of benevolence is going to be better for like the systems that have to do with the wood phase or wood element energies and the liver that's a better space to come from right to come from a space of compassion is going to be better for the digestive system they have the whole theory around this right in Asian culture and so that is better right but then there's also this understanding that like if you commit um if you if you commit acts of kindness you're more likely to generate those acts of kindness back and that's a narciss not it's narcissist that's a strategic point of view right slightly selfish but it's okay it's a wi selfishness I think Bob Thurman uses that line too Bobby T right you're GNA be selfish you might as well be wisely selfish I think that says that there you go so that line right right so I was thinking okay at least Buddhism has that idea in it right that's not to say that you know if we did the whole historical sweep of Buddhist countries that they've been awesome right all the time they have not I'm not deluded on that point I'm also and we talked about this pretty honestly I'm not in the thing where I said like Tibetan culture is like perfect or something even though I think Tibetan culture has many wonderful things about it it's not perfect across the board for sure no you know and uh you know gas Kong was a Buddhist so you know there's like you get atrocities committed by by Buddhist Nations I don't want to be falsely idealistic about but there is maybe something about that yeah and I don't know what you think about that oh this is terrible stuff to talk about but you know you did mention off Mike some of this has to do with like religious thought right which we don't want to criticize anybody's religion no but and there's something like to take us to step back and say to what extent is the way I'm thinking about my religion contributing to these kinds of things right so what I've been you know in terms and that what I've been saying is that like for me the way that I view it is that the institution of religion and spiritual practice are completely separate things there there are maybe some areas of overlap you know maybe it's some Monastery at least that's in my mind this the the last Bastion of goodness you know is in the monastery right whatever um there probably not probably not you know but like to me those two things are separate so when someone says religion you might as well say government right and when someone says spiritual practice you can I'll call them like Community activists you know people who are organizing and doing food drives and things like this you know feeding the homeless the government doesn't they may do that but that's going to look completely different than people in your neighborhood getting together to help the woman down the street who lost her job and his husband passed away a couple years ago and you know what I'm saying like it's a different that that's going to look totally different well I've been I've been around these Tibetan people at times right you know uh Retreats and and people and uh know things like that and uh it's always been very impressive to me and being around Tibetans they certainly don't voice the bitterness and anger that you you could you know what I mean whatever they feel inside they feel inside right and maybe in their more private moments different things are said I don't know but it is an impressive thing I was thinking about this related to this you know Buddhist thing too during the day it is an impressive thing that you there was a Tibetan culture and it's gone like it's obliterated it's never I mean you have to say it's never coming back to Tibet again it's over that country's occupied and whatever was this thing that was built up for a millennia and over right 1500 years 1600 years this whole cultural edifice that was built up it's gone you know and I I tried to think of like well how bitter and angry would I be if you know the entire culture I was participating in especially if I was fond of it if I felt like right maybe a deserved Pride because there's lots of elements of like this Tibetan Buddhist culture that were you know important things were preserved in this space and there were people who did their spiritual practice and had their ideas and wrote their books and did all this stuff and it's gone how angry would you be right and the interesting thing has been you know like older Tibetans people who you know fled into India and things and they certainly don't demonstrate it outwardly you know and I thought well so what's what's doing that you know to help with some of that bitterness and I think like what you're saying in this episode one of the points you wanted to make is it has something to do with spiritual practice obviously yeah y you know to help you deal with when these terrible things happen which sometimes might be personal or in this case is transpersonal it's you know in some ways for the people that you're talking about that you're seeing as patients they're not being immediately affected by this exactly right but it's horrific enough that it's seeping into who they are yeah and I guess the idea is like spiritual practice is supposed to do this right yeah and a different orientation towards the world Robert Thurman does make this point about the Dal Lama too to give him his props Daly Lama Thurman too but Dal Lama especially that at least publicly would ever I think privately too for him he's not he's trying to like like talk