[Music] hey felly and tears those of us who like our spirituality with a Twist so we're into obstacle number seven of the nine things that uh can [...] up your life that's right and it is about being blinded by discussions and arguments I got it with me Eric I could read it well in a weird way I was just going to say Daniel we're recording this right at the moment when we have our Great American political debate going on oh oh oh ancient Gladiators stumbling into the ring I mean Gladiator is a is a really loose term for these two gentlemen you know what I'm saying I don't think that at the peak of either of their athletic lives either one of them would be anything to Marvel over but what about their oratory skills like a great sister combating Mark Anthony in the peak of their power no it's not like that no no like a Socrates no no it's just two blundering old geezers that's that's right and for those of you who are out of the country this we were referring to the uh very very early uh presidential debates before they were even nominated by their parties by the way this is just the presumptive nominees debating you know whatever the trial run that's sees whether one of them can make it to the end yes can can either one of these elderly gentlemen remember where they are or stand for 90 minutes true true true can they stand is standing uh was that is that a requirement no not never mind we'll get him a stool well it was interesting we were talking pre Mike Daniel and you were like well you know part of this is the political thing going on so you're going to take it back to that way ultimately but yeah we're doing it right now you know doing it right now that moment being blinded by discussion and debate yeah let me let me read this real quick yeah you're gonna read it yeah yeah right here so the seventh obstacle uh as in again in this book The Da of Health longevity and immortality the teachings of the Immortals Chung and la by Eva Wong um the seventh obstacle says when you listen to debates among teachers and fellow students you are bound to be led astray by their suggestions you search blindly through blindly through a tangle of leaves and branches and then discover that there is nothing worthwhile these so-called teachers and their students are interested only in arguing about the relative merits of lesser techniques they do not know that the Sun and the Moon do not rise easily and that when they rise the light is so brilliant that it can be seen by all they do not know that the Thunder does not Roar trivially but when it does the sound is so deafening that it can be heard by all they try to Dazzle each other with words not realizing that their elegant speeches are like the fleeting lights of exploding fireworks bickering over semantics they argue endlessly and can never agree on anything being blinded by discussions and arguments this is the seventh article so AA do you want to start or go ahead her own thoughts on these things so we share okay um so I I find this one really interesting because I think this kind of thing does happen a decent amount where you can get people who they want to argue they want to debate especially they get obsessed with some particular way of looking at things and their main thing is just to keep debating it and debating it and debating it yeah and it doesn't translate into any real movement or any real practice you know so I have found that to be true so you the fact that that gets listed as its own separate obstacle I find that really fascinating and I've had this almost my entire life as that I've been interested in these kinds of things there's always been people who would come up you know I remember doing one Retreat where I had the weird Karma of a bunch of people doing that with their theories and they started talking at me and I was like I'm trying to do a [...] Retreat and I want to hear your theories people I barely knew I was like this is odd but it is kind of like that and I would sometimes find that it would be people who would either get obsessed with some particular teaching they're really interested in da stuff from this per certain person and then later on they would realize oh that's not the thing and they would move on to something else and then they try to like argue and debate you about the next thing to persuade you of the next thing that you're supposed to do and you be like okay you before this other one was the genius you know thing that was supposed to be the solution to all of our Lives problems and now you switched over to this other one and then we kind of repeat this way um sometimes it would be and those were I sometimes those were people who were good in the sense that they were actually doing stuff other times it would be people who would become really enthralled with some book or some particular thing and they'd go blah blah blah about that and you look at them You' be like you're not practicing anything you know and uh but you're trying to like convert me to something that you don't even do so I look it as being kind of an odd human tendency and I think it's very real and I'm impressed with the fact that they did that as a thing you know in this book to make it's thing because it is a very it's a definite odd obstacle to see you know in the like when they run their way through all of these nine they go in these different directions and by the time you get to these last few you're like oh that's an interesting one to choose but like I definitely feel like I can say from firsthand experience that I've seen this you know people spend more energy trying to convert other people than they spend working on themselves yes it's interesting I know so what's your experience with that have you had that happen in your life is that just my unfortunate Karma no I I do believe that when you are this kind of thing creeps up I believe in in every uh philosophic spiritual kind of in everything even in in industry or as some uh idiot would say industry um which idiot I wonder if he's I don't know yeah um but there is this idea at least from my experience of instead of standing on your own merits of whatever it is that you are into there is a tendency and maybe this is just a normal human tendency but to put down another or contrast yourself to something else a related field right and by proving your worth by comparing yourself to what you believe to be an inferior field and then by you know proving this via argument I guess you believe yourself to be worth more and therefore making yourself uh have in increasing your own value to your participants in this some kind of way and this again runs across almost all gamuts right even in let go comic books right oh Marvel is so much better than DC you know whatever all the the the white socks are