If you like the podcast, you'll LOVE the book!
|
The book, Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change is part of the Kindle Unlimited program, read it and so many more in Kindle Unlimited!
Explore the membership plans by clicking on the link below: |
Help support the podcast!
Become a community member or join the Everyday Sangha.
Would you like to be a member of the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community or the Everyday Sangha?
Check it out and to join either the Membership Community or the Everyday Sangha, go here:
Join Community or Sangha
Check it out and to join either the Membership Community or the Everyday Sangha, go here:
Join Community or Sangha
We just launched the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community,
a special membership offering extras and more ways to communicate and share!
This is a welcome offering to those wanting discussion, teachings, and podcasts yet can't participate in the virtual Zoom
Everyday Sangha on Thursday evenings. All these features are yours as a member/patron at the $5/month level.
Some of the extras are:
* FREE Introduction to Buddhism Course in the Everyday Buddhism style. 8 Units and 2 review units. Two times annually.
* Special bonus podcasts for members only, that will not be public.
* 3 blog sections with articles, blogs, and Dharma Glimpses from Sensei Wendy Shinyo Haylett, Bradley Nussbaum,
and Sensei Levi Shinyo Walbert.
* Links to private YouTube videos and Live feeds on our new YouTube channel including our new lecture series.
* A private, secret Facebook group.
* Your questions featured on a regular ask-me-anything podcast.
Would you like to be a member of a virtual sangha based on the Everyday Buddhism podcast?
Our (your) sangha meets twice monthly for a 60-minute Zoom video conference, plus it has an associated PRIVATE Facebook group for Everyday Sangha members only. Our sangha meetings center on a specific reflections or practices with a Dharma talk by Wendy Shinyo Haylett plus time for free-flow questions and discussion at the end.
Donation-based membership helps keep the sangha going. PLUS, as an active, participating
Everyday Sangha member, you are automatically a member of the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community.
The suggested donation is $15/month or $10 if you can't swing $15.
The sangha meetings are held every-other Saturday mornings at 10:00AM Eastern U.S. time.
Our (your) sangha meets twice monthly for a 60-minute Zoom video conference, plus it has an associated PRIVATE Facebook group for Everyday Sangha members only. Our sangha meetings center on a specific reflections or practices with a Dharma talk by Wendy Shinyo Haylett plus time for free-flow questions and discussion at the end.
Donation-based membership helps keep the sangha going. PLUS, as an active, participating
Everyday Sangha member, you are automatically a member of the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community.
The suggested donation is $15/month or $10 if you can't swing $15.
The sangha meetings are held every-other Saturday mornings at 10:00AM Eastern U.S. time.
Join our public Facebook Group!
Share what you're learning or ask questions as you practice the tips & tricks from the podcast! Join us!
Share what you're learning or ask questions as you practice the tips & tricks from the podcast! Join us!
RECENT PODCAST EPISODES
Help support this podcast by clicking on the book links to review and purchase books mentioned on this podcast!
Everyday Buddhism 65 - Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, and the Light of the Buddha's Promise: Kindling the Inner Light of Wisdom
In this episode, we celebrate the Winter Solstice, Bodhi Day, and the light of the Buddha's Promise, meaning our enlightenment, too.
The message of the December darkness is of our own enlightenment. As Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote, "having discovered for himself the perfect peace of liberation, he kindles for us the light of knowledge, which reveals both the truths that we must see for ourselves and the path of practice that culminates in this liberating vision."
We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light.
The message of the December darkness is of our own enlightenment. As Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote, "having discovered for himself the perfect peace of liberation, he kindles for us the light of knowledge, which reveals both the truths that we must see for ourselves and the path of practice that culminates in this liberating vision."
We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light.
Everyday Buddhism 64 - We Were Made For These Times With Kaira Jewel Lingo
Join me for an absorbing and inspiring conversation with someone who I now consider a personal teacher: Kaira Jewel Lingo, the author of the just-released book, We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption.
Kaira Jewel is a gentle voice that quietly shares the deepest wisdom in the simplest way. It is my favorite kind of teaching. It shifts and moves inside you until you say ah-ha! And all the while you don't feel taught. I've used her book and her Insight Timer series to give me the courage and compassion to keep going in these shattered and dark times of mistrust, injustice, climate change, and an endless pandemic.
Kaira Jewel shares her story of beginning a new life outside the monastery, after 15 years as a nun with Thich Nhat Hanh's monastic community. But, most importantly, she shares convincing lessons that prove we were, indeed, made for these times because "every moment is our moment to be here as fully as we can be."
Kaira Jewel is a gentle voice that quietly shares the deepest wisdom in the simplest way. It is my favorite kind of teaching. It shifts and moves inside you until you say ah-ha! And all the while you don't feel taught. I've used her book and her Insight Timer series to give me the courage and compassion to keep going in these shattered and dark times of mistrust, injustice, climate change, and an endless pandemic.
Kaira Jewel shares her story of beginning a new life outside the monastery, after 15 years as a nun with Thich Nhat Hanh's monastic community. But, most importantly, she shares convincing lessons that prove we were, indeed, made for these times because "every moment is our moment to be here as fully as we can be."
|
Links to Kaira Jewel Lingo's website, book and Insight Timer course:
www.kairajewel.com/ insighttimer.com/meditation-courses/course_we-were-made-for-these-times-10-lessons-in-moving-through-change-loss-and-disruption |
|
Everyday Buddhism 63 - Halloween: What Scares You? What Masks Do You Wear?
In this special repeat episode, we'll look at the overlaps between the pagan origination, rituals, and concepts of Halloween and Tibetan Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism ... and also examine it all from an Everyday Buddhism perspective.
What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky?
Buddhism is about seeing life as it is...seeing ourselves for who we really are...and all others for who they are. It is only then we can develop equanimity and compassion for all, including ourselves. Until then, we are living among apparitions like those on Halloween.
What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky?
Buddhism is about seeing life as it is...seeing ourselves for who we really are...and all others for who they are. It is only then we can develop equanimity and compassion for all, including ourselves. Until then, we are living among apparitions like those on Halloween.
Everyday Buddhism 62 - The Magic Power of Equanimity: Standing in the Middle of All This
I can't stop talking about equanimity. So this episode is about the magic power of equanimity. What is it? Why is it important all the the time, but especially now? And how do we get it?
As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I've been focusing my practice on developing equanimity and compassion. In this episode, I share some of the things that have been helping me find balance and a bit more spaciousness from the "crazy" during this time where I believe we all feel like our lives have been up-ended.
I share six major tips to help you develop equanimity. The first is a foundational support for the rest: Mindful awareness of what causes us to be reactive or what triggers us. The next five are specific tips about our attitude toward the people and pets we love, our stuff, who to avoid, who to stay close to, and the importance of keeping up with your practice.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reference to the subtitle, "Standing in the Middle of All This", which refers to the compound Pali word, tatramajjhattata. It is a compound of the words tatra, which is sometimes referred to as "all these things." … And majjha, meaning "middle" … And tata, which means "to stand" or "to pose."
As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I've been focusing my practice on developing equanimity and compassion. In this episode, I share some of the things that have been helping me find balance and a bit more spaciousness from the "crazy" during this time where I believe we all feel like our lives have been up-ended.
I share six major tips to help you develop equanimity. The first is a foundational support for the rest: Mindful awareness of what causes us to be reactive or what triggers us. The next five are specific tips about our attitude toward the people and pets we love, our stuff, who to avoid, who to stay close to, and the importance of keeping up with your practice.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Reference to the subtitle, "Standing in the Middle of All This", which refers to the compound Pali word, tatramajjhattata. It is a compound of the words tatra, which is sometimes referred to as "all these things." … And majjha, meaning "middle" … And tata, which means "to stand" or "to pose."
Everyday Buddhism 61 - A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment with Scott Snibbe: A Rational Insight into Dharma As a Way to Create Happy Minds
Join me for a conversation with Scott Snibbe, the host of the podcast, A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment. Enjoy a free-flowing conversation between two long-time Buddhist practitioners and podcast hosts as we talk about the power of Buddhism and meditation to help enhance our good qualities, make us happier, and—ultimately—help make those around us happier.
Enjoy Scott's easy and fun style of explaining Buddhism and meditation. It will make you a believer if you weren't already. Like the smiling, joyful Tibetan Rinpoches, Geshes, and Khenpos, Scott's joyful personality is contagious.
And if you are a skeptic and believe enlightenment is impossible, no problem. You are invited to dip your toe into this conversation and I'm convinced you'll want more!
Enjoy Scott's easy and fun style of explaining Buddhism and meditation. It will make you a believer if you weren't already. Like the smiling, joyful Tibetan Rinpoches, Geshes, and Khenpos, Scott's joyful personality is contagious.
And if you are a skeptic and believe enlightenment is impossible, no problem. You are invited to dip your toe into this conversation and I'm convinced you'll want more!
|
Scott Snibbe is a pioneering interactive artist and augmented reality entrepreneur and the host of the meditation podcast, A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment. Snibbe is a twenty-year student of Tibetan Buddhism whose teachers include Geshe Ngawang Dakpa, Choden Rinpoche, Ven. Rene Feusi, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Inspired by his teachers, he leads meditations that infuse the pure lineage of the great Buddhist masters with science, humor, and the realities of the modern world.
Over the course of a career as a digital artist and entrepreneur, Snibbe has created bestselling art, music, and social apps, and collaborated with musicians and filmmakers including Björk, James Cameron, and Philip Glass. His interactive exhibits have been collected by both science and art museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. |
Everyday Buddhism 60 - It's All About "Tude" But Not That "Tude": Adopting a Bodhisattva Attitude
To reiterate the obvious, life has been hard lately. Depressing and a struggle for many and devastating for so many others. All this suffering around us: plagues, violence, floods, fires. And those of you who follow this podcast know, I've been looking at how we might find a way to help ourselves and others through all this from many different Buddhist-oriented approaches. Finally, though, I personally came back to a practice and an attitude from my many years of Tibetan Buddhist study and practice: the practice of and—more foundational—the attitude of a bodhisattva.
I came back to the beginning. In the beginning is intention or, for the purposes of this podcast episode, attitude. Right intention. Right attitude. It was as if I felt myself, in the midst of our ongoing "burning world", feeling around for a way out. And, without any conscious decision, I reached for and grabbed all my bodhisattva teaches and haven't let go.
When looking outside at our burning world is too hard to bear, it's time—again—to look inside. Look at my motivation, my intention ... look at what my heart was holding and where my mind returned ... and look to see how my heart can be softened and how my mind can let go its death grip on negative thoughts.
This is the sort of practice that is pulling me from a pattern I've been trapped in since early 2020, when the pandemic began. A pattern of bobbing to the surface, holding on to some sort of hope or thought of resilience, then being pulled back under when things don't seem to be getting better.
For me, the trick was to keep practicing, with daily meditation on The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas and/or The Way of the Bodhisattva plus doing Tonglen (taking and sending), metta, and/or Lojong practice. It isn't easy because it takes breaking a habit of reactivity and, well, laziness or avoidance of the practice.
I came back to the beginning. In the beginning is intention or, for the purposes of this podcast episode, attitude. Right intention. Right attitude. It was as if I felt myself, in the midst of our ongoing "burning world", feeling around for a way out. And, without any conscious decision, I reached for and grabbed all my bodhisattva teaches and haven't let go.
When looking outside at our burning world is too hard to bear, it's time—again—to look inside. Look at my motivation, my intention ... look at what my heart was holding and where my mind returned ... and look to see how my heart can be softened and how my mind can let go its death grip on negative thoughts.
This is the sort of practice that is pulling me from a pattern I've been trapped in since early 2020, when the pandemic began. A pattern of bobbing to the surface, holding on to some sort of hope or thought of resilience, then being pulled back under when things don't seem to be getting better.
For me, the trick was to keep practicing, with daily meditation on The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas and/or The Way of the Bodhisattva plus doing Tonglen (taking and sending), metta, and/or Lojong practice. It isn't easy because it takes breaking a habit of reactivity and, well, laziness or avoidance of the practice.
Everyday Buddhism 59: The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas - Conversation with Frank Howard
Join the conversation with one of my first teachers, Frank Howard, as we talk about a little book called The 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas. I first met this book at the Dharma Center Frank directs and where His Eminence Garchen Rinpoche is a visiting teacher.
Garchen Rinpoches says the entire Buddhist path can be found in the 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas. Rinpoche frequently had one of the little books to give to you, in one hand, and his prayer wheel in the other hand.
I've read these 37 practices for more than a couple of decades. But I haven't always practiced them. This is what the conversation is about. It is a way to transform your life through transforming your mind.