about this non- retaliation right he's trying to talk about that yeah which you can have retaliation non- retaliation and something like this on all sides so we're not even talking about any particular side within this conflict and that's a you know a powerful thing for somebody to try to do especially in the context of how amazingly intense this rhetoric got so quickly right and I guess if you're talking about Tibetans those are people who like again are like we were talking about existential the threats within this situation there's existential threats on all sides in this situation right and there's an existential threat for the Tibetans too right and uh all I can say on the personal level being around Tibetan people I've been like this is very impressive you know mostly people who present a very positive sense of themselves in the world right and don't seem to be carrying this bitterness and their country's gone right it's never coming back right and so that's something impressive about that does that make sense what I'm saying Daniel yeah yeah and I guess all you can really trace it is a certain kind of spiritual practice and it maybe a certain kind of philosophy which I guess I'm trying to get to what the Dal Lama is trying to like put out there which is this idea of uh okay we can't react back violently even though we want to right we can't do it and certainly the emotions are there and I'm not going to say that there aren't Tibetans who are you know freedom fighers in this way or want to like resist and I'm not saying that isn't happening and we can respect that even if that is happening but um uh there's a position from this person in authority and power who's trying to be this compassionate figure trying to say no we can't do this right right then I guess that's when the rubber hits the road for these things right in spiritual practice when you really and say okay this is not easy at all that's yeah I mean that's why I wanted to do this today that's and I suppose after I know how you felt after 911 there was that reaction you know for a lot of us where you're like I I don't know it wasn't America that I felt this about but the loss of something that was kind of beautiful you know what I mean so that was gonna be the I don't know what that feels like for people in the Middle Eastern context or the batan context but yeah the lot of thing it's hard not to feel angry about that I'm sorry I didn't mean to talk over you no no no you're good I mean I think so you know like there's you know as we always like to wrap things into our you know practice into language so the first part watching people's reaction was to me a loss of people's sense of interconnectivity or connectivity between human beings you know like kind of a basic feeling of interconnectivity and empathy between human beings yeah like just cut it we'll just cut that get that out of here you know now it's easier for me to not feel the other person suffering it's not it's I'm not killing a grandmother or I'm not killing a niece or a daughter that's them they're one of them and now them they're they're garbage they're barely human anyways I you know what I'm saying like it's it's easier to do and what you're talking about now is like this this you know and what I wanted to get to which I'm glad we're here is for us who are not directly involved you know direct and I mean directly like yourself if you're not there you're listening to this and you're not there and you feel like rough about it which I imagine many people do remember that September 10th 2001 was a normal day and like you said the next day there was kind of an Innocence Lost And even though we've been in this conflict before you know what 2018 was the last time that they were maybe even after 2021 I don't know they go in there kind of regularly there's some uh some beef we could say they got that this time there's there's more there's more eyeballs on this now than there ever have been before that that that it appears to me that this is like a worldwide awareness at the moment and about like all the violence that's happened around this in various ways over you know this one is attracting a kind of an attention that otherwise wouldn't Beed absolutely and for me like it just it's one of these things that like last Wednesday was a regular day and then Thursday happened and it's no longer the same and now we're like diving head first into like atrocities that you're going to watch on your television while you're doing whatever is that you I have to be completely honest like I'm not just as far as the spirituality of this goes I don't want to kill your flow but I'm not doing that no no I'm not saying you're not I would say as a recommendation like I would not recommend it no just don't do it I wouldn't recommend it but it is to say that like it doesn't that's time that that's my point is that you know you know the reference of impermanence like this thing is always changing and we don't know which ways it's going to change and when it does happen it doesn't go back it only goes it only continues to go forward and things are only going to change and so as we're living Our Kind getting a little Zen about this uhhuh and so as we're as we're living our lives and we're doing our thing this has to be kept in mind this has to be kept in mind it's not just your own health that you have to be concerned with you know people who have you know not I'm not not rich people but you know someone who's saved money in their life they have