better than the you know there's always it in order like why you can't just have something that is good standing on its own two feet it has to be good but only in comparison to something that is less good does that make sense yeah you said it in an interesting way you know uh I mean you're saying it now in an interesting way too but when we were talking of Mike you were saying there's probably just a natural polarizing tendency inside of people right yeah I mean if we go and then they want to compare themselves to something else and then you know argue and debate it out right yeah so we can go a little bit met I was trying to be a little bit more I guess localized you know with the reference but like yeah in a in a meta sense we just go there in a meta sense this did I jump your thing too fast no no no you're good I mean that's that's where the conversations goes [...] practicality you know um in a medic sense in in when I'm when I look at this passage right and I'm and I'm reading it I I I took some notes as stuff was going but like one of the things that that I wrote down was that this is a binary view of life right so that in order for this to exist this must not exist in order for this to be good this inher inherently now has to be bad and this is sort of like the uh idealization of polarity and as you know regardless of whatever we call ourselves right I I people ask me oh what do you practice I say well I'm not Buddhist but I'm definitely not not Buddhist either you know what I'm saying but more realistically I think what my teacher Andre would say is that we're yogis you know yogin people who are trying to establish and maintain an authentic State of Mind we've mentioned this before the word for this and Tibetan is Nour um and so you know people who are trying to develop the clear light mind and keep it there right um but this is in is transcendent of this or that it's Transcendent of masculine or feminine is transcendent of good or bad right things like this it's transcending it's not it's not removing them from the equation it's just not being caught in the spin cycle I think I forgot what we were talking about at one point Eric but I said that people have emotions and they become like pingpong balls inside of their minds and hearts only to be batted forth you know at the whims of whatever yeah back and forth exactly and this is the beginning stages of this in my mind as you know what are they Eric what's what's the line how does it say it from the whatever the dowst line from the void from the Dow comes the two and then from the two one becomes the two and eventually the two will evolve to the 10,000 things or something however you want phrase it right right and so this is sort of like a a a very succinct version of The Creation story right that the out from the create out from the like a primordial soup came one and then the one divided into two and then the two became everything but that two is polarity that's the yin-yang that's the light dark that's the positive negative you know and which is required for things to to manifest in in reality but fundamentally I believe in our in our in the human mind they go they they have a deep tendency towards this and even in the Tibetan like in the Tibetan lore they talk about people debating each other you know yeah go ahead yeah yeah and so it's like this has been there for a very very long time but I believe this is part of the problem you know like if if something is going to have Merit on itself as a as a Thing Worth studying right and again in addition to being being a a non- Buddhist Buddhist in addition to being a A yogan or a practitioner or whatever it is yeah all the all the things you know we're we're at core at Deep core we're scientists you and I are both scientists and I don't and I have a hard time believing that people who are not interested in developing themselves in whatever way are not also scientists in their own right so you take something that someone says and you try it and try it and try it until you see if it works or not you know what I'm saying and this kind of thought that this sort of dualistic split removes that and so that you don't have to try things you can go oh no this is good therefore that's bad right and then this endless loop keeps you from chasing what is real for you it keeps you from reality dualistic thinking keeps you from reality and so in the you know looping it back to the this thing and then I'll let you I'll let you speak it's like this moving back and forth this endless debate right you know dazzling each other with words not realizing that their elegant speeches are like the fleeting lights of exploding fireworks bickering over semantics they argue endlessly and can never agree on anything because they don't want to there's no benefit in this actually it doesn't benefit the people to not have a supposed external enemy you know in in uh Islam they talk about Jihad right which is what the you know media and rightfully so some of the extremists use as Jihad as a they it's a war right that's what they call this it's a war but I could say not anybody but most people who do deeper work and understand that there is language for the people who follow right we're speaking to those who are just listening with their ears and not with their hearts which is the majority of people who follow religion all religion if this offends you go [...] yourself I don't really care you know but for those who are listening with their hearts you understand that there is an internal aspect to what someone is saying so yes there is the war who is the war with yourself that who that's who is the war with the war with is the war is with you the war is for you to control you know or deal with your own desires and hatred and you know all these kind of things to pushing and pulling and ignorance you know that the the Tibetan Buddhist have so you know eloquently laid out but that the endless debate is also your own endless [...] chatter wondering of your own potential mind just yeah yeah so yes so this this is an ex this is a this chapter is an external manifestation of our own internal you know susceptibility to being battered back and forth by our whims based on I think a very fundamental um aspect of being creatures of Duality and hopes that maybe one day we can transcend it yeah like there's like so much stuff in there yeah laugh because you know when you were talking about the [...] you and all that just because you feel impassioned about it which is awesome you know Daniel we don't we love our audience we don't mean to curse them sorry guys you know I'm just saying in general right you know yeah yeah yeah no it's it's good it's feisty um which is good right um all right so okay so the thing I didn't expect in this