Listen ...
Garchen Rinpoches says the entire Buddhist path can be found in the 37 Practices of Bodhisattvas. Rinpoche frequently had one of the little books to give to you, in one hand, and his prayer wheel in the other hand.
I've read these 37 practices for more than a couple of decades. But I haven't always practiced them. This is what the conversation is about. It is a way to transform your life through transforming your mind.
Listen ...
Frank Howard, Director of
the White Lotus Buddhist Center
www.whitelotusdharma.org/
Biography of Frank Howard:
|
| ||
Here is a link to a downloadable PDF or online text from Garchen Rinpoche's website:
www.37practices.info/
www.37practices.info/
Recommended commentaries on The 37 Practices:
|
|
|
|
Everyday Buddhism 58: Allow Joy - Chan Practice for Uncertain Times: How Clear Awareness Can Allow Joy in the Midst of Suffering
Join me for a conversation—and a gentle teaching—with one of the most clear and inspiring teachers I've met. Rebecca Li, the author of Allow Joy into Our Hearts: Chan Practice in Uncertain Times, talks with me about her new book and the inspiration behind it.
I used her book—and will continue to use it—to help pull myself from falling into a dark world in my mind and a heart, as a response to the suffering of the pandemic and all the fear and mistrust that came with it.
When suffering arises, Rebecca teaches us "how to suffer better." She teaches us to use a practice of total clear awareness to suffer better by knowing that we're suffering. It is the remembering to come back to practice, for the mind to come back to the body, that allows fear or sadness to move through you and not bury itself in you.
And she teaches us not to focus just on the positive as a way to flee from the pain of suffering. That, she says, is a "form of violence to ourselves." Listen to an easy conversation with Rebecca Li, who provides insight into practicing with an "unbiased view of everything that comes before you."
I used her book—and will continue to use it—to help pull myself from falling into a dark world in my mind and a heart, as a response to the suffering of the pandemic and all the fear and mistrust that came with it.
When suffering arises, Rebecca teaches us "how to suffer better." She teaches us to use a practice of total clear awareness to suffer better by knowing that we're suffering. It is the remembering to come back to practice, for the mind to come back to the body, that allows fear or sadness to move through you and not bury itself in you.
And she teaches us not to focus just on the positive as a way to flee from the pain of suffering. That, she says, is a "form of violence to ourselves." Listen to an easy conversation with Rebecca Li, who provides insight into practicing with an "unbiased view of everything that comes before you."
|
Links to Rebecca's website and book:
WEBSITE: https://rebeccali.org/ |
|
Everyday Buddhism 57 - Dharma for Trauma: A Personal Reflection: The Importance of Humility
It seems, sometimes, that when Buddhist and other religious teachers, and serious practitioners get deeper into practice, the more they seem capable of deluding themselves—either in a performative way, posing and positioning for others, or because they have completely deluded themselves about what is really happening within them.
They hide their humanness behind the beauty and strength of their words, or their teacher's words, and they hide their brokenness. They hide so well they begin to believe they aren't broken.
In this episode, I talk about my brokenness and about how, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, expressing the philosophy of wabi-sabi, we must embrace the flawed and imperfect to honor our whole self—in all its brokenness—rather than hide what is broken. We need to illuminate those broken parts.
They hide their humanness behind the beauty and strength of their words, or their teacher's words, and they hide their brokenness. They hide so well they begin to believe they aren't broken.
In this episode, I talk about my brokenness and about how, like the Japanese art of kintsugi, expressing the philosophy of wabi-sabi, we must embrace the flawed and imperfect to honor our whole self—in all its brokenness—rather than hide what is broken. We need to illuminate those broken parts.
Everyday Buddhism 56 - Can You Lament And Still Be A Buddhist? A Time For Teaching And A Time For Tenderness
Buddhist sutras and teachings speak of lamenting only in ways that highlight how it is to be avoided and transcended, so as not to fall victim to the second arrow of suffering.
The Buddha's teaching that there is dukkha, or unsatisfactoriness, but suffering is optional through one's internal relationship to that dukkha.
He teaches that is enough. But is it?
I bet, at some time during the last year, you have cried out in your heart to restore life to how it used to be. We look around and everyone is suffering and nothing is the same. Why not cry out?
A prayer of lament and grief can be a necessary expression of sorrow, as a crucial part of the experience of living in a broken world. The broken world the Buddha warned us about.
When we lament the darkest moments of life, we are at are most humble. And it is from that place, true compassion for yourself and others—and true acceptance—is born.
The Buddha's teaching that there is dukkha, or unsatisfactoriness, but suffering is optional through one's internal relationship to that dukkha.
He teaches that is enough. But is it?
I bet, at some time during the last year, you have cried out in your heart to restore life to how it used to be. We look around and everyone is suffering and nothing is the same. Why not cry out?
A prayer of lament and grief can be a necessary expression of sorrow, as a crucial part of the experience of living in a broken world. The broken world the Buddha warned us about.
When we lament the darkest moments of life, we are at are most humble. And it is from that place, true compassion for yourself and others—and true acceptance—is born.
Everyday Buddhism 55 - Introducing Where The Light Meets: Spin-Off Podcast on Buddhist & Christian Reflections and Practice
Join us for this introduction of an Everyday Buddhism spin-off podcast! Follow the conversation of 4 friends:
Holly Rockwell, a spiritual director and Ignatian prayer guide;
Levi Shinyo Walbert Sensei, a Buddhist Lay Minister and seminary student pursuing chaplaincy and a Master of Divinity;
Christopher Kakuyo Ross-Leibow Sensei, a Buddhist Lay Minister and sangha leader of the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship;
and me, Wendy Shinyo Haylett, a Buddhist Lay Minister and your host of both podcasts.
Listen as we will continue to talk about how you can enlighten your Buddhist practice through Christianity or how you can enlighten your Christian practice through Buddhism.
This is where the light meets.
Holly Rockwell, a spiritual director and Ignatian prayer guide;
Levi Shinyo Walbert Sensei, a Buddhist Lay Minister and seminary student pursuing chaplaincy and a Master of Divinity;
Christopher Kakuyo Ross-Leibow Sensei, a Buddhist Lay Minister and sangha leader of the Salt Lake Buddhist Fellowship;
and me, Wendy Shinyo Haylett, a Buddhist Lay Minister and your host of both podcasts.
Listen as we will continue to talk about how you can enlighten your Buddhist practice through Christianity or how you can enlighten your Christian practice through Buddhism.
This is where the light meets.
Everyday Buddhism 54 - Same Crap, Different Year? Finding Solid Ground in Your Mind
Join me as I share my struggle finding some peace in the midst of the uncertainties that have chased us from 2020 into 2021. Despite our urge to run, hide, strike out, or curl up in a ball, as Buddhists we need to remember that the Buddha never promised a rose garden.
The Buddha never promised an ordered universe. He said life is suffering because we grasp to life being something other than it is. There's a post-modern paradigm that life keeps getting better and better due to technological and scientific progress. In some ways it does. But not without a little disorder.
We need ways to navigate the disorder to some sense of reorder, without running back to the old order ... to our old "normal." We can do that with our minds. The Buddha made that promise through the first of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View or Right Understanding.
The Buddha never promised an ordered universe. He said life is suffering because we grasp to life being something other than it is. There's a post-modern paradigm that life keeps getting better and better due to technological and scientific progress. In some ways it does. But not without a little disorder.
We need ways to navigate the disorder to some sense of reorder, without running back to the old order ... to our old "normal." We can do that with our minds. The Buddha made that promise through the first of the Noble Eightfold Path: Right View or Right Understanding.
Everyday Buddhism 53 - Lessons for Covid Living From Those With Long-Term Health Challenges: Ableism in the Era of Covid-19
In this episode we are continuing our "How I'm Coping" series but with a bit of a different twist. I've brought together two podcast listeners who expressed a different perspective on how they are coping with the pandemic. Both of them come to their current coping abilities through previous "practice" as people with serious long-term health issues.
We share many of the challenges, frustrations, fear, and daily uncertainties that come with serious chronic and/or progressive diseases and injury. This is just the sort of uncertainty and lack of control that we have all felt during the pandemic. We are still trying to understand how to cope with this uncertainty the pandemic has thrust upon us but our guests, Dr. Kelly Lockwood and William Seiyo Shehan Sensei, have navigated these challenges for many years due to their illness and injuries.
Those with disabilities and chronic illnesses are easily overlooked in our "power-through" culture. This pandemic has highlighted how easily forgotten the aged and those with chronic illness and disabilities have become while the rest of the world rushes to get back to a "normal" that those with chronic illness will never regain.
Dr. Kelly Lockwood - Bio
Kelly is an NHS doctor in Yorkshire in the UK. She is a qualified GP or family medicine doctor but currently works for NHS Practitioner Health which provides mental health and addiction care to NHS doctors, dentists and other health care professionals. She finds working as a GP very difficult now due to her own disabilities.
She lives with her husband and daughter and has hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome which effects all of her organ systems and means she has to use a wheelchair.
Kelly encountered many challenges as a doctor with a disability so set up a free support organisation called the Disabled Doctors Network to support medical students and doctors with long term conditions and disabilities. They can be found on Twitter as @disableddoctors and at www.disabled doctors network.com. She is involved in multiple work streams including helping to reshape medical education, training and employment to ensure medics in the UK with disabilities are not discriminated against and are appropriately supported. She is also involved in international work, working with colleagues in the states, Australia and India to name a few to ensure disabled doctors everywhere are treated fairly and supported as well as they support their own patients.
Kelly identified with the FPMT Buddhist community and attends her local Jamyang Buddhist Centre. She has found their remote teaching and support very helpful during the pandemic, as well as being a keen listener to this podcast series and a fan of my book which she promotes to her patients as she feels it very helpful to many of them.
Dr. Lockwood's Article - A Lesson from a Pandemic:
Whilst the rest of the world reals in resentment, fear and anger at the novel coronavirus rampaging through our communities, as someone with a lifelong degenerative health condition, it has served as an intriguing moment of reflection for me.
The maze
It is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, to explain to someone who is unaffected by serious long-term health issues, what it is like to be at the mercy of a disease. There are many mental, emotional and sometimes spiritual paths that one walks down when faced with such a diagnosis and the uncertainty of the future that it brings. Almost like being stuck in a maze with many pathways to explore, you have to walk down many of them to either find a way out or discover what lies at the centre.
Clearly it is not possible in this situation, to rid yourself of the disease and escape the maze completely, but it is possible to reach the point of acceptance and peace at its centre.
I think, and hope, that this is where I am now.
I’m not sure if I have reached this point, because I have simply explored all of the paths, if I have sat with my diagnosis and wondered about the paths for long enough. I find myself reconciling training as a medic with helpful spiritual guidance from Buddhism. I do not profess to be totally comfortable in this maze. Indeed, each time I develop a new complication or receive an additional diagnosis, my exploration of these paths begins yet again. Each time this happens, my well-trodden routes guide me, and I reach the central point of the maze where acceptance and peace reside more quickly and efficiently.
In the early days, this maze contained very volatile and raw emotions for me. Each path leading me down a different thought process or emotional journey. As I sit here in this moment of reflection amid this pandemic, I can see many people now caught up in that very same maze I once charged around, trying to find the elusive way-out or indeed, the centre where acceptance and peace reside.
There are many parallels between the emotional, mental and spiritual conflicts and paths taken by someone with a life long diagnosis and someone finding themselves living in the time of a pandemic.
The ‘new normal’ and living with a life-long illness
During the last six months, I have heard many phrases that have transported me back to times stuck within the maze’s paths. ‘How do we beat this?’ ‘I hate this new normal’ ‘How long are we going to have to live like this?’ ‘I feel so out of control of my own destiny’ ‘I just wish life could go back to how it used to be’. These are all out there to be found within the maze, some of these paths are more painful than others, but all of them have the potential to stall you and keep you trapped and lost for many weeks or months.
Living with a life-long illness for many, means that your future is uncertain. For some, it is not knowing how long they have to live, for some it is not knowing what state they will wake up in from day to day. The uncertainty takes many forms, different for each diagnosis and each person. Now, for the wider world, not knowing when lockdown will end or when local restrictions will be imposed or lifted; not knowing if you can go on holiday next year; not knowing if one of your family members will be taken by this virus at some time, now all of us are experiencing uncertainty in one form or other.
Living with a life-long illness for many, means feeling a loss of control. Your disease is in the driving seat and for some, there may be little you can do to influence which paths it transports you down.
Learning from COVID-19
Now, for the wider world, there is a novel virus in the driving seat with the many members of our communities co-piloting. Together, they are driving the direction of this pandemic and there is little each individual can do to hugely influence this.