maybe a little retirement savings or something like that like you know if you go that money don't mean [...] to you no more there is not there is not the richest life but like the inevitability of the life isn't going to last forever and possessions are not things that you're going to take with you into your next life if you want to be all Buddhist about it or something right but then there then there's stuff like this that changes the the complexity and the tenor of the situation that we're living in so yes your life is not going to last forever but the conditions that you're in aren't going to last forever either and so as we're doing whatever it is that we're doing the keep in mind it it really is a borrowed time it's a borrowed experience and so you know we always sort of making these calls for people to like live your life as fully as possible I always tell people buy whatever you want whenever the [...] you want it you know who knows just just go get it it doesn't whatever if you have it you know you can do it yeah yeah yeah yeah but I mean it is to say that like what you choose to spend your time on will not be returned to you you know so to Choose Wisely so if you're going to go and have a discussion about this with people you know my you know because you want to air out your grievances or work through some difficult sticky parts that are that are that are you know Weighing on your heart like Choose Wisely how you spend and who you spend that time with because if it's just ketching over whatever those are not moments you're going to get back and I don't think that those things are adding to your life in particular and they're definitely not adding to the solution of this particular conflict if anything the The Angst and anger only allow the people who are already anxious and angry to become more anxious and angrier because they feel like their opinion is Justified because there are others who believe in that way and the people who have actually outside opinions are I hope I hope a growing minority but that by having meaningful discussion leading with vulnerability open heartedness and compassion you can touch the parts of people that they don't want to be touched because they're F they're full and fueled with anger disappointment rage and sadness you know what I'm saying and so if you don't add to that kind of equation and you can come at it from a different perspective and say where can we agree first let's agree first let's agree murder is bad can we start there if we can start there then we can talk about anything because we can always come back to what that our agreement is and then in this way you're rebuilding the bonds together I just feel like people at Le at least right now are focused on the divisions not necessarily focus on putting things together and I personally believe that people who have some level of like internal awareness and like view on their life are more solutions based within themselves of letting th let letting you know disharmonious thoughts reside coherently within their own mind and heart and if they can do that internally then they can definitely do that with other people and then come up it's easier here on the shower curtain of wisdom I have the Robert Thurman quote Bobby T where he says uh wisdom is tolerance of cognitive dissonance or something so the more you're able to like kind of get the wisdom thing going the more you're able to hold these views that don't have to be so extremely polarized in one way or another and it allows you to kind of take a step back and like from two sets of people in a horrific conflict say okay I can understand that both of these parties are coming from a certain place yeah anger fear being the dominant driving emotions of these things right yeah um I also was just gonna say like picking up on what we were talking about just a couple minutes ago I don't think you have to watch this stuff so I don't think you have to feel bad if you're not no yeah people feel this feeling like I have to be aware otherwise I'm being neglectful of and you know not compassionate to what other people are going through okay but I I think it's okay to have a sense of what's going on but also not overly indulge in all of the gut-wrenching aspects of this I don't know if you feel the same way as I do but I don't think I don't know if that serves anyone really in the end except maybe the people who are getting the clicks and the advertisers who are sponsoring the shows and stuff I don't know to to watch Being Wars over and over again yeah War cells War cells views War cells weapons you know War sells ideology War sells everything it really does because you know there's a book and I read it and but I don't remember much about it but the title of the book was uh called war is a force that gives us meaning I did a whole long essay on it probably my freshman year in college and the title always stuck with me and I was thinking about that title the other day and I was like why is that bothering me right now you know but as we're talking about it N I see it because that's yeah it's the ultimate high stakes game it's the ultimate in polarity it's the ultimate in Duality right the consequences of this are literally deadly well I was thinking about something like yeah I was thinking about something like that because you my even in the episodes we were doing recently like setting the we're talking about love and relationships but we're also talking about what gives meaning right and uh and as a center