you know I thought I had my own thoughts about this one too and great because we we take you know each of us take these things in different directions and so we learn and I wasn't thinking about it in that dualism way you know but I think it's a really I think it's a very insightful point and there is maybe some tendency in people to do this we live in this very polarized place called the United States right but maybe if you go deeper down metaphysically or something it's a tendency of people to want to polarize as opposed to going yin and yang as complimentary opposites if you go yin and yang as good and bad Yang Is Us and Them to quote The Old Pink Floyd song you know when if you do it that way then you've taken like this polarity thing and you've made it in this oppositional thing not the complimentary opposites you know um that can unite but the Polar Opposites that are kind of then truncated and uh you know forced to like be in Perpetual opposition to one another that could be just a metaphysical flaw that people can stumble into which I wasn't thinking of it in that way but I like that you know and then I guess for the way it would hit me would be something like if you get into that then it does get harder to be the scientist person the spiritual scientist right which could be like you could be a spiritual scientist and still be interested in Einstein and quantum mechanics like those things aren't exclusive even that polarity is [...] and we're all stuck in it right the scientific versus the religious or the spiritual that's a polarity right there that people are stuck in endlessly debating way that will go right and it's a false debate right absolutely understand the reality and in the life around you well then all of this stuff had things that could potentially have value to be said right you can learn great spiritual truths from looking at like Einstein right yeah um giche one you know one of our teachers the doy Lama llama Glenn you know different you know people acknowledge this you can learn from the scientist you know it's not it's not like a polarizing thing no so I think that's interesting so then you do lose the scientific thing which is what we were talking a little bit off mic to go through the spiritual experiences and just see how they work right see what they do when I was studying Zen it was um uh tanoi roshi I never personally met he was down in Hawaii hakar roshi worked with him who I studied with but uh you know he kind of got into all this he was like a music teacher but he became like this very high martial artist and then he started going into the Zen things it was just like well let's try it out and see what it does yeah which is the scientific attitude we got to see what things do but the other part about that is to see what something does you can't just sit there and talk about it you actually got to get to the point of the doing right the talking isn't going to like take the place of the doing that's just the talking about the doing MH and it's true and if I guess if your orientation is like that then it does potentially become more important that I just feel good about myself by arguing myself in the position that my shit's better than other people's [...] right and that's obviously a strong human thing to do right we can all potentially fall into those kinds of things you know but that's no bueno right you can't just have that and it happens really like all over the place you know it even happens in Our Little World of Chinese medicine right where people will say this is my favorite one this is my favorite version of Chinese medicine and it's better than all others and you're like well how could that possibly be right they got thousands of years of this stuff why would yours be the only one that has any value it doesn't make any sense you know and I remember talking with someone about that and they were saying why aren't you more into like my thing you know that I'm backing and I was like I I don't need like Chinese mine to be a religion for me where I just back the one thing I don't think that's real and true and then you do the scientific part right the empirical part of going into the world with a more objective mind and like like working through things and see what they do right yeah the only last one I wanted to like kind of see what you thought about Daniel to because you brought it up yeah okay two other things in this quote that I find really interesting one is that I think there's the Tibetan Buddhist thing of the debate you know sure but the debate in that sense you know when you look at like the tradition of the Daly llamas or something isn't like they have the ones I don't like those stories as much either where one person debates the other and they end up being the winner and then you know like I don't stories aren't as interesting the loser has to follow the other one for 10 years that's what happens a lot of them you know well there's a really famous one about like a Chinese uh hang or something debating one of these like Tibetan ones maybe it's K Sheila or something and they debate and debate and they're like seeing who's the winner of it and then the Indian guy wins of the Chinese guy and it's a big thing like okay I don't want to depending on who you're listening to either the Indian guys win on a regular basis or the Chinese guy went on a regular basis it's shockingly enough yeah the judges couldn't come up with a definitive decision on that one nope well there are those stories like that but I think the only thing I wanted to get out was this idea of there's nothing wrong with like intellectual thought and thinking though that can be good for you I mean this whole podcast is that yeah right so you know you can go through and you know it's you know you can be blinded by these things but it isn't I don't think it's true in Daoism or Buddhism or you know any other tradition that you you can't talk and debate and discuss and learn because that's how you learn yes so I just want to bring up the idea of analytic meditation okay right we don't always think of meditation as being an analytic thing but they Ed that phrase inbet and when I heard that one I was like o that's interesting there's I want to do that or I probably have been doing that for parts of my life you know and that's how you learn right you engage in in the uh the analytic part of things and you know Robert Thurman Bobby T one of our favorite folks right um uma's Dad you know um makes this point about you know meditation isn't just shutting off your mind right it's okay to have thoughts and to think and to bait and to question and to throw those off of other people people right get feedback from others and to learn it's just if it goes endless and doesn't go anywhere when