Many lifelong diagnoses lead to some form of loss of function, either immediately or with time. This can leave us mourning our previous abilities and the life we had with them. With loss of function comes increasing dependence on others for help or care and ultimately if significant, these losses can lead to a loss of self-worth, a loss of pride and a new definition of who we ‘are’. They may mean the loss of a career; they may even mean the loss of a family for some. These can be huge life-changing events that change everything that person once thought of as constant.
Likewise, many individuals in this pandemic are having their functions restricted, either at work or away from it. Our jobs are different, our social lives are different. Everything is different. Thankfully, my spiritual path of Buddhism helped me to break down many of the concepts that are invoked in these negative effects. The teachings of impermanence, no-self and emptiness prepared me well, not only for a life with my disease but also for life in a pandemic.
This aside, even without my spirituality, life in this maze because of my disease was one of the best preparations for this present pandemic I could have asked for. Sitting here at its centre, knowing each path in the maze intimately and having well-trodden routes through each of them showing me the way back to acceptance and peace, I finally feel some of the benefits of my time spent in here. Yes, this pandemic has been hard for me too in many ways, but I haven’t had the psychological battle that the rest of the world is currently fighting. I’ve already had my battles and found my way through.
Conclusion
Sitting here, I see company for the first time. After many years alone in this maze, there are now others joining me. Others who are here for very different reasons, and who have taken their own way through the maze’s paths. This is deeply rewarding for any doctor, to understand the pathos of their patients at a personal level. Not people who have life-long illnesses, but those people who we have so desperately been trying to communicate with about what having a life-long condition is like, but never could. In some ways this cruel, terrible and dangerous virus, will have achieved something that very few people have been able to achieve – provide a glimpse of life with a life-long illness to those without illness. There are clearly so many negative things that this pandemic has brought, but I have always tried to live by the philosophy of finding the positive things in every negative event.
Maybe this pandemic really is uniting humanity in ways that were never possible before. This bridge between doctors and some patients could be extremely valuable indeed.
Article link: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjleader/2020/10/07/a-lesson-from-a-pandemic-by-kelly-lockwood/
William Seiyo Shehan Sensei - Bio
William Seiyo Shehan Sensei is a Japanese martial arts practitioner and leader, with avid interest in the Japanese culture.
Sensei Shehan studied with The Rev. Gyomay Kubose in the 1990s and continued to study with Rev. Koyo Kubose, after Rev. Gyomay's passing. He is an inducted Lay Minister and Sensei from the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism.
He is also a minister's assistant at the Midwest Buddhist Temple and is currently working with Rev. Fukumoto on receiving his Tokudo Ordination, which is the first formal step in becoming a minister in the Jodo Shinshu tradition.
He teaches Dharma school for the temple and runs a meditation program called "Warrior Meditation" using an approach to help manage PTSD, anxiety, and stress.
Sensei has served as a chaplain at the Veteran's hospital and is also a Haiku poet and evangelist who has been published in multiple haiku journals.
William Seiyo Sensei was injured in combat while in the Army, causing him to retire from the Army and suffers from PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and chronic pain.
Sensei Shehan's Facebook Post - Short rant here on “Covid Life”:
Many people are whining about having to stay in place or not being able to do what they want to do all the time. Those people never think about those of us for whom “Covid Life” is an every day thing.
If you see my posts you may have one view of me but those close to me know that for me each day is a precious thing and rather precarious too. My students, family, and even teachers know that I may plan on having a great day with lots of energy and strength and that morning or even during I may fail. (Thank you all for your patience and compassion)
My life is where X = falls + 1 or 七転び八起き “Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight.” One day I won’t get up but then none of us get out alive so.
Back to Covid Life and the whiners...
I had to retire at 35 due to disability from injuries sustained in the Army. While for me Covid life has been my life for almost 20 years now many people in retired living, chronic disease and their care givers live the Covid life too. It’s not a choice we have, it’s not the government nor some conspiracy. It’s just age, disability, health issues.
So how do I cope, friends such as youse all (sic), online teaching, different events where I have control of the pace, distance and flow.
I also give myself permission to fail. I’ve had to cancel classes the morning and such.
Most of all I, attempt, to not be attached to “ways of life.” Trying to keep in mind it’s not the things, events nor people that is causing me issues but my own attachment to them.
That said let’s support each other and if we have a bad day know we aren’t alone.
合掌
And just quit whining and deal with it.
We share many of the challenges, frustrations, fear, and daily uncertainties that come with serious chronic and/or progressive diseases and injury. This is just the sort of uncertainty and lack of control that we have all felt during the pandemic. We are still trying to understand how to cope with this uncertainty the pandemic has thrust upon us but our guests, Dr. Kelly Lockwood and William Seiyo Shehan Sensei, have navigated these challenges for many years due to their illness and injuries.
Those with disabilities and chronic illnesses are easily overlooked in our "power-through" culture. This pandemic has highlighted how easily forgotten the aged and those with chronic illness and disabilities have become while the rest of the world rushes to get back to a "normal" that those with chronic illness will never regain.
Dr. Kelly Lockwood - Bio
Kelly is an NHS doctor in Yorkshire in the UK. She is a qualified GP or family medicine doctor but currently works for NHS Practitioner Health which provides mental health and addiction care to NHS doctors, dentists and other health care professionals. She finds working as a GP very difficult now due to her own disabilities.
She lives with her husband and daughter and has hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome which effects all of her organ systems and means she has to use a wheelchair.
Kelly encountered many challenges as a doctor with a disability so set up a free support organisation called the Disabled Doctors Network to support medical students and doctors with long term conditions and disabilities. They can be found on Twitter as @disableddoctors and at www.disabled doctors network.com. She is involved in multiple work streams including helping to reshape medical education, training and employment to ensure medics in the UK with disabilities are not discriminated against and are appropriately supported. She is also involved in international work, working with colleagues in the states, Australia and India to name a few to ensure disabled doctors everywhere are treated fairly and supported as well as they support their own patients.
Kelly identified with the FPMT Buddhist community and attends her local Jamyang Buddhist Centre. She has found their remote teaching and support very helpful during the pandemic, as well as being a keen listener to this podcast series and a fan of my book which she promotes to her patients as she feels it very helpful to many of them.
Dr. Lockwood's Article - A Lesson from a Pandemic:
Whilst the rest of the world reals in resentment, fear and anger at the novel coronavirus rampaging through our communities, as someone with a lifelong degenerative health condition, it has served as an intriguing moment of reflection for me.
The maze
It is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, to explain to someone who is unaffected by serious long-term health issues, what it is like to be at the mercy of a disease. There are many mental, emotional and sometimes spiritual paths that one walks down when faced with such a diagnosis and the uncertainty of the future that it brings. Almost like being stuck in a maze with many pathways to explore, you have to walk down many of them to either find a way out or discover what lies at the centre.
Clearly it is not possible in this situation, to rid yourself of the disease and escape the maze completely, but it is possible to reach the point of acceptance and peace at its centre.
I think, and hope, that this is where I am now.
I’m not sure if I have reached this point, because I have simply explored all of the paths, if I have sat with my diagnosis and wondered about the paths for long enough. I find myself reconciling training as a medic with helpful spiritual guidance from Buddhism. I do not profess to be totally comfortable in this maze. Indeed, each time I develop a new complication or receive an additional diagnosis, my exploration of these paths begins yet again. Each time this happens, my well-trodden routes guide me, and I reach the central point of the maze where acceptance and peace reside more quickly and efficiently.
In the early days, this maze contained very volatile and raw emotions for me. Each path leading me down a different thought process or emotional journey. As I sit here in this moment of reflection amid this pandemic, I can see many people now caught up in that very same maze I once charged around, trying to find the elusive way-out or indeed, the centre where acceptance and peace reside.
There are many parallels between the emotional, mental and spiritual conflicts and paths taken by someone with a life long diagnosis and someone finding themselves living in the time of a pandemic.
The ‘new normal’ and living with a life-long illness
During the last six months, I have heard many phrases that have transported me back to times stuck within the maze’s paths. ‘How do we beat this?’ ‘I hate this new normal’ ‘How long are we going to have to live like this?’ ‘I feel so out of control of my own destiny’ ‘I just wish life could go back to how it used to be’. These are all out there to be found within the maze, some of these paths are more painful than others, but all of them have the potential to stall you and keep you trapped and lost for many weeks or months.
Living with a life-long illness for many, means that your future is uncertain. For some, it is not knowing how long they have to live, for some it is not knowing what state they will wake up in from day to day. The uncertainty takes many forms, different for each diagnosis and each person. Now, for the wider world, not knowing when lockdown will end or when local restrictions will be imposed or lifted; not knowing if you can go on holiday next year; not knowing if one of your family members will be taken by this virus at some time, now all of us are experiencing uncertainty in one form or other.
Living with a life-long illness for many, means feeling a loss of control. Your disease is in the driving seat and for some, there may be little you can do to influence which paths it transports you down.
Learning from COVID-19
Now, for the wider world, there is a novel virus in the driving seat with the many members of our communities co-piloting. Together, they are driving the direction of this pandemic and there is little each individual can do to hugely influence this.
Many lifelong diagnoses lead to some form of loss of function, either immediately or with time. This can leave us mourning our previous abilities and the life we had with them. With loss of function comes increasing dependence on others for help or care and ultimately if significant, these losses can lead to a loss of self-worth, a loss of pride and a new definition of who we ‘are’. They may mean the loss of a career; they may even mean the loss of a family for some. These can be huge life-changing events that change everything that person once thought of as constant.
Likewise, many individuals in this pandemic are having their functions restricted, either at work or away from it. Our jobs are different, our social lives are different. Everything is different. Thankfully, my spiritual path of Buddhism helped me to break down many of the concepts that are invoked in these negative effects. The teachings of impermanence, no-self and emptiness prepared me well, not only for a life with my disease but also for life in a pandemic.
This aside, even without my spirituality, life in this maze because of my disease was one of the best preparations for this present pandemic I could have asked for. Sitting here at its centre, knowing each path in the maze intimately and having well-trodden routes through each of them showing me the way back to acceptance and peace, I finally feel some of the benefits of my time spent in here. Yes, this pandemic has been hard for me too in many ways, but I haven’t had the psychological battle that the rest of the world is currently fighting. I’ve already had my battles and found my way through.
Conclusion
Sitting here, I see company for the first time. After many years alone in this maze, there are now others joining me. Others who are here for very different reasons, and who have taken their own way through the maze’s paths. This is deeply rewarding for any doctor, to understand the pathos of their patients at a personal level. Not people who have life-long illnesses, but those people who we have so desperately been trying to communicate with about what having a life-long condition is like, but never could. In some ways this cruel, terrible and dangerous virus, will have achieved something that very few people have been able to achieve – provide a glimpse of life with a life-long illness to those without illness. There are clearly so many negative things that this pandemic has brought, but I have always tried to live by the philosophy of finding the positive things in every negative event.
Maybe this pandemic really is uniting humanity in ways that were never possible before. This bridge between doctors and some patients could be extremely valuable indeed.
Article link: https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjleader/2020/10/07/a-lesson-from-a-pandemic-by-kelly-lockwood/
William Seiyo Shehan Sensei - Bio
William Seiyo Shehan Sensei is a Japanese martial arts practitioner and leader, with avid interest in the Japanese culture.
Sensei Shehan studied with The Rev. Gyomay Kubose in the 1990s and continued to study with Rev. Koyo Kubose, after Rev. Gyomay's passing. He is an inducted Lay Minister and Sensei from the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism.
He is also a minister's assistant at the Midwest Buddhist Temple and is currently working with Rev. Fukumoto on receiving his Tokudo Ordination, which is the first formal step in becoming a minister in the Jodo Shinshu tradition.
He teaches Dharma school for the temple and runs a meditation program called "Warrior Meditation" using an approach to help manage PTSD, anxiety, and stress.
Sensei has served as a chaplain at the Veteran's hospital and is also a Haiku poet and evangelist who has been published in multiple haiku journals.
William Seiyo Sensei was injured in combat while in the Army, causing him to retire from the Army and suffers from PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and chronic pain.
Sensei Shehan's Facebook Post - Short rant here on “Covid Life”:
Many people are whining about having to stay in place or not being able to do what they want to do all the time. Those people never think about those of us for whom “Covid Life” is an every day thing.
If you see my posts you may have one view of me but those close to me know that for me each day is a precious thing and rather precarious too. My students, family, and even teachers know that I may plan on having a great day with lots of energy and strength and that morning or even during I may fail. (Thank you all for your patience and compassion)
My life is where X = falls + 1 or 七転び八起き “Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight.” One day I won’t get up but then none of us get out alive so.