point if your meaning is like you're going to try to get enlightened which I guess is my idea whatever that means right I'll do my best tumble edit sure um but uh uh I think when you feel that way your meaning is coming from a different place and you don't have to get your meaning from some of these things that are much more convoluted conflicted um polarizing you don't need those things as much no you know your meaning is Gonna Come From someplace else and maybe part of it is like when there's a meaning vacuum you get sucked into these things more I think I've seen that in people whe there's a kind of an existential hole end getting pulled into these events I not just aware not just compassionately aware but like sucked in sucked in yeah I think there's a kind of a magnetism on in that that resides within all of us that can certain um viewpoints can pull at those magnets more than other ones and if it's strong enough it will pull you in it's it's not that those viewpoints don't exist within you we have multiple viewpoints existing with us at the same time it's just that one of them is louder than the other ones and that's the one that we tend to lean on a little bit more regularly you know what I'm saying so like just for people who are you know having their own struggles with you know this version of morality or that version of ethical implementation it is a struggle that's that's part of the practice what do you mean by the ethical implication and morality part of that like just give me a little bit more on that so if somebody has a particular leaning towards one side or another and says that compli like this one okay yeah got it yeah yeah and they could say well this is this was left this is uh the lesser of two evils this dri this had D driven that response this thing is a you know justification for blank you know whatever what are we talking about we're talking about murder let's just call it what it is so in what justification can I kill your grandmother yeah well is it okay if the government does it are they is that cool or no that's not cool Wonder situation can I bomb your children and call it fine right right right no and I I like to use the words kill because that's what's going to happen yeah so what ways can we do it bombing sounds like maybe something comes from a plane and then a building explodes and then that's it you know there's just dust in the air and no I guess it's like like how the language hits you because bomb doesn't sound good to me bom doesn't sound good but you know when um a building implodes the the Heat and shrapnel from that projectile will incinerate your flesh muscle then bone and if you're not incinerated but that shrapnel or whatever is in there hasn't killed You by slicing you apart you will then be crushed by the weight of what's above you so you want to make this as graic detailed graphic as possible to make possible when somebody shoots somebody or stab some you know like they're EMP the goal is to empty take your insides and put it on the outside so that you are no longer in existence but that's the thing is we're separate again I talked about separation earlier we're separate from these acts we are you know oh we're going to bomb this one we're gonna bomb well what does that mean exactly have people seeing a bomb go off I think they'd be quite upset I know um and we're going to wrap it just a few minutes here but I was at the I got a couple I got a couple yeah I was at a couple the air and water show maybe six years ago five years ago something like this and um not gonna lie I smoked a little bit you know I take care of my glycom you know and so we were there and I'm watching the you know the the planes fly overhead the f-16s and the HK whatever you know Blue Angels blah blah blah blah and everyone's like whoa cool and you know because I have a different view of that because I've seen them up CL whatever I was like I told my friend who was with me I was like to many people in the world that means death yeah yeah yeah yeah you see that you hear a sound and you don't exist the next moment that's what that means so we're gonna sit here and go woo because they're on our side and they're fun and they're cool looking but what what is their goal what is their what is the intention of that machine that was created by humans to kill from a distance quickly and cleanly for those who are doing The Killing that's that's the intention of that machine it is not to drive in a formation so that you can be entertained on a summer afternoon in downtown Chicago you know what I'm saying like I guess that's that's a recruiting exercise that is absolutely yeah you know and that's I just yeah yeah so you know you see things and you have a different perspective you know I one of the things I was thinking about again like I'm slightly Switching gears but you know we're g to wrap up our things maybe the next 10 10 minutes or something so we'll get out the things we thought were important to say yeah um it was interesting because it's hard to feel optimistic about this and it got me thinking about the doctor I study with from China we were talking about him earlier off Mike yeah and we talked about him with like 911 and I was you know studying with him at that time doing my Chinese medical stuff studying my meditation in she with him he was my main teacher of that time period in my life 911 happened I remember coming in and saying well don't you think we need the United States has to do something to respond like isn't