that's the point of criticism right right that's correct yeah I mean and I know that like I know that there's the confusion in the culture about that you know yeah that involves learning it's not just sitting and like emptying your mind so you feel better you feel 10% happier for that 15 minutes you're doing it yeah it's not a drug yeah and it's not like a mind wiper okay you know uh again Robert Thurman Bobby T does a good job with that you're not just supposed to like knock all the stuff out of your mind for like however long you're sitting there while the incense stick Burns and then like go back to the same [...] that was there before you're supposed to change somehow yeah right part of that change is a lot of times rethinking how you think about things and I I mean I wanted to empathize because I have gone through these questions around this too I remember the very first time I met uh LL Glenn Mullen you know one of our favorite teachers and uh a lot of people we've done episodes with them with Robert Thurman just to put that out there and you know llenn so if you haven't heard them they're really cool and uh but I remember the first time I talked with him I got my first that was my second empowerment I guess in the Tibetan Buddhist world and uh you know we did our first one-on-one meeting and I had I had a lot of respect for him already I really appreciated what he was doing and I was trying to look for like where should I study next and one of the things I said was I'm not studying any [...] philosophy and he kind of went okay and he didn't Express his strong opinion one way or the other but I said like no [...] philosophy because I like read these really complicated Buddhist books and I was like [...] that [...] right I don't have to read that stuff anymore those sutras and he kind of went you know and then he recommended G rache to me which I think we talked about like a different times on the podcast the first like rache thing like the the philosophical text for rache was like the size of a chemistry text book and I was like oh my God I have to read all this [...] but it was so rewarding in the end you know and that's the that's the positive side of what was that which what was the one that text that you began with well he I mean I won't talk about the empowerment I did but it was the manual for the empowerment but it had all of his thoughts about all was a thick book you're not supposed to talk about the empowerment so I won't but you know the specific one but I was going out there and I was in a weird situation that I felt the the Gratitude to him which made me feel like I had to go through and try to that he was putting up there which I'm glad I had and I'm glad I hadn't been out there yet because a lot of it was like old hippies who weren't going to read those books anyways but I was you know at least it was which we talked about before but still amuses me and uh but I tried really hard and I learned a lot through that you know so anyways I wanted to give the shout out to that that there is the analytic part not all of this is a waste of time and I felt like once I had the Tibetan thing I realized I had been doing that kind of analytic stuff in Zen in dosm cabalistic things and that was I learned I to say I learned a ton so I know I thought was important do you agree with that part Daniel yeah yeah I do yeah I I don't it's slightly a to me it's tangential in a sense you know but I but it it brings up a good point that like analyzation it sounds almost sexual you that many times fast yeah exactly no but analyzing things and and and part of that breaking them down and having conversation around them is a method of learning right is a method of analysis and you know you're saying what you know rightfully so what you're saying is like that inherently is not wrong that's not a bad thing that was important because you could say okay I shouldn't analyze it all or this is all just because people sometimes want to go to that extreme of things too right no and what you know what I said before and what you know we've said a couple times now is that like the science of the study right which is what this is It's it we're looking at methods of studying we're looking at methods of breaking down of material and absorbing it which is you know to me what studying is um but then applying it so it's not just for the the simple Act of of digestion and assimilation but it's for the ACT it's for the desire to implement and so so where the the the the break in this and what this I believe one of the things that this is saying is that being so wrapped up in the breakdown and assimilation keeps you in a merely theoretical realm never to be applied and so your experience of Shifting your life doesn't occur because you're so wrapped up in the chitter chatter about what you know what you believe it to be or not or whatever do you know what I'm saying like that I I think that's what you're I think that's what you're saying and then if I can which is just coming to me now because there's a piece of this that sort of stems from what we're saying so what they're saying essentially in my mind is be cautious of continual theoretical positions positioning with whatever it is that you're believing right this is actually very philosophical and you know whatever but it's fine um it says uh they do not know that the Sun and the Moon do not rise easily and that when they rise the light is so brilliant that it can be seen by all they do not know that the Thunder does not Roar trivially but when it does the sound is So Def deafening that it can be heard by all and so there's two pieces of that that kind of arise from from what you're saying and where I'm moving it right so not to be the not to merely be theoretical but to move into practicality but that when you move into practicality BAS based on this based on the the that they do not know that the Sun and R Moon do not rise easily is that we are operating from places even with knowledge quote unquote knowledge we're still operating from positions of ignorance because we don't understand the mechanics of everything and that true understanding at least in in the conversation and where I'm at right now with my understanding is that the things that are verifiable are seen by all you don't have to un break down light to know that light exists you see light you know what I'm saying but the but the but the workings beyond what you see move Beyond just the simple appearance of it so it's not just that it appears to you but that there's mechanisms behind it that that you could understand and so then you can move from practicality back into the theoretical to try and decipher what those things are so this is what does that make sense does that make sense what I'm saying those