Back to Covid Life and the whiners...
I had to retire at 35 due to disability from injuries sustained in the Army. While for me Covid life has been my life for almost 20 years now many people in retired living, chronic disease and their care givers live the Covid life too. It’s not a choice we have, it’s not the government nor some conspiracy. It’s just age, disability, health issues.
So how do I cope, friends such as youse all (sic), online teaching, different events where I have control of the pace, distance and flow.
I also give myself permission to fail. I’ve had to cancel classes the morning and such.
Most of all I, attempt, to not be attached to “ways of life.” Trying to keep in mind it’s not the things, events nor people that is causing me issues but my own attachment to them.
That said let’s support each other and if we have a bad day know we aren’t alone.
合掌
And just quit whining and deal with it.
Everyday Buddhism 52 - How To Be Thankful in the Midst of Sadness: Holding Sadness in One Hand and Gratitude in the Other
In this podcast, we'll explore finding ways to say "thank you" in this time of loss, fear, despair, and uncertainty. I take some time reflecting on the Buddhist teachings of the gift of our "precious human life."
Our lives are a gift. We did not plan, arrange, or have any control in making our births happen. We were gifted them. And, for that gift, despite how rocky our lives sometimes seem, we say "thank you!"
Listen to how you can use mindful awareness to shift your focus to what's in front of you ... to "just this". Sitting in "just this", you are relieved of your endless wants, worries, dramas, AND sadness. From that place, you can connect to a place of freedom where your heart softens around your fears and joys, and you can relax in the whole of life—if only for a few minutes.
Our lives are a gift. We did not plan, arrange, or have any control in making our births happen. We were gifted them. And, for that gift, despite how rocky our lives sometimes seem, we say "thank you!"
Listen to how you can use mindful awareness to shift your focus to what's in front of you ... to "just this". Sitting in "just this", you are relieved of your endless wants, worries, dramas, AND sadness. From that place, you can connect to a place of freedom where your heart softens around your fears and joys, and you can relax in the whole of life—if only for a few minutes.
Everyday Buddhism 51 - Steady, Calm and Brave with Kimberly Brown: 25 Practices of Resilience and Wisdom in a Crisis
Join me in conversation with Kimberly Brown as we discuss her new book, Steady, Calm and Brave, a handbook of healing tools to help us through the fraught times of 2020—and beyond. In a delightfully honest and personal conversation, Kimberly shares how seeing students, friends, neighbors, and family afraid, disheartened, and sad, at the beginning of the pandemic was the motivation for writing the book.
Kimberly shares her personal experience with trauma and how metta, body-based, and self-compassion Buddhist and pyschotherapeutic practices helped heal her and formed the intention for her to become a teacher of these practices.
The practices Kimberly shares are a true Bodhisattva offering. She explains her motivation to not only reduce stress, deal with difficult emotions, and care for yourself and your loved ones, but to help recognize your gifts of deep wisdom, compassion, and courage. And these gifts will animate "your words, actions, and presence...to help reveal our healthy and equitable world. Remember, only everyone can save us—and we're everyone."
Kimberly shares her personal experience with trauma and how metta, body-based, and self-compassion Buddhist and pyschotherapeutic practices helped heal her and formed the intention for her to become a teacher of these practices.
The practices Kimberly shares are a true Bodhisattva offering. She explains her motivation to not only reduce stress, deal with difficult emotions, and care for yourself and your loved ones, but to help recognize your gifts of deep wisdom, compassion, and courage. And these gifts will animate "your words, actions, and presence...to help reveal our healthy and equitable world. Remember, only everyone can save us—and we're everyone."
Links to Kimberly's website and book:
|
Website: https://www.meditationwithheart.com/ |
|
Everyday Buddhism 50 - The Social Dilemma and Otherness: Seeing Beyond False Certainties and Objectification
When you look around you it feels like the world is going crazy.... Is this normal or have we all fallen under some spell?" ~Tristan Harris
In this episode I take a Buddhist view on the spell we've fallen under--and it is the spell of a self-involved culture, swallowed by social media and focused on the hatred of "the other."
We are largely living in a world of the extremes of ignorance and false certainty. "The more fixed we get about things, the more confusion, emotional disturbance, and conflict we experience," according to Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel.
Nothing or no one is a fixed, discrete thing. Everything is empty of inherent existence. When you fix a difficult person, a political side, or sociopolitical view, you are creating something that doesn't actually exist. Shantideva said: "Thus, when enemies of friends are seen to act improperly, be calm and call to mind that everything arises from conditions."
Links to book and documentary mentioned:
In this episode I take a Buddhist view on the spell we've fallen under--and it is the spell of a self-involved culture, swallowed by social media and focused on the hatred of "the other."
We are largely living in a world of the extremes of ignorance and false certainty. "The more fixed we get about things, the more confusion, emotional disturbance, and conflict we experience," according to Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel.
Nothing or no one is a fixed, discrete thing. Everything is empty of inherent existence. When you fix a difficult person, a political side, or sociopolitical view, you are creating something that doesn't actually exist. Shantideva said: "Thus, when enemies of friends are seen to act improperly, be calm and call to mind that everything arises from conditions."
Links to book and documentary mentioned:
|
The Power of an Open Questions: The Buddha's Path to Freedom, by Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
|
|
The Social Dilemma: This documentary-drama hybrid explores the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations. Starring:Skyler Gisondo, Kara Hayward, Vincent Kartheiser;
www.netflix.com/title/81254224
www.netflix.com/title/81254224
Everyday Buddhism 49 - A Missing Future with David Farley: Dancing in the Present
Join me for the first of a series of interviews with podcast listeners on how they are coping with the pandemic. In this episode, David Farley, a travel and food writer who lives in New York City, joins me for a conversation. David wrote a blog post where he mused about our seeming missing future. He wrote:
We can't envision what life is going to be like in, say, a year or what we'll be doing.... It's seriously anxiety-producing for many of us.... The only way we can maneuver, even survive without eventually imploding, is to change our outlook on life and the world. And reality.
Listen to more of this thoughtful conversation with David where he shares his understanding of Buddhist teachings and his refuge in them.
And listen for how you can share how you are personally coping, as an upcoming podcast guest!
Links to David's websites and published articles
Article discussed in this episode:
https://www.tripout.online/farther-out/journey-or-destination
Blog site:
www.tripout.online/
Article, Embracing the Cycle of Life in India’s Holiest City:
www.afar.com/magazine/varanasi-indias-soul-city
Newsweek Article, The Relief of Uncertainty, Muses One New Yorker:
www.newsweek.com/relief-uncertainty-muses-one-new-yorker-1497180
More of David's work:
dfarley.com/index.html
Everyday Buddhism 48 - Announcing the Everyday Buddhism Lecture Series on Mindful Writing
Announcing a new Everyday Buddhism feature for the Membership Community: A lecture series/workshop on mindful writing!
In this series I hope to introduce you to a new way of practicing mindfulness through writing. As Gary Snyder wrote, meditation can put you totally into the world even as it takes you out of it. Mindfulness and meditation are practices of deliberate attention that can create a spacious awareness of what is and help us escape the narrow box in our heads where the thinker lives. Focusing in on what is at any one moment doesn’t narrow our awareness but, instead, opens us up to what is outside our concepts of self and what we ‘think’ we are seeing.
This will not be ‘writing course’ but a practice of engaged seeing, hearing, and feeling with the objective of capturing moments and expressing them through writing. This does not mean you need to be a poet, nor a writer.
If you would like to join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community and continue your participation in this virtual workshop on mindful writing, you can do so at this link:
https://www.everyday-buddhism.com/join-community-or-sangha.html
In this series I hope to introduce you to a new way of practicing mindfulness through writing. As Gary Snyder wrote, meditation can put you totally into the world even as it takes you out of it. Mindfulness and meditation are practices of deliberate attention that can create a spacious awareness of what is and help us escape the narrow box in our heads where the thinker lives. Focusing in on what is at any one moment doesn’t narrow our awareness but, instead, opens us up to what is outside our concepts of self and what we ‘think’ we are seeing.
This will not be ‘writing course’ but a practice of engaged seeing, hearing, and feeling with the objective of capturing moments and expressing them through writing. This does not mean you need to be a poet, nor a writer.
If you would like to join the Everyday Buddhism Membership Community and continue your participation in this virtual workshop on mindful writing, you can do so at this link:
https://www.everyday-buddhism.com/join-community-or-sangha.html
Everyday Buddhism 47 - Building a Resilience Bank Account: Keep Going Through A Time of Ambiguous Loss
Join me as I share some insights from an article by Tara Haelle, Your Surge Capacity is Depleted—It's Why You Feel Awful, and some insights of my own, that may help you find new attitudes and practices to help you keep going. Help you go the distance of this pandemic, even though we don't know how long that distance is—or what's at the end.
This time of ambiguous loss can cause feelings of helplessness and hopelessness because our solution-oriented culture is actually destructive when faced with a problem that has no solution. Instead we need to look at things differently and do things differently.
The end isn't in sight but that doesn't mean we give up. We just need to find new ways to keep going. This podcast should help...PLUS keep listening to find ways YOU, as a podcast listener, can share some of the ways you are coping through these troubled times.
IMPORTANT REQUEST: I'm looking for input for Everyday Buddhism podcast listeners!! How are you coping? Where have you found support? What are some of the resilience-building practices or activities you have incorporated in your lives that have helped you walk through the troubled times we're living in?
Please email your insights or comments to wendyshinyo@everyday-buddhism.com with the subject line "How I'm Coping." I will reach out to schedule a time to talk with, then possibly schedule a podcast interview with you and a couple of other listeners.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Article mentioned in podcast:
"Your Surge Capacity is Depleted—It's Why You Feel Awful" by Tara Haelle, in Elemental, A Medium publication
https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c
This time of ambiguous loss can cause feelings of helplessness and hopelessness because our solution-oriented culture is actually destructive when faced with a problem that has no solution. Instead we need to look at things differently and do things differently.
The end isn't in sight but that doesn't mean we give up. We just need to find new ways to keep going. This podcast should help...PLUS keep listening to find ways YOU, as a podcast listener, can share some of the ways you are coping through these troubled times.
IMPORTANT REQUEST: I'm looking for input for Everyday Buddhism podcast listeners!! How are you coping? Where have you found support? What are some of the resilience-building practices or activities you have incorporated in your lives that have helped you walk through the troubled times we're living in?
Please email your insights or comments to wendyshinyo@everyday-buddhism.com with the subject line "How I'm Coping." I will reach out to schedule a time to talk with, then possibly schedule a podcast interview with you and a couple of other listeners.
I look forward to hearing from you!
Article mentioned in podcast:
"Your Surge Capacity is Depleted—It's Why You Feel Awful" by Tara Haelle, in Elemental, A Medium publication
https://elemental.medium.com/your-surge-capacity-is-depleted-it-s-why-you-feel-awful-de285d542f4c
Episode 46 - 6 Steps for Coping with Uncertainty with Gregg Krech
Using Japanese Psychology to Find Something to Hold On To. We're currently faced with a global pandemic, which reminds us how uncertain life really is. So what do we do? How do we cope? Join me in conversation with Gregg Krech, who uses the concepts of acceptance—active acceptance—to understand how we can't take effective action until we've accepted the reality of the situation we're in.
Gregg talks about how a large portion of the population has not accepted the situation and others whose impatience pushes them to make bad decisions. Is there another way? We talk about 6 action steps we can take to reach deep within ourselves to find capabilities that may have been sleeping for a long time.
They are:
- Waking up to our faith or true entrusting
- Working with our attention
- Sharpening our skills of reflecting on ourselves
- Recognizing the blessings that we encounter throughout the day
- Act constructively and compassionately in the face of fear
- Find something purposeful and meaningful to live for each day
Gregg talks about how a large portion of the population has not accepted the situation and others whose impatience pushes them to make bad decisions. Is there another way? We talk about 6 action steps we can take to reach deep within ourselves to find capabilities that may have been sleeping for a long time.