that what you have to do geopolitically and so on and there wasn't like a nanc delay he just said no I said you don't think think they something should happen he was just like no nothing you should do nothing back and I was like a little like I didn't expect expect that from him you know there was a part of him that was like a martial artist and thing I thing so I wasn't sure if he'd even come from that space But he was just like No And obviously for him he was thinking this is just GNA make everything worse yeah and is that not true is it not been like a [...] couple of decades in the aftermath of this right yeah absolute truth so I thought okay that's very I thought about that again you know just the definitiveness of his answer and then over the course of the day I was thinking okay so that's that part very hard to do obviously the other part was is there any reason to feel optimistic at all in these things because that's the other part that's very striking there's this incredible wave of just hopelessness and I was listening the people talk about this whole thing and I've been watching I know do you said show Dairy girls Daniel no I if that would be your thing anyways it's a story of these like teenage kids and uh they're in Northern Island during the troubles and it's played comedically it's really funny and then they'll have these moments of POS kind of right yeah because you know the the IRA and the and uh you know that whole conflict of Northern island is going on is the backdrop to the whole thing yeah so I've been watching it uh my son and daughter think it's hysterical so we laugh pretty hard but you know in the backdrop there's this story going on and I don't think my son even got to this what it was I almost had to explain to him at some point like we know this is happening and he was like something happened and he was like well this episode's very depressing and I was like that's been going on the whole time dude he went really so anyways you know as a kid he didn't even fully register him but that's a terrible conflict right and some of the people I were listen I was listening to about this said well you know ultimately those sides stopped you know and the one British commentary I was listening to was basically saying you know uh the queen shook the hand of the guy who was the head of the IRA or whatever you know and one of her family members had been blown up in a bomb but they had to eventually come together and like right do this and I suppose in that context if you would have been you know in the 80s or whatever or in the 70s you thought is this ever going to end you would have thought no way there's no way this is ever gonna end that would have seemed impossible right yeah then it ended so I guess that's Buddhist too in the sense that the bad things end too right dama talks about that way we don't always have to talk about the good things ending everything is impermanent even the bad things can end you know and I suppose as I don't know how that feels to people about this particular situation because it does feel so dire obviously and I don't want to be panish about it right but I'm sure if you were in Northern Island you thought no [...] way is this ever going to end this is going to go go on forever right and then at some point something happened where it ended and eventually people who were victims of violence on both sides had to somehow like lay down their arms and like come back together again and they did actually yeah you know in a situation where there's obviously a lot of violence a lot of death uh and I don't know this different situations different countries different cultural settings and so on I don't want to make an over-the-top comparison right but I was struck by that I was struck by the fact that like you would never think that these things would end and yet sometimes the bad things end yeah right yeah and you can look at like take a little sweep back of history and say oh those are horrible events but like sometimes the bad things end too yeah yeah I'm hoping the bad things end sooner than later I guess the one last thing about this is we did a little bit on Exchange meditation at some point so maybe as a practical closer perfect and I thought about it because the daring llama did this with Mount seong you know and you his point was did it changed the mind of M M Tong no but it changed something in his own mind so he describes his experience you're talking you're referencing chairman ma Right leader of yeah chairman ma chairman ma leader of China during the leader of China during when the you know China invaded Tibet and the country was destroyed right it's gone and he was like I you know like okay I'm going to try to do this thing you know what he had learned and he talks about this and it's a thing that you can do just in general as a meditation can do just in general but it's also meditation you can do with maybe particular individuals or something you know so if you find yourself on one or the other side of these things you can try to go through and reach out to these something that someone who represents the other side you know and the idea of the meditation is that you breathe in through the left nostril you can kind of hold one finger up to close the right and as you're breathing in I think if you're doing it through an individual you kind of imagine you're breathing in all the pain and suffering of that individual that you're trying to maybe change your feeling towards right and then you take