passages are really funny to me you know what I mean those are really interesting I okay so I want to respond to what you're saying also I just want to talk about those passages because they jump out right they're very poetical right yeah so they pop out and I I so I feel a couple things about it one is that I've spent some time with that book as you have right I did these kind of you know achemical Dost things where you know I spent a lot of time going over that and you could even critique that book as being a critique of itself now this is a little inside baseball thing right we don't care about this whole book but it does happen like the book on the one hand is blasting people for debating about like my technique is the best and your Technique is not good and you fight back and forth and so on and the book has I'm GNA say a hard on uh for its own techniques like and a lot of those books are like that so they're saying well let's not debate techniques you know but a lot of the book is our techniques are good and your techniques are bad so it almost has like a weird kind of strangely circular quality does that make sense what I'm trying to say there sure so it goes like let me call out this problem but you know when you when you point it to other people what is it the other fingers are pointing back at you or whatever yeah yeah yeah totally like it has that problem in it so some parts of that read like it's references to other stuff that the book is talking about yeah for sure but on the other hand if you read it really poetically there's something kind of about that if you talk about the Sun and the Moon do not Rising easily like that's like almost a way like get off your ass too sure you know don't just sit there because it doesn't rise easily right right it's not gonna rise forever so get happen you know which is a major spiritual point in you know like we go all the way back to the stages of the path thing that we were talking about and Tibetan Buddhism and these are labels for things they don't really matter but one of the big ideas is there is gets exactly to this point like get off your ass and do stuff because it's not going to last forever right and then it does become kind of like an experiential thing you know you have to move and you have to see the Sun and the Moon you have to translate that theoretical thing into a thing where you're actually G to have the experiences right and then you'll hear the thunder cracking right in a way that you know you'll know right from your own experience of this the weird thing about that too for me Daniel is something like not everybody's going to see it that is part of the spiritual tradition thing too if you don't work your vision to see the things they're not self-evident you're not going to see them you know so they talk about these things that are like gross level truths subtle level points and very subtle level points right sometimes I talk in that kind of language right it struck me all the way back in the time when I started doing Zen it was like yeah it's really true unless you put yourself through these experiences and unless you learn the things and then you know do the things and have the experiences you're not going to see things that way right right you're not going to see the stuff so it has a weird I mean it just it struck me from what you were saying it's not it's not self-evident it's stuff that you have to go through some process of cultivation to be able to see you know which is more than just the talking about it right what do you think about that kind of stuff do you have anything yeah no I mean what what strikes me more than you know so I I hear what you're saying and that I mean essentially what I'm saying was a same very similar thing moving from Theory to practicality which but and what you're saying is like you got to do it and that's what we're we're both saying that part and but I think but maybe even the larger part as you were talking and I was listening to what you're saying I was like oh this is poetic and poetry is and going to be interpreted by the reader by the person doing the interpreting right and as they're doing that they're going to be debating within themselves what it means you know and then you know but then eventually not being frozen in debate and putting it into you know call I could also say that like the sun and the moon are representative of like yin and yang yeah you know what I'm saying and so that they within your own life yeah yeah they don't rise easily right no no and day moving into night is the passing of time and so do what you know what do we understand about that the construct of time other than it only Moves In One Direction you know which again would push you forth toward W you know one of our uh most favorite remembrances which is the preciousness of of human life and the certainty of death you know what I'm saying so talking about right right that's what they're that's what they're talking about right right which is what you know which it's seeming more now like what they're saying is don't waste your [...] time you know like do what you need to do to understand things which is what we're saying but then don't spin the wheels forever because you can very easily be led astray and we talked about this in the the previous episode on this particular topic um you know when when they talked about being fooled and controlled by false teachers so it to me it's a it's a they're very closely related in that like yes being fooled and controlled by false teachers or people who will lead you astray is on one level but that's if you allow yourself to be followed if you don't allow yourself to be followed but you want to just go tit fortat for people who you believe to be you know on your own level of uh conversation then you can you know endlessly spend your time um trying to convince somebody of something or maybe more importantly trying to convince yourself of something or like spend time on like people who you think are are on your own team and the other people are on the other team and you debate also yeah all of them yeah so like I'm fascinated by like what it is that you know how people move from okay now I have an idea and I'm going to like push this through you know that seems to be the hard point right yeah you know if I look at like a lot of these things it comes down to the idea of like how do I actually start implementing the things that I've decided are true yeah you know I've gone through okay I'm not gonna just sit here and make this just empty talk anymore I'm when to actually start pushing this and making the something kind of real and it's so it is very very difficult right but I'm really attracted to this again Zen dais tantric idea of like go ahead push it into your