They are:
- Waking up to our faith or true entrusting
- Working with our attention
- Sharpening our skills of reflecting on ourselves
- Recognizing the blessings that we encounter throughout the day
- Act constructively and compassionately in the face of fear
- Find something purposeful and meaningful to live for each day
Special Opportunity! Online seminar with Gregg for the Center for Buddhist Education (Jodo Shinshu):
Find Gregg at this website: ThirtyThousandDays.org:
www.thirtythousanddays.org/
Contact Gregg here:
todoinst@gmail.com
Books & articles referred to in the podcast
Books by Gregg Krech:
|
|
|
|
|
Article by David Farley, The Relief of Uncertainty, Muses One New Yorker:
www.newsweek.com/relief-uncertainty-muses-one-new-yorker-1497180?fbclid=IwAR2xbQOC5oYTIeMNZhZxpFaeRtB4OPdXFsFNjp14oK4h_4VYWWA21Ukbx3U
www.newsweek.com/relief-uncertainty-muses-one-new-yorker-1497180?fbclid=IwAR2xbQOC5oYTIeMNZhZxpFaeRtB4OPdXFsFNjp14oK4h_4VYWWA21Ukbx3U
Episode 45 - We're All in the Same Storm But Not in the Same Boat: Are You Purposely Steering Your Individual Boat?
Join me for a short episode check-in and sharing of how I am taking personal action despite living in our current reality of uncertainty. Awakening to the fact that I was spending too much time anxiously looking "out there" at what was or could be coming ... or focusing on the horrible feelings inside me, I decided to turn my personal boat around.
As Gregg Krech of the ToDo Institute reminds us "Everyone is dealing with losses but ultimately it's an individual thing.... It's not a mass issue. It's your personal situation and attachment." How are you doing as the navigator and pilot of your own boat? Listen for some questions for reflection.
And if you have questions about how to cope with these uncertain times email them to wendyshinyo@everyday-buddhism.com with the subject line "Question for Gregg" and Gregg Krech, one of the leading authorities of Japanese Psychology will do his best to answer them in an upcoming podcast episode.
As Gregg Krech of the ToDo Institute reminds us "Everyone is dealing with losses but ultimately it's an individual thing.... It's not a mass issue. It's your personal situation and attachment." How are you doing as the navigator and pilot of your own boat? Listen for some questions for reflection.
And if you have questions about how to cope with these uncertain times email them to wendyshinyo@everyday-buddhism.com with the subject line "Question for Gregg" and Gregg Krech, one of the leading authorities of Japanese Psychology will do his best to answer them in an upcoming podcast episode.
Episode 44 - Chaos and Order: Personal Reflections, Poetry, and Chaos Theory
Join me for an episode that is part autobiographical, part solidarity with Pride and Black Lives matter, part poetry, part science, and part Buddhism. Sounds a bit chaotic, doesn't it? Yet I hope you find some relevant order.
Sharing a recent experience with my own revisiting of internal trauma sparked by the external trauma of pandemic politics and social unrest, I tried to find order in the chaos through poetry and, of course, Buddhism.
Every life has some chaos because as the poet Gregory Orr writes, "there is a great deal of disorder in experience." Or stated through a Buddhist lens, "the unenlightened life is suffering." Yet, in the suffering and chaos there may be a new heartbeat; the birth of a new order, if we lean in and keep going with strong back and soft front.
Sharing a recent experience with my own revisiting of internal trauma sparked by the external trauma of pandemic politics and social unrest, I tried to find order in the chaos through poetry and, of course, Buddhism.
Every life has some chaos because as the poet Gregory Orr writes, "there is a great deal of disorder in experience." Or stated through a Buddhist lens, "the unenlightened life is suffering." Yet, in the suffering and chaos there may be a new heartbeat; the birth of a new order, if we lean in and keep going with strong back and soft front.
Episode 43 - Awakening to the Ordinary with Dr. Christiane Michelberger
Join me for a special guest episode with Dr. Christiane Michelberger, a retired physician, psychoanalyst, and past spiritual seeker who currently mentors seekers in their quest to awaken.
Christiane talks about how more than 10,000 hours of meditation and 40 years of studying Buddhist scriptures didn’t help her deal with debilitating fear when she was faced with the reality of breast cancer. It was then that she took steps to escape from a habit of "spiritual sleepwalking" and find a way to see through the 'me' that it is at the heart of our dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and suffering.
Christiane and I share a wide-ranging conversation about the importance of seeing through the 'me' … embracing the ordinary … why meditation may not be enough … shifting from spiritual illusions to simple reality ... spiritual bypassing … brainwashing and guru worship … and dealing with the stages of grief we might be going through during the new pandemic reality we find ourselves in.
Christiane talks about how more than 10,000 hours of meditation and 40 years of studying Buddhist scriptures didn’t help her deal with debilitating fear when she was faced with the reality of breast cancer. It was then that she took steps to escape from a habit of "spiritual sleepwalking" and find a way to see through the 'me' that it is at the heart of our dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and suffering.
Christiane and I share a wide-ranging conversation about the importance of seeing through the 'me' … embracing the ordinary … why meditation may not be enough … shifting from spiritual illusions to simple reality ... spiritual bypassing … brainwashing and guru worship … and dealing with the stages of grief we might be going through during the new pandemic reality we find ourselves in.
Episode 42 - How Not to Feel Like a Victim: Using Compassion for the Human Condition, Not Blame
In this episode, I reflect on our responses when we find ourselves in life situations that don't make sense and that are out of our control. As we make our way through the global Covid-19 pandemic we see humbling examples of courage and compassion. And we also see examples of people responding in fear and anger.
The symptoms of fight, flight, or freeze—our natural responses to perceived threats—are everywhere you look. We have been smacked in our collective and previously comfortable faces with the need to find ways of accepting what is happening to us. And many of us aren't doing so well.
Yet, the pandemic is teaching us about interdependence, change, and impermanence in a profound way. Our choice is to respond like victims or like the brave front-line workers, with a noble response to suffering.
The symptoms of fight, flight, or freeze—our natural responses to perceived threats—are everywhere you look. We have been smacked in our collective and previously comfortable faces with the need to find ways of accepting what is happening to us. And many of us aren't doing so well.
Yet, the pandemic is teaching us about interdependence, change, and impermanence in a profound way. Our choice is to respond like victims or like the brave front-line workers, with a noble response to suffering.
Episode 41 - American Sutra with Duncan Williams: Lessons from Internment
|
Join me for a special guest episode with Duncan Ryuken Williams, the author of American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War. 125,000+ Japanese-Americans we rounded up and placed in internment camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Many of these were Buddhists who persevered despite their imprisonment. Circumstances that were no fault of their own but because of their "Japanese faces" and their faith in a non-Christian religion seen as anti-American. And they kept going because of that faith. The lessons shared in this episode can help us, too, find faith and freedom during this time of separation and community during the global Covid-19 pandemic. |
|
Episode 40 - Covid-19 Mind Protection: Protecting the Health of Our Hearts and Minds
The whole world is afraid. A tiny piece of biological stuff—this virus—brought the world to its knees. A contagion or plague of this level is not new to the world but new to most of us living today.
We have very little experience dealing with this level of uncertainty. This makes protecting the health of our minds and hearts as important as protecting the health of our bodies. There has never been a better time to develop a practice of finding a healthy balance between being informed and tormenting yourself.
Listen as I share mantra, breathing, awareness, and mindful writing practices that might help.
We have very little experience dealing with this level of uncertainty. This makes protecting the health of our minds and hearts as important as protecting the health of our bodies. There has never been a better time to develop a practice of finding a healthy balance between being informed and tormenting yourself.
Listen as I share mantra, breathing, awareness, and mindful writing practices that might help.
Episode 39 - Lets Not Talk About Politics: Right View and The Tyranny of Expectations
There is a view of Buddhism that is idealistic. That it's all about meditating and chanting in an incense-filled room, hidden away from the world. That the peace promised in Buddhism comes from being away from, above, or different from, the troubles of the world.
If your mind is full of what you think Buddhism or spirituality "should" be, no matter what teaching is placed at your feet, the grip of your expectations will prevent you from absorbing it or finding a new perspective that might bring you peace.
The Buddha was soaked in the troubles and suffering of the world and it is what drove him to find out what suffering was made of. The peace the Buddha promised is found in a personal understanding of ignorance and the practice to overcome it. The peace you seek is not an escape from the world but an understanding of it.
If your mind is full of what you think Buddhism or spirituality "should" be, no matter what teaching is placed at your feet, the grip of your expectations will prevent you from absorbing it or finding a new perspective that might bring you peace.
The Buddha was soaked in the troubles and suffering of the world and it is what drove him to find out what suffering was made of. The peace the Buddha promised is found in a personal understanding of ignorance and the practice to overcome it. The peace you seek is not an escape from the world but an understanding of it.
Episode 38 - And Yet, And Yet: A Tribute to a Friend and to Community
This is a special episode dedicated to the life of our good friend and neighbor—too soon lost. It focuses on the haiku by Issa:
This world of dew
is a world of dew,
and yet, and yet.
Listen as I read writings of my grief and how I come to the realization that maybe "and yet" is not just "nevertheless it hurts" but also "but yet." It's all in how you show up for yourself and for others.
In that showing up, false borders of belief and concepts disappear in our shared precariousness. In our shared impermanence. In our world of dew ... As we share grief and are healed for a moment.
This world of dew
is a world of dew,
and yet, and yet.
Listen as I read writings of my grief and how I come to the realization that maybe "and yet" is not just "nevertheless it hurts" but also "but yet." It's all in how you show up for yourself and for others.
In that showing up, false borders of belief and concepts disappear in our shared precariousness. In our shared impermanence. In our world of dew ... As we share grief and are healed for a moment.
Episode 37 - Pragmatic Buddhism with Ken McLeod: Approaching Buddhist Practice So the Answers Reveal Themselves
Join me for a special episode and conversation with Ken McLeod, author, translator, and teacher of Tibetan Buddhism. Ken and I talk about his innovative approach to teaching and writing about traditional Buddhist texts and practices. I reached out to Ken because I connected on a deep level to the material in his books and in the written and audio presentations on his website, unfetteredmind.org.
Ken McLeod's ability to accomplish a sort of direct pointing to a knowing experience beyond the words and conceptual understanding was a rare find in my experience with other books and talks on Tibetan Buddhist texts. That is what I wanted to introduce to my podcast audience.
Whether you're new to Buddhism, just intrigued, or a long-time practitioner, spending some time with Ken's work will shake off the worries of whether you understand the words and transport you directly into the answers.
Ken McLeod's ability to accomplish a sort of direct pointing to a knowing experience beyond the words and conceptual understanding was a rare find in my experience with other books and talks on Tibetan Buddhist texts. That is what I wanted to introduce to my podcast audience.
Whether you're new to Buddhism, just intrigued, or a long-time practitioner, spending some time with Ken's work will shake off the worries of whether you understand the words and transport you directly into the answers.
Biography of Ken McLeod:
episode-37-pragmatic-buddhism-with-ken-mcleod-approaching-buddhist-practice-so-the-answers-reveal-themselves.html
episode-37-pragmatic-buddhism-with-ken-mcleod-approaching-buddhist-practice-so-the-answers-reveal-themselves.html
Links to website and books mentioned in this podcast:
Unfetteredmind.org: https://unfetteredmind.org/
Books by Ken McLeod:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Episode 36 - Random New Year's Thoughts: You Can't Have the New Without the Old
2020 seems like something out of Sci-Fi. But here we are. And from my perspective—approaching my 67th birthday in a
little under 2 weeks—we ARE living in what was the sci-fi from my childhood perspective. I imagine, though, that for most of
my podcast listeners, how we are living today doesn't seem like sci-fi to you. It's not that new for you. It all depends on where
you stand—your perspective.
Here we are. From where you sit, listening to this podcast, you may be filled with hope or despair. You may have pain or feel great. You may be young or you may be old. But you are where you are. And we're all here with you. It may look different where I'm sitting, but I am here right now, just as you are. And, together, we'll enter 2020.
Another year, another decade on the calendar, but if we live at the moment, we can have an awareness of just being here. With no before and after and no "room for memories or imagined futures." That is the ultimate fact and it transcends the duality of new year, old year; young person, old person; well person or sick person. Yes, everything changes and we are in motion on the
horizontal time train, but, "in vertical time, everything is accessible; every possibility is restful and free."
little under 2 weeks—we ARE living in what was the sci-fi from my childhood perspective. I imagine, though, that for most of
my podcast listeners, how we are living today doesn't seem like sci-fi to you. It's not that new for you. It all depends on where
you stand—your perspective.
Here we are. From where you sit, listening to this podcast, you may be filled with hope or despair. You may have pain or feel great. You may be young or you may be old. But you are where you are. And we're all here with you. It may look different where I'm sitting, but I am here right now, just as you are. And, together, we'll enter 2020.
Another year, another decade on the calendar, but if we live at the moment, we can have an awareness of just being here. With no before and after and no "room for memories or imagined futures." That is the ultimate fact and it transcends the duality of new year, old year; young person, old person; well person or sick person. Yes, everything changes and we are in motion on the
horizontal time train, but, "in vertical time, everything is accessible; every possibility is restful and free."