that into kind of the center of your chest into what would be like your heart chakra but you know in this spot in the center of your chest and you imagine kind of purifying all this out all the pain and the suffering of this person and then you breathe it out again through the right nostril and then you reverse it you take it in through the right nostril breathe it in and you can kind of Imagine This purification of all this stuff that's painful for this other person happening and you can breathe it back out again and then you can do through both nostrils breathe it in into the chest right into this heart chakra Place go through feeling that whatever I think they suggest you can breathe it in it's kind of like dark yucky kind of smoky stuff if you want to if that visualization works for you but you can also just breathe it in kind of have the feeling like I'm taking on the pain of this person right A lot of times I guess recognizing then that people are acting out places of pain but you can take that in and kind of purify that out and then breathe the back out again and it's a it's a routine that typically you do like through three rounds of that so it's like a nine round breathing practice you sort of know it's working in part when the breathing between the nostrils starts to even out which it should and also hopefully the heart opens more right and in some ways you develop a more openhearted feeling towards that person or something or maybe that group of people so I don't know how this will be for people maybe you feel compassion for both sides take the pain of everybody in and breathe it back out again right or if you feel polarized on one side or the other maybe try to do it with the people that you see on the opposite side and you know in that moment see how it feels to you right but you know the Dal Lama talked about doing it with chairman Ma you know and maybe at first he had the feeling like maybe I'll change his mind if I do this maybe I'll have some Mojo that will change his mind no didn't change his mind you know but even that changing his mind I think his experience was something like okay it started to change my feeling about this you know and at least I could come at things from a more a place of more equinity yeah so maybe that's the thing that will help people it's a certain kind of practical meditation right I love practical meditations because I'm a Capricorn yeah yeah yeah yeah so maybe that's a thing to try I don't know maybe people can if if it works for you yeah drop us an email and you know let us know but one side of the other maybe both yeah both sides yeah that'd be helpful that would be helpful yeah but maybe it's I don't know it's hard to be optimistic now but you know happened with the IRA happened in South Africa right eventually a part ended who would see that coming you know I want to keep the hope that anything is POS possible yeah yeah yeah I mean I wasn't feeling it today I'm not going to lie you know I wasn't feeling it but as I started listening I was like yeah the thing with the IRA ended and you start going through like other things have ended yeah so let's like meditate hard pray and hope that that's going to be the case right yeah that's it all right brother well thank you so much for doing this doing this today I know we did the best we could we did the best we could you know to our audience always thank you for tuning in thank you for your feedback if you're watching us on the YouTube like comment subscribe if you uh listening to us on whatever your favorite platform is uh you know feel free to leave us a review on any platform apple or YouTube or you know hit us up on email or hit us up through via email ginand Tantra gmail.com if you're doing the Instagram thing you know drop us a a like or uh you know send us a message we will respond we do respond we like the the feedback and you know we don't really do too many of these kind of like current event type things but like I said to Eric earlier there was nothing else that I could or would want to talk about today and so the conversation is difficult because it should be and that kind of opportunity to be in a vulnerable place but one that has consequences is uh are places that I want to go because they're difficult to be in my brother was like no no no making the cutting neck yeah was like I could hear him over the phone like just like making that slash over the throat like no uh I was like no Daniel wants to talk about this because this is coming from like we use the word authenticity here a lot yeah from this authentic place and everything else would have felt fake it would have felt fake I couldn't have do I can't do it Y and I'm grateful to be able to to do this in this way because I feel like through doing this through having this podcast and you know doing this work and and thinking about speaking in this way has made me a better thinker and made me a better speaker and I think ultimately it's made me a better person so I want to take these opportunities to to do something that is tangible in the moment and that's alive you know and that's real so um it's good so thank you for yeah for doing it with me and gratitude about that too yeah this Chang thanks everybody for listening you know um if you find what we're doing useful you know share it with other people this is a labor of love for us so uh we appreciate the love and return but uh you know for Eric this is Daniel we'll catch you guys in the next one good luck in your practices peace