life right you have to push it into your life so it doesn't just kind of sit there you know uh as talk or just you know you write it in your Journal but it doesn't become the thing that you do you know and how does that happen and I had this weird memory of this I I was like okay you know if you have those moments you like I try to make we try to make it personal right so I can remember you know back in my 20s when I was really pushing to do this right and and I could realize there was this incredible inertia right that could hold you back and you wouldn't push things through right um but I was actually doing it I was doing all these Retreats and I thought I thought it was like uh I had this amazing moment it was like four o'clock in the morning in the Zen Retreat I'm sitting there I'm in the meditation room you know the sun's coming up it's like slanting Through the Windows I can see it like going across the nice shiny clean hardwood floors because Zen people keep things pretty clean and there there was the Zen master hosaka Roshan he was sitting maybe like this zen master like an actual freaking zen master like the real deal sitting like two or three seats over you know and I was just like it's there was no it wasn't like a big Enlightenment moment except in the sense where I was like I'm actually doing this like for real I I got out of that like okay I'm just gonna talk and blah blah blah you know but then I just won't change things I won't I won't push it through and actually change I was like oh I'm actually doing this and it was like one of the happier moments of my life you know what I mean like one of those that like jump out because I was like okay I I I did something even if I don't understand [...] right right my zen is crap I did this you know I started this going you know and I was like okay you know uh I got out of the thing where I was maybe just gonna be the person who was just be like and it happens to us you can get stuck in that sort of circular internal talk or in circular debates with other people if you don't make that leap to push things through and even that leap is so meaningful you know what I'm saying Daniel I'm sure you've had those moments too you find yourself down in you know Central America or South America and you're actually doing the ceremony like [...] it I'm here you know yeah I mean you know it happens here I I did a a breath work K Ceremony this past weekend and um you know I'm still learning even as I've been doing them since probably like 2017 it started with just me doing it with some friends in my living room you know I think I remember the first time there was four people there um and we just did some breathing and you know whatever and and now you know on a pretty much monthly basis I get 20 to 25 people you know many many many of whom are repeat customers for years not just like once or twice like they come they've been coming for years and I'm still learning like I'm still learning how to how to make the experience deeper and more rich and I and I told them the people this time I said you know this is I'm I'm I'm helping to create and hold space for everybody here to to have an experience but I'm also performing this is also a performance you know and and when you go to a concert you know usually the the the musician will say the more you guys give back to us the more we can give to you you know we we we sort of feed each other in this way and so I told the people that I said hey this is uh it's a performance and when you guys give when you when you put your energy out there and you give I feel it and I feed and I feed off of it you know and so even in this way like in the most subtle way possible one thing out of this entire three-hour event I learned one thing the other but the last time I did it and I was able to implement it this time and there was a change right right like like verifiably so and then when we were done people said I appreciated you saying that by us giving to you you can give more back to us they remember you know like they it's stuck with them and so moving into like reality is I don't know like I I it's it's hard to imagine something that would have more value you know what I'm saying like we've had this discussion before on like a a better term for spirituality and where is there where is there not spirituality I saw an ad for it said yoga for men no spirituality I was like not possible about that some right we talked about before so where you can't remove spirit from life and I don't mean like woo woo Spirit like oh this pencil is alive or whatever but like you can't move the creation from its create you can't move the Creator from its creation it's not possible to do so because we don't know all the things that go into making the Sun and the Moon rise you know like there's just so much that we don't understand I didn't make my clothes you didn't make your clothes I don't know how the internet works completely you know I understand satellites and fiber optic cables but like do I really understand how Wi-Fi works really seriously no but I have faith that it does just like I have faith in all the other things that they work and here they are but how can I figure out my way in the world if I'm not trying things you know and so we don't get caught up in all of the um you know this this endless discussion this endless discussion it just yeah so yeah I kind of agree so the one thing I had at the end before we maybe bounce in the episode is I start thinking so what's psychology of this you know because we like to do a little psychological stuff so yeah so to me I started thinking okay so who are people who say important things about this kind of stuff and I thought about our old friend Carl Jung who always shows up everywhere ubiquitously yeah but you know has this interesting point about like his feeling in himself that he was like two separate people you know and one person was the face that was out in the world right which in some ways was probably a performance you know sure and then more private moments there was the the parts of him that he called like personality one and two you know but the the personality that was the more private personality was the one that would like was probably the more quote unquote spiritual one or whatever right and he would feel like those truths of that personality but then he he wouldn't be able to implement them into the other personality you know he wouldn't be able to go through and like take the thing of like okay these are my actual TR truth in my private moments here I am this is what's actually true for me but then you go to meet the world and you don't push those truths out this is past the point of debating right this is when you like okay I found these things now I'm not just