Link to book mentioned in this podcast, Aging as a Spiritual Practice by Lewis Richmond:
Episode 35 - Bodhi Day: The Light is Inside!
In this episode, we celebrate Bodhi Day, the traditional celebration of the historical Buddha Shakyamuni's enlightenment. Yet, listen as we discover how it is a celebration of our enlightenment, too.
The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. Without darkness, we couldn't know light. Shakyamuni's enlightenment experience is ours. He proclaimed, "I and the great earth, and all beings are naturally and simultaneously awakened."
We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light.
The message of the December darkness is a messenger of our own enlightenment. Without darkness, we couldn't know light. Shakyamuni's enlightenment experience is ours. He proclaimed, "I and the great earth, and all beings are naturally and simultaneously awakened."
We don't chase the darkness away through external ritual or stringing lights, but by looking inside to find our own light.
Episode 34 - The Book is HERE! Book Launch Special
In this special episode, I celebrate with podcast listeners the publication of my book Everyday Buddhism: Real-Life Buddhist Teachings & Practices for Real Change. The book officially launches on Monday, November 26th.
In this special episode, l'll share a bit about why I wrote the book and a few snippets from the book, plus announce a special offer to the Everyday Buddhism podcast tribe about a special, 1-day offer on the Kindle eBook valid only on Sunday, November 25th.
So check out the podcast! And, of course, pick up a Kindle eBook or paperback version of my book and tell me what you think.
In this special episode, l'll share a bit about why I wrote the book and a few snippets from the book, plus announce a special offer to the Everyday Buddhism podcast tribe about a special, 1-day offer on the Kindle eBook valid only on Sunday, November 25th.
So check out the podcast! And, of course, pick up a Kindle eBook or paperback version of my book and tell me what you think.
Episode 33 - Halloween: What Scares You? What Masks Do You Wear?
In this episode, we'll look at the overlaps between the pagan origination, rituals, and concepts of Halloween and Tibetan Tantric or Vajrayana Buddhism ... and also examine it all from an Everyday Buddhism perspective.
What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky?
Buddhism is about seeing life as it is...seeing ourselves for who we really are...and all others for who they are. It is only then we can develop equanimity and compassion for all, including ourselves. Until then, we are living among apparitions like those on Halloween.
What scares you? What do you NOT want to look at? What masks do you wear? Do you show yourself as someone without a shadow or demon side? Is the so-called "spirituality" we want, we crave, and grasp onto something that is both grounded while reaching to the sky?
Buddhism is about seeing life as it is...seeing ourselves for who we really are...and all others for who they are. It is only then we can develop equanimity and compassion for all, including ourselves. Until then, we are living among apparitions like those on Halloween.
Episode 32 - Buddhism, Baseball, and Life
Join me and round the bases for a look at baseball as a metaphor for the Buddhist teaching of the Three Marks of Existence: Impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and the lack of a discrete self.
Life, like baseball, is a team sport. In baseball, it's not just about the pitcher. In life, it's not just about me or you. All the players and contributing causes and conditions come together to score runs in a dominating offensive win or through a defensive no-hitter. In life, we can't do anything on our own.
Baseball can break your heart and fill you with hope. Life can turn from bad to worse in a day, minute, or hour, because of the impermanent and sometimes unsatisfactory nature of it. No matter the pitch, we keep swinging until we get a hit. And we keep playing through the season.
Life, like baseball, is a team sport. In baseball, it's not just about the pitcher. In life, it's not just about me or you. All the players and contributing causes and conditions come together to score runs in a dominating offensive win or through a defensive no-hitter. In life, we can't do anything on our own.
Baseball can break your heart and fill you with hope. Life can turn from bad to worse in a day, minute, or hour, because of the impermanent and sometimes unsatisfactory nature of it. No matter the pitch, we keep swinging until we get a hit. And we keep playing through the season.
Episode 31 - The Boundless Heart: Bodhicitta
In this episode, we talk about Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta characterizes the path of a Mahayana practitioner. It is Bodhicitta that creates a Bodhisattva and it is Bodhicitta that ultimately creates a Buddha.
In Tibetan, compassion is translated as the nobility or greatness of heart which implies wisdom, discernment, empathy, unselfishness, and abundant kindness. Bodhicitta is compassion working with a mind awakened by right view. It is the joining of compassion and emptiness.
We'll examine how to use the Four Bodhisattva Vows to supercharge Right Intention with Right View and discover the same spacious freedom of a flower that blooms despite its circumstances.
In Tibetan, compassion is translated as the nobility or greatness of heart which implies wisdom, discernment, empathy, unselfishness, and abundant kindness. Bodhicitta is compassion working with a mind awakened by right view. It is the joining of compassion and emptiness.
We'll examine how to use the Four Bodhisattva Vows to supercharge Right Intention with Right View and discover the same spacious freedom of a flower that blooms despite its circumstances.
Episode 30 - The Buddha Sat Right Here with Dena Moes
In this special guest episode, join me in a conversation with Dena Moes, the author of the book The Buddha Sat Right Here: A Family Odyssey Through India and Nepal.
Listen as we share some laughs, talk deep Buddhist philosophy, explore the difference between Indian and U.S. cultures and the way children are raised, and how in India there is a complete incorporation of interdependence as a reality, not a spiritual concept.
Sample a taste of Dena's award-winning book that is equal parts travelogue, spiritual discovery, and internal pilgrimage into new ways of thinking about family life, love, and spirituality.
Listen as we share some laughs, talk deep Buddhist philosophy, explore the difference between Indian and U.S. cultures and the way children are raised, and how in India there is a complete incorporation of interdependence as a reality, not a spiritual concept.
Sample a taste of Dena's award-winning book that is equal parts travelogue, spiritual discovery, and internal pilgrimage into new ways of thinking about family life, love, and spirituality.
Episode 29 - Right Speech is Right Listening
In this special podcast, we'll revisit the topic of "Right Speech" through a reflection and practice tip from my upcoming book. We'll focus on how right speech depends more on listening than speaking.
Speaking is dualistic. Listening is a non-dual activity of Oneness. Most of the time, the reason we speak is to speak TO or AT someone, expressing ourselves to the other. And, frequently, expressing how they ARE the other.
And so much speaking is completely unnecessary. The trick is to maintain an open awareness when listening. Deep listening requires guarding your internal chatter, judgments, and reactive responses. When you are truly listening, you are totally engaged. And when you are engaged, your conversation partner will feel heard.
Speaking is dualistic. Listening is a non-dual activity of Oneness. Most of the time, the reason we speak is to speak TO or AT someone, expressing ourselves to the other. And, frequently, expressing how they ARE the other.
And so much speaking is completely unnecessary. The trick is to maintain an open awareness when listening. Deep listening requires guarding your internal chatter, judgments, and reactive responses. When you are truly listening, you are totally engaged. And when you are engaged, your conversation partner will feel heard.
Episode 28 - June Weddings, Relationships, and Perfection?
What is a perfect day? A perfect relationship? Join me for a discussion of perfection in a podcast featuring a wedding Dharma talk. Stay until the end to respond to the challenge of making your own vows, allowing for the perfection of 'the other' in all your relationships.
The perfection of life exists in impermanence and interdependence—the very things that end up messing with our plans. A perfect relationship happens at the intersection of person, place, and time. And can only happen when each person allows the other person, the place, and the time to unfold just as life nudges it to unfold.
Allowing everything to be as it is, while remaining an open, non-judgmental participant, enables something beautiful—like a shared laugh or surprise—to arise out of the perfect now.
The perfection of life exists in impermanence and interdependence—the very things that end up messing with our plans. A perfect relationship happens at the intersection of person, place, and time. And can only happen when each person allows the other person, the place, and the time to unfold just as life nudges it to unfold.
Allowing everything to be as it is, while remaining an open, non-judgmental participant, enables something beautiful—like a shared laugh or surprise—to arise out of the perfect now.
Episode 27 - Right Mindfulness & Meditation: Shifting the Horizon of Our Mind
In this episode we'll talk about the 7th and 8th steps of The Noble Eightfold Path, Right Mindfulness and Right Meditation, also called Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. It takes one to know the other and it all starts with an openness of mind.
Studies show that meditation seems to cease the activity of the lobes in the brain that determine where self ends and non-self begins. Meaning, meditation can dissolve our sense of separateness and heighten a sense of interconnection. This is the intention we should hold when we practice meditation.
Again, it all starts with awareness. Being aware of what IS. The Buddha did not teach enlightenment as escape to another world and meditation as its vehicle. No, the Buddha taught that enlightenment is truly seeing and being in the life you are in.
Studies show that meditation seems to cease the activity of the lobes in the brain that determine where self ends and non-self begins. Meaning, meditation can dissolve our sense of separateness and heighten a sense of interconnection. This is the intention we should hold when we practice meditation.
Again, it all starts with awareness. Being aware of what IS. The Buddha did not teach enlightenment as escape to another world and meditation as its vehicle. No, the Buddha taught that enlightenment is truly seeing and being in the life you are in.
Episode 26 - Why Sangha? Bringing Buddhism to Life
The Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I think many connect with the *jewel* or treasure aspect of the Buddha and Dharma, but Sangha? The Buddha taught the Dharma as an experiential path. His advice is to try it for ourselves, rather than taking his or anyone else's word for it.
It is Sangha that moves Buddhism beyond a study or philosophy to something lived and alive. But you have to practice or it doesn't work. Sangha is where you perfect your practice with others doing the same thing.
We come just as we are. Working on practices, not being people who are already perfect. The Sangha accepts us and supports us so that we can become more honest with ourselves and others. We learn to accept ourselves AND others. We accept our humanity, together.
It is Sangha that moves Buddhism beyond a study or philosophy to something lived and alive. But you have to practice or it doesn't work. Sangha is where you perfect your practice with others doing the same thing.
We come just as we are. Working on practices, not being people who are already perfect. The Sangha accepts us and supports us so that we can become more honest with ourselves and others. We learn to accept ourselves AND others. We accept our humanity, together.
Episode 25 - Pureland Buddhism with Rev. Satya Robyn: Refuge in Buddhism
In the 4th of the "talking with my teachers" series, I am talking with Rev. Satya Robyn, a priest in the Amida Order, about how the whole of messy humanity is met by the divine when we relax our sense of control and know that life accepts us just as we are.
Satya talks of her journey from atheist to psychotherapist and Pureland Buddhist priest. And how she was "grabbed" by Amida, the celestial Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, the Buddha of acceptance and compassion. She describes the simplicity of Pureland Buddhism and the practice of the Nembutsu, where in saying the name we open a little portal of connection to the compassion and wisdom of Amida Buddha.
I know you'll delight in Satya's beautiful ways of communicating the heart and soul of spiritual practice, Buddhism, Pureland Buddhism, refuge, and—yes—the "f" word or faith.
Satya talks of her journey from atheist to psychotherapist and Pureland Buddhist priest. And how she was "grabbed" by Amida, the celestial Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, the Buddha of acceptance and compassion. She describes the simplicity of Pureland Buddhism and the practice of the Nembutsu, where in saying the name we open a little portal of connection to the compassion and wisdom of Amida Buddha.
I know you'll delight in Satya's beautiful ways of communicating the heart and soul of spiritual practice, Buddhism, Pureland Buddhism, refuge, and—yes—the "f" word or faith.
Links to websites and books mentioned in this episode:
Amida Mandala Buddhist Temple:
www.amidamandala.com/
Amida Mandala Buddhist Group on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/AmidaMandala/
Amida Mandala Buddhist Temple:
www.amidamandala.com/
Amida Mandala Buddhist Group on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/AmidaMandala/
Coming Home: Refuge in Pureland Buddhism by Satya Robyn
Just As You Are: Buddhism for Foolish Beings
by Kaspalita and Satya Robyn
by Kaspalita and Satya Robyn
The Feeling Buddha: A Buddhist Psychology of Character, Adversity and Passion by David Brazier
Episode 24 - Appreciating Life Through Death Meditation
Meditating on death is a traditional Buddhist practice. In this podcast, we'll talk about how thinking about our own and others' death can help us live more fully. All the things that keep us busy and entertained might help us forget about the certainty of death, but it won't help us escape it.
Reflecting on death can help us remember that the "shiny" things we find attractive and desirable will soon lose their appeal. We can try to avoid the suffering the thought of death brings or we can look at it directly and make ourselves familiar.
I offer an Everyday-Buddhism approach to death meditation that does not include spending a night in Tibetan charnel grounds or even your local cemetery. Instead, reflect on the lives that go before us and feel the realness of live and death through visits to legacy.com.
Reflecting on death can help us remember that the "shiny" things we find attractive and desirable will soon lose their appeal. We can try to avoid the suffering the thought of death brings or we can look at it directly and make ourselves familiar.