going to empty debate them anymore I'm going to implement them you know but it's hard to do that and you could see he was struggling with that you know because he had like kind of like like I don't want to say it was totally false but he had like a social self yeah had a Persona sure those moments in your private moments and I bring this because it's a very common meditative thing I think you meditate and in your private moment you're like yes got it good okay now I'm going to implement these things now I'm going to do these things got it and then you know we all had this experience then you know you go into uh trying to bring those things out into the world and it just degenerates and you can even feel find yourself arguing with yourself or something like what you were talking about earlier Daniel now you're debating yourself the one personality is debating the other personality you don't push the truths through you know what I'm trying to say no totally and whether whether this is I'm aware of this or not I have for a very long time a very long time have made a conscious effort of trying my best to be the same person all the way through yeah yeah yeah now of course different situations call for different facets you know what I'm saying I can't be um you know whatever I can't be the practitioner if I'm talking to a family member that's not my role in this particular part well that wouldn't be expedient means right you have to do things in an intelligent way you have to read the you have to read the room right you have to read the room yeah but I'm not an ENT I'm absolutely not an entirely different person when I am in one role or not definitely not you know I can say in some moments I'm a better version of myself when I'm when we're doing this this in particular has helped I mean you you speak a lot but for sure this has definitely helped me learn to clarify my thoughts in a relatively elegant way you know I mean we this is an explicit podcast but we're not dropping F bombs constantly once in a once in a [...] while you have to keep the conversation Lively yeah the damn right you know what I mean slightly entertaining marginally just just a bit just to tick the meter just a tiny bit just just tickle it just we just that meter just give it a little give it a little tingle that's that's it yeah yeah yeah no I think it's I think I that's been my experience too and I think that's the Carl Rogers part if we go to the ones that we like because yeah as you get more in touch with this then it starts to bleed out it doesn't compartmentalize yeah in the same way then there's a more of a continuity between what I believe when I'm in those meditative States and what I believe when I'm out of my life and they start to match you know what I mean yeah it's a weird experience and hopefully people who are listening can kind of vibe with this too and and have sense of this too because I think a lot of us go through this and there or have gone through it there's a there's a lack of continuity it's very funny right yeah there there's kind of two quick examples that I'm thinking of mom both are from Clinic you know one is with people whom who I work with and the people who stick around long enough eventually start to you know have some kind of results in their life and maybe adopt a meditative practice and then uh sometimes very regularly we come in and that's what we talk about actually like that's our clinical work is to discuss their practice and and the implementation of what they're learning on a gross level like how to be present how to not have how to not get reactive when someone says something to them that is totally bothering them or reminds them of something previously how do they stay with with not just a moment but can they stay with their breath can they still feel their body can they still be appreciative of the space around them can they you know what I'm saying um so moving those kind of place things so from a workspace perspective we'll call it right one is like implementing these kinds of things then the other one uh you asked how do you you know moving it into real life it's like okay when we're dealing with debate probably not going to be as much of the cooworker on deeper things but you know where you're going to get it very deeply is with your family and you are going to not you but many people when you decide to make actual change actual change inevitably you're going to be met by resistance now Eric and I have talked about this in the podcast before each of us when we come back off of retreat whether that Retreat be a week or a month or a couple days there is a bit of an integration period back with partner on on this every time even if we know it's coming and they know it's coming it still is there it still comes up and they're like hey who are you you know there's a weird thing I don't know if it's energetic but like our people who we live with are strange with us for a little bit for whatever reason I still cannot I still don't understand but it's it's doesn't matter how nice you Tred to be doesn't matter it doesn't matter like he's standing over with a box of candies and a flower and like a b of the you know the the best wine you could find and no it doesn't matter matter doesn't matter you're just not vibing the same way something has changed but eventually you know you're going to have to deal with this people who with their families in particular because most people who are doing this kind of work are growing at a different rate than those who are not that is not a knock against those and not saying everybody needs to do this kind of work and we're not certainly not better for doing it and who even knows if what my description of work is is is matches yours Eric or matches somebody of our listeners I'm not I'm not saying any of that all that I'm saying is that for those people who are invested in this kind of development there ends up being uh a little bit of a drift away from those who are not now it is incumbent on the people who are doing the work in order to kind of close that Loop and find compassion find patience find whatever but in that in that moving of your practice back into your life right there is going to be multiple debates and this is where uh it is it is imperative for the person who is coming from this the place of development to really use all of their tools to try and and rebuild the bridge that you don't find yourself on an Island by yourself because that's you know like very spiritually materialistic a very ego-driven kind of practice that you're over here and everybody else is over there no we don't exist alone We Exist together with everybody else it has to happen this way and that's part of the the work so there is value in understanding how to intellectually you know psychos spiritually engage with other people who don't hold the same values as you or the same views as you so that you can clarify your own thoughts much like this venture has been for me as I mentioned a little bit uh earlier but it has value in in people understanding that we only can really go as far as we are willing to relate to other people it doesn't mean we have to change our views but it's just to say that like you can't look down on people because they hold different views or they hold opposing views you know what I'm saying like you have to find the space in your heart and your mind for them because without that what are you working on yeah complicated as [...] really complicated what's interesting to me is we've been doing these episodes on these nine obstacles right and you find that like inevitably just as you're talking they pop up yeah like your family is obstacle number two you know your family of origin is obstacle number two your relationships now and the present is obstacle number three you know like they're sitting there thing right so they take on this weird role of like they can be actual obstacles they can be things that will [...] up your life yeah so you there's that piece on the other hand there's a way in which you can go through and try to use like the six Perfections like the good qualities of that I'm going to be generous I'm going to be thoughtful of the needs of others you know Buddhist ethics I'll be thoughtful of the needs of others and myself right I'll consider those things in a fair way I'll go through and I'll be patient I put effort into things right even with people that maybe I don't see things the same way right I can try to do that but it's also there sitting there as things that can [...] up your life too so that's a weird thing to make that judgment call you know like what way are these things that are going to [...] up my life that I have to make a a stronger decision to say this is actually gonna [...] up my life and I gotta think about this differently right versus okay this is something where I'm going to work in a more harmonizing way to try to like Smooth out what might be the difference was with these other people around me because there's value there that I have to work through from a point of compassion they're showing compassion back at me we're trying to understand each other awesome you know like it's not an easy question It's Tricky you know and there's that weird part in the the tantas too where they're like well you really should be around other people who think about the world the same way you do because that's going to accelerate your development forward right so I I mean it's a it's it's so interesting in what's being brought up there because there's these multiple little dimensions of that right there's so much in that yeah it's it's uh it's not easy it is not it's not easy to the question I was just talking to somebody this past week and I don't want to be overly revealing of any particular person's story but they are really in an interesting spot where there's things that they want to do things they want to say about who they are that their family of origin doesn't like totally right obstacle number two you know and it's creating really serious and we had a we had a very serious conversation about this you know it's not even someone I know that well but it was someone that you know we started talking about it's someone I met on the bus I just forc myself in between these two people sat down uh no it was like it was interesting because it was I mean I don't even want to go on all DET I to out but it was one of those things where it was like okay I kind of know the person but you know was our first maybe serious or second serious conversation about this like I knew what was going on and we had like a kind of a deep conversation about like well now you have to think about what you want to do with this right because you've hit that thing that can [...] up your life which can be your family abortion can be that interpersonal relationship or whatever it is that can be the thing so that you know then that puts the person in the position of saying okay which way am I handling this right that's gonna [...] up my life or is this a thing that I can work through in other ways I think that's just you know a deep thing to think about and then then to this person it was like well maybe you I mean I would never say that but maybe this something that for you to be who you are and this is the Carl Rogers thing conditions of worth you know sometimes you get these things dumped on you that don't match who you are right yeah and you have to not do those things anymore that isn't the right family connection for you okay you had that something with them but that might not be the right one that's fair be the right romantic partner and then you know that isn't the right person for you or partners for our poy friends that's right you know whatever it's going to be you know that might so it's it's interesting you know yeah yeah okay there there you have it yeah I got one other thing this but I thought maybe we can do it as a brief episode I it was the thing of like the psychology one other aspect of psychology but it would take a while if we talk about so maybe we'll do a minute next time yeah seems like stop right but I want a little about like why do people not do these things sometimes why do people get stuck in these intellectual kind of circles and sure sometimes it's because of like the psychology so I want to look at Anna Fry's defense mechanisms a little bit yeah that'd be great and how people get kind of entwined with them and then that can lead you just around endless circular other so maybe we'll save it for a little mini episode or something that sounds good it's great like a lot of deep stuff thanks Daniel for sharing your thoughts you know of course every single time it's really interesting you know yeah no it's it's a good it's a good it's a good Venture uh Eric as always thank you and and uh thank you to those who are uh listening to us who are you know taking what we're saying and pondering it and and having it uh penetrate your life in whatever way that might be you know if uh you feel like uh passing to love along you know please share our work with people and if you want to uh shoot us a message we do appreciate it hit us up on Instagram the Jun Tantra podcast or uh Jin and Tantra gmail.com or leave a a comment or like in the YouTube uh comment section you know whatever it's all good we appreciate all the love you know uh yeah we really wish everybody uh good good practice you know that's that's what it's about um so Eric gracias amoor for Eric this is Daniel we'll catch everybody on the next one peace [Music]