I offer an Everyday-Buddhism approach to death meditation that does not include spending a night in Tibetan charnel grounds or even your local cemetery. Instead, reflect on the lives that go before us and feel the realness of live and death through visits to legacy.com.
|
Links to articles, websites, and books mentioned in the podcast episode:
Buddha Weekly article, "Learning How to Die": buddhaweekly.com/learning-how-to-die-and-why-meditating-on-death-may-bring-joy-to-life-what-the-buddhist-teachers-say-about-end-of-life-dying-and-palliative-care/ Tricycle article, "A Good Enough Death": tricycle.org/magazine/death-with-dignity/ Calculating days left to live from "Taking Action" course at the The ToDo Institute: www.todoinstitute.org/ Of course none of us know when we will actually die, but the average number of days we can expect to live is 30,000. Assuming, for the moment, that you will have an average life expectancy, please calculate how many days you have left to live. To get this figure, calculate how many days you have already lived, precisely, and subtract that figure from 30,000. Here's a quick way to calculate the number of days you've already lived. Put in your birth date for the START date and press TODAY as the second date. Then SUBTRACT this number from 30,000. : http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html Reading obituaries: www.legacy.com/ |
|
Episode 23 - Japanese Psychology and Buddhism with Gregg Krech
The "Eastern Way" of psychology offers a profoundly different paradigm than Western psychology. Join me as a talk with Gregg Krech, one of the leading authorities on Japanese Psychology in North America, about this difference.
Using the Buddhist concept of "skillful means", Japanese psychology offers methods to master the skills of acceptance, attention, co-existing with unpleasant feelings, and self-reflection. Rather than talking it out, we can develop skills to cope more effectively with anxiety, depression, anger, shyness, procrastination ... you name it!
Ultimately based on the practical, we can learn how to focus on our purpose and an appropriate response to the needs of each situation, rather than a reaction to our feelings—removing our feelings from the position of "Director" in the play of life.
Using the Buddhist concept of "skillful means", Japanese psychology offers methods to master the skills of acceptance, attention, co-existing with unpleasant feelings, and self-reflection. Rather than talking it out, we can develop skills to cope more effectively with anxiety, depression, anger, shyness, procrastination ... you name it!
Ultimately based on the practical, we can learn how to focus on our purpose and an appropriate response to the needs of each situation, rather than a reaction to our feelings—removing our feelings from the position of "Director" in the play of life.
|
Links mentioned in the podcast:
The ToDo Institute: www.todoinstitute.org/ Thirty Thousand Days: www.thirtythousanddays.org/ Taking Action online course (March 1 - March 30, 2019): https://www.thirtythousanddays.org/product/taking-action-dlc/ ** Coupon code for $25 off the cost of the course: everydaybuddhism |
|
Episode 22 - Release Your Cows: What Idea of Happiness is Keeping You Unhappy?
In a listener-requested podcast, I relate how the story of releasing cows from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering, helped me find freedom from suffering over a series of minor personal losses and disappointments...and freedom FROM the losses themselves.
|
We each have "cows" we're grasping onto. According to Thich Nhat Hanh, our biggest "cows" are our narrow ideas of happiness. We suffer because of grasping to those ideas. Every one of us has cows to be released.
We continue to suffer until we are able to release the very ideas themselves. Join me as I tell me story about finding freedom from the suffering of loss—and from the losses themselves—by digging my lotus roots into the mud of life, to become relaxed and tender, instead of rigid. |
|
Episode 21 - Tibetan Buddhism: Conversation with Frank Howard
Tibetan Buddhism seems mysterious, intriguing, and sometimes scary. In this episode I talk with Frank Howard of the White Lotus Buddhist Center in Rochester, New York—continuing my series of "Talking with My Teachers"—who explains that it's not as mysterious as it seems and it's certainly not scary!
As Frank explains, there is only ONE Dharma and Tibetan Buddhism is a sort of a misnomer. It is Buddhism, containing all Buddhist forms, but also the Vajrayana or Mantrayana path. Like the Mahayana path, motivation is the most important part. The motivation of kindness and compassion through the Bodhisattva path of benefiting all beings.
Listen as we talk about motivation, faith as confidence, our weaknesses and their antidotes, and how "Buddhism is completely practical and makes your life better."
As Frank explains, there is only ONE Dharma and Tibetan Buddhism is a sort of a misnomer. It is Buddhism, containing all Buddhist forms, but also the Vajrayana or Mantrayana path. Like the Mahayana path, motivation is the most important part. The motivation of kindness and compassion through the Bodhisattva path of benefiting all beings.
Listen as we talk about motivation, faith as confidence, our weaknesses and their antidotes, and how "Buddhism is completely practical and makes your life better."
|
Biography of Frank Howard:
| ||
Episode 20 - A Bright Dawn: Conversation with Rev. Koyo Kubose
In this first of a special series of episodes dedicated to honoring my teachers, I have a conversation with the spiritual head of The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism, Rev. Koyo Kubose. It is with Bright Dawn and my Sensei, I learned how bring Buddhism into the everyday.
Listen as we discuss what the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and its Lay Ministry program is all about, from Rev. Koyo's perspective ... its historical influences, its mission, vision, and special niche as a program bringing the Dharma to everyone in an ordinary, everyday way.
We'll talk about the balance of gratitude, humility, ambiguity, uncertainty, perfect studentship, and — most importantly — naturalness, in Bright Dawn and it's lay ministers, as they bring the Dharma to the people.
Listen as we discuss what the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism and its Lay Ministry program is all about, from Rev. Koyo's perspective ... its historical influences, its mission, vision, and special niche as a program bringing the Dharma to everyone in an ordinary, everyday way.
We'll talk about the balance of gratitude, humility, ambiguity, uncertainty, perfect studentship, and — most importantly — naturalness, in Bright Dawn and it's lay ministers, as they bring the Dharma to the people.
More about the history and unique vision of the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism,
Rev. Koyo Kubose, and Rev. Gyomay Kubose in the article mentioned in the episode
Rev. Koyo Kubose, and Rev. Gyomay Kubose in the article mentioned in the episode
| running_tide_article_-_bright_dawn_center_of_oneness_buddhism.pdf |
Organizational Website of the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism
Bright Dawn Sangha: Online community of the Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism
Episode 19 - Bodhi Day Special: The Grace of Light
Join me for a special episode in honor of Bodhi Day, celebrating Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. The long nights of December are marked by numerous celebrations using light as a symbol.
Bodhi Day can be adopted as a holiday for your own personal or family "culture." Light symbolizes a rekindling of the spiritual impulse and a turning toward awakening, toward enlightenment.
Bodhi Day is a time to celebrate our own awakening to the spirit of our Buddha Nature that is lighting our path with wisdom and embracing us with compassion. Happy Bodhi Day!
Bodhi Day can be adopted as a holiday for your own personal or family "culture." Light symbolizes a rekindling of the spiritual impulse and a turning toward awakening, toward enlightenment.
Bodhi Day is a time to celebrate our own awakening to the spirit of our Buddha Nature that is lighting our path with wisdom and embracing us with compassion. Happy Bodhi Day!
Episode 18 - The 5 Precepts: Gentle Guides, Not Commandments
In this episode I'll talk about my uneasy relationship with the 5 Precepts. Do they produce more questions—and more confusion—than answers? Do they cause more suffering than they prevent? I'll explore how, if looked at as rules and "thou shall not's", they set up barriers between Right View and the Dharma I believe the Buddha taught. And they can also separate people from each other and themselves, if they feel like failures.
When we work with the precepts, we do so with the understanding that "self" and "other" are delusions. There is nothing external to us acting as an authority. Clearing up ignorance is what alleviates suffering. This requires working with ourselves on a very deep and intimate level—honestly evaluating our own motivations and thinking deeply about how our actions will affect others.
Don't look "out there" for permission or an authority who will reward or punish us for breaking the "rules." This concept of ethics in the 5 Precepts is not one based on a transactional experience, but is firmly anchored in the non-dual perspective central to Buddhist philosophy.
When we work with the precepts, we do so with the understanding that "self" and "other" are delusions. There is nothing external to us acting as an authority. Clearing up ignorance is what alleviates suffering. This requires working with ourselves on a very deep and intimate level—honestly evaluating our own motivations and thinking deeply about how our actions will affect others.
Don't look "out there" for permission or an authority who will reward or punish us for breaking the "rules." This concept of ethics in the 5 Precepts is not one based on a transactional experience, but is firmly anchored in the non-dual perspective central to Buddhist philosophy.
Episode 17 - Radically Happy: Conversation with Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon
Join me in a conversation with Phakchok Rinpoche and Erric Solomon, authors of the just-released book, Radically Happy: A User's Guide to the Mind. In the book and in our conversation, ancient wisdom meets modern methods as we explore the universal search for well-being, for happiness.
As Rinpoche and Erric discuss with me, the root of happiness has somehow slipped through our fingers, as we gallop through are always-on, always distracted modern world. And they discuss how their new book will help us:
Get to know our own mind ...
Stop the looking-for-happiness conundrum ...
Relax the comparing and judging ...
Be more present, attentive, and aware ...
And access a subtle sense of well-being, even when things are not so great.
________________________________________________________________________________
Links mentioned in this podcast:
Radically Happy website / blog: radicallyhappy.org/
Creating Space Guided Meditation on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/user-3708139/guided-creating-space
Facebook Page of Radically Happy: www.facebook.com/radicallyhappy/
As Rinpoche and Erric discuss with me, the root of happiness has somehow slipped through our fingers, as we gallop through are always-on, always distracted modern world. And they discuss how their new book will help us:
Get to know our own mind ...
Stop the looking-for-happiness conundrum ...
Relax the comparing and judging ...
Be more present, attentive, and aware ...
And access a subtle sense of well-being, even when things are not so great.
________________________________________________________________________________
Links mentioned in this podcast:
Radically Happy website / blog: radicallyhappy.org/
Creating Space Guided Meditation on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/user-3708139/guided-creating-space
Facebook Page of Radically Happy: www.facebook.com/radicallyhappy/
|
The Book, Radically Happy: A User's Guide to the Mind
https://www.amazon.com/Radically-Happy-Users-Guide-Mind-ebook/dp/B07DZH2NGS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541883113&sr=1-1&keywords=radically+happy |
|
Episode 16 - Simple Awareness and The Many Forms of Meditation
When we think of Buddhism, we think of meditation. In this episode I will take you on a tour of the many ways to meditate. But at the core of the episode is the simple awareness that all meditation rests on ... and that everyday happiness rests on.
Join me as I talk about what simple awareness is. Awareness is simply that and our minds are aware by their very nature, yet that nature is obscured by thoughts and emotions. Simple, clear awareness exists between our thoughts and underneath our emotions.
In this episode I'll share some of my experiences with joyous spontaneous awareness and a little of my own awareness meditation practice ... in hopes of inspiring you to look for and relax into the awareness that is at the heart of meditation and your being.
________________________________________________________________________________
Links mentioned in this podcast:
Unified Mindfulness: unifiedmindfulness.com/
Unified Mindfulness FREE Core Training Course: unifiedmindfulness.com/core
Live and Dare: Master Your Mind, Master Your Life: liveanddare.com/
Loch Kelly: lochkelly.org/
Adyashanti: www.adyashanti.org/
Sam Harris: samharris.org/
Join me as I talk about what simple awareness is. Awareness is simply that and our minds are aware by their very nature, yet that nature is obscured by thoughts and emotions. Simple, clear awareness exists between our thoughts and underneath our emotions.
In this episode I'll share some of my experiences with joyous spontaneous awareness and a little of my own awareness meditation practice ... in hopes of inspiring you to look for and relax into the awareness that is at the heart of meditation and your being.
________________________________________________________________________________
Links mentioned in this podcast:
Unified Mindfulness: unifiedmindfulness.com/
Unified Mindfulness FREE Core Training Course: unifiedmindfulness.com/core
Live and Dare: Master Your Mind, Master Your Life: liveanddare.com/
Loch Kelly: lochkelly.org/
Adyashanti: www.adyashanti.org/
Sam Harris: samharris.org/
|
Books mentioned in this podcast:
Shift Into Freedom by Loch Kelly https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1622033507?ie=UTF8&tag=podcastcoachi-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=1622033507 Waking Up by Sam Harris https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Up-Spirituality-Without-Religion/dp/1451636024/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540136730&sr=1-4&keywords=waking+up&dpID=5113lJZJQuL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment by Robert Wright https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buddhism-True-Philosophy-Enlightenment-ebook/dp/B01MPZNG63/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540136855&sr=1-1&keywords=why+buddhism+is+true |
|
Episode 15 - A Buddha Belongs to the World: The Earth & You
Join me as I explore the very earthly foundations of Buddhism itself, as we turn the light of Dharma towards ecology. Siddhartha Gautama asked the Earth to confirm his enlightenment, his Buddhahood. He did not ask for help from heavenly beings. He asked the Earth.
In an episode celebrating "Earth Care Week", we'll reflect on climate change and think about our own personal relationship with the earth, as spiritual practice. In giving up grasping at heaven "out there", our home, Mother Earth, offers us the heaven right under our feet.
Thinking about the Earth and how to reconnect can be a central practice for centering your mind ... slowing it down ... and syncing your body and mind to the Earth's rhythm.
____________________________________________________________________________
Links mentioned in podcast:
> One Earth Sangha - https://oneearthsangha.org/
> One Earth Sangha EcoSattva Training: https://oneearthsangha.org/programs/2017-ecosattva-training/
EcoSattva Vows - https://oneearthsangha.org/programs/2016-ecosattva-training/vows/
At the conclusion of the EcoSattva Training, we invite those who are so moved in confirming our commitment to health, vitality and ease for all beings, seen and unseen, near and far, born and yet-to-be-born. These vows, like the metta phrases, can be customized and tuned to fit the shape of your heart-mind, what will most inspire and sustain your EcoSattva practice. We can repeat them everyday as a reminder of our intention and be strengthened in knowing that others are expressing these same intentions.
Based on my love of the world and understanding of deep interdependence of all things, I vow
In an episode celebrating "Earth Care Week", we'll reflect on climate change and think about our own personal relationship with the earth, as spiritual practice. In giving up grasping at heaven "out there", our home, Mother Earth, offers us the heaven right under our feet.
Thinking about the Earth and how to reconnect can be a central practice for centering your mind ... slowing it down ... and syncing your body and mind to the Earth's rhythm.
____________________________________________________________________________
Links mentioned in podcast:
> One Earth Sangha - https://oneearthsangha.org/
> One Earth Sangha EcoSattva Training: https://oneearthsangha.org/programs/2017-ecosattva-training/
EcoSattva Vows - https://oneearthsangha.org/programs/2016-ecosattva-training/vows/
At the conclusion of the EcoSattva Training, we invite those who are so moved in confirming our commitment to health, vitality and ease for all beings, seen and unseen, near and far, born and yet-to-be-born. These vows, like the metta phrases, can be customized and tuned to fit the shape of your heart-mind, what will most inspire and sustain your EcoSattva practice. We can repeat them everyday as a reminder of our intention and be strengthened in knowing that others are expressing these same intentions.
Based on my love of the world and understanding of deep interdependence of all things, I vow
- To live in Earth more lightly and less violently in the food, products and energy I consume.
- To commit myself daily to the healing of the world and the welfare of all beings; to discern and replace human systems of oppression and harm.
- To invite personal discomfort as an opportunity to share in the challenge of our collective liberation.
- To draw strength and guidance from the living Earth, from our ancestors and the future generations, and from our brothers and sisters of all species.
- To help others in their work for the world and to ask for help when I feel the need.
- To pursue a daily spiritual practice that clarifies my mind, strengthens my heart and supports me in observing these vows.
|
Books mentioned in podcast: The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology - by Thich Nhat Hanh https://www.amazon.com/World-We-Have-Buddhist-Approach/dp/1888375884/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539110004&sr=1-1&keywords=the+world+we+have&dpID=513M9eA2RgL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch The Practice of the Wild - Essays by Gary Snyder https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Wild-New-Preface-Author-ebook/dp/B00F0VCUHK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1539110153&sr=1-1&keywords=the+practice+of+the+wild |
|
Episode 14 - Protesting? What's in Your Mind?
In the first "Ask Me Anything" Episode, I respond to a listener's question about Buddhist insight into protesting. I circle around this question by sharing thoughts I had from my own life and two Dharma talks I gave in January and July of 2017.
Instead of focusing what we're protesting and why, I talk more about what was in my mind and how it made my feel. This is where I think the focus needs to be: "What's in your mind?" Does your urge for speech or action come from an intention of anger or intention of peace?
Can I help create peace, equality, and justice through a motivation of anxiety, anger, and divisiveness? If we come to the proposed solution as broken selves, can we help? Can we bring our own peace to unrest? Come and sit with me in the questions.
Instead of focusing what we're protesting and why, I talk more about what was in my mind and how it made my feel. This is where I think the focus needs to be: "What's in your mind?" Does your urge for speech or action come from an intention of anger or intention of peace?
Can I help create peace, equality, and justice through a motivation of anxiety, anger, and divisiveness? If we come to the proposed solution as broken selves, can we help? Can we bring our own peace to unrest? Come and sit with me in the questions.
|
Books quoted in the podcast:
> The Way of The Bodhisattva by Shantideva - The Padmakara Translation Group https://www.amazon.com/Way-Bodhisattva-Shantideva-ebook/dp/B006L8SE58/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537738395&sr=1-1&keywords=the+way+of+the+bodhisattva+by+shantideva > Time to Stand Up: An Engaged Buddhist Manifesto for Our Earth - The Buddha's Life and Message through Feminine Eyes by Thanissara https://www.amazon.com/Time-Stand-Up-Buddhist-Manifesto-ebook/dp/B00Q1HZM5O/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537738543&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=thanissaro+time+to+stand+up > No Mud, Not Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering by Thich Nhat Hanh https://www.amazon.com/No-Mud-Lotus-Transforming-Suffering-ebook/dp/B00LDYFFNY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1537738633&sr=1-1&keywords=no+mud+no+lotus |
|
Episode 13 - Right Effort: Joyful Balance
In this podcast, we'll look at the sixth part of The Eightfold Path and the first step into the area of meditation: Right Effort. Is your energy / your efforts, positive contributors to making you more content ... and making the people around you more content? If not, maybe you need to bring attention to and tweak your habits a little bit.
We'll look at the hindrances to right effort and the obstacles to concentration or destructive trains of thought. It's all about noticing and removing or replacing a little habit, followed by another, and another.
And guess what? It all hinges on paying attention; about noticing. That is the hard part. Adjusting your habits isn't as hard.
Listen to find ways to help in creating "joyous effort" through "The Five Daily Guidelines" offered by The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: http://www.brightdawn.org/Five%20Daily%20Life%20Guidelines.pdf
We'll look at the hindrances to right effort and the obstacles to concentration or destructive trains of thought. It's all about noticing and removing or replacing a little habit, followed by another, and another.
And guess what? It all hinges on paying attention; about noticing. That is the hard part. Adjusting your habits isn't as hard.
Listen to find ways to help in creating "joyous effort" through "The Five Daily Guidelines" offered by The Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism: http://www.brightdawn.org/Five%20Daily%20Life%20Guidelines.pdf
Episode 12 - MORE Koans: Bringing Them Into the Everyday
In this podcast, we'll look more closely at koans, poetry, koan practice in general ... and we'll see how to work with one koan, specifically ... to start your practice.
We'll look at the koan, "Manjushri Enters the Gate." I will provide an interpretation from Rev. Gyomay Kubose, as well as how I worked with this koan. But each person must bring his own wisdom to a koan. (Zen Koans, by Gyomay Kubose, from Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism Dharma House Publishing.)
Koan practice IS for everyday life! It is for taking up your everyday — the kitchen or the office — as a koan. How can you use a koan in everyday life? How can you use a koan to break free from thinking ruts, hardened concepts, judgments?
We'll look at the koan, "Manjushri Enters the Gate." I will provide an interpretation from Rev. Gyomay Kubose, as well as how I worked with this koan. But each person must bring his own wisdom to a koan. (Zen Koans, by Gyomay Kubose, from Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism Dharma House Publishing.)
Koan practice IS for everyday life! It is for taking up your everyday — the kitchen or the office — as a koan. How can you use a koan in everyday life? How can you use a koan to break free from thinking ruts, hardened concepts, judgments?
Episode 11 - Koans: Reaching the Limits of Thought; Jumping Into the Void of I Don't Know
Up for a fun challenge? In this podcast, I talk about my love of Zen Koans, as one of the rarest practices for 'messing with' your conceptual mind and shaking your false trust in the stability of what we think is 'knowledge.'
A koan is, in essence, a problem that can't be solved by the intellect. In trying to understand it, you run up against the limitations of thought and, hopefully, tap into a direct and non-verbal awareness of reality. Most people think of koans as riddles or puzzles to solve. It's not about that. The deal with koans is that they are about "I don't know."
Koans expose us to the fact that we are so stuffed with concepts and snared by thinking that we can't see what's right in front of us ... in the kitchen ... in the garden ... the desk ... out our window ... on a familiar walk. These are the place where koans leap from. Through koans we get a glimpse into how to let the world come to us in whatever shape it takes.
I invite you to try koans for yourself. In the podcast, I share John Tarrant's "seven things to notice about koans" and 3 ways you might start a koan practice:
A koan is, in essence, a problem that can't be solved by the intellect. In trying to understand it, you run up against the limitations of thought and, hopefully, tap into a direct and non-verbal awareness of reality. Most people think of koans as riddles or puzzles to solve. It's not about that. The deal with koans is that they are about "I don't know."
Koans expose us to the fact that we are so stuffed with concepts and snared by thinking that we can't see what's right in front of us ... in the kitchen ... in the garden ... the desk ... out our window ... on a familiar walk. These are the place where koans leap from. Through koans we get a glimpse into how to let the world come to us in whatever shape it takes.
I invite you to try koans for yourself. In the podcast, I share John Tarrant's "seven things to notice about koans" and 3 ways you might start a koan practice:
|
1) Purchase the book, Zen Koans, by Gyomay Kubose, from Bright Dawn Center of Oneness Buddhism Dharma House Publishing. And/or purchase this book, Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life, by John Tarrant (link to Amazon).
2) Check out these websites from John Tarrant: zenosaurus.blogspot.com/ tarrantworks.com/ 3) Read my blog posts on Koans for Everyday Life on this website at "Blog." More posts on koans will be coming ... at least 2, maybe more. |
|
Episode 10 - Right Livelihood Is Not WHAT You Do, But What You Think About What You Do
In this podcast, we'll look at how we can move from thinking about work as what we are ... or as something we're 'stuck with' ... or as something we are 'becoming' on our progression up the ladder ... to how and who we are being with our work. Are we authentic? Are we mindful?
Work is THE golden opportunity to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We spend most of our waking hours at work. This is where we are presented with all the tough choices about right view, right intention, right speech, and right action.
Practicing "Right Livelihood" means practicing Right Mindfulness. The way you answer the phone ... the way you talk to a co-worker or client ... the way you file a file ... the way you act in a meeting. Do we honestly try to take care of our co-workers and customers? Or are we just doing our job?
Work is THE golden opportunity to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We spend most of our waking hours at work. This is where we are presented with all the tough choices about right view, right intention, right speech, and right action.
Practicing "Right Livelihood" means practicing Right Mindfulness. The way you answer the phone ... the way you talk to a co-worker or client ... the way you file a file ... the way you act in a meeting. Do we honestly try to take care of our co-workers and customers? Or are we just doing our job?
Episode 9 - Right Action is NOT REaction
In this podcast we'll talk about "Right Action" and how our typical actions are reactions. I'll explore the difference between reacting and responding, and how mindfulness is the necessary ingredient to right action.
The key to right action is right view. Understanding and accepting things as they are is the beginning of enlightened action. Buddhist moral statement are not "laws" pointing to absolutes, but expression of spiritual practice aimed at creating a constructive life energy.
Discover a positive way of looking at the Ten Non-Virtues or "Freedom Vows" of body, speech, and mind taught by the Buddha—not what NOT to do, but what TO DO: How to nourish life, honor others' property, speak in ways that bring people together, be happy at others' good fortune, and more!
The key to right action is right view. Understanding and accepting things as they are is the beginning of enlightened action. Buddhist moral statement are not "laws" pointing to absolutes, but expression of spiritual practice aimed at creating a constructive life energy.
Discover a positive way of looking at the Ten Non-Virtues or "Freedom Vows" of body, speech, and mind taught by the Buddha—not what NOT to do, but what TO DO: How to nourish life, honor others' property, speak in ways that bring people together, be happy at others' good fortune, and more!
Episode 8 - Mindfulness Without the Woo-Woo with Meg Salter
Mindfulness has become mainstream, but it is still confusing or unreachable for some who try to begin a mindfulness practice. What is it? Meg Salter takes the "woo-woo" out of it.
Mindfulness is not some magic light bulb that goes off and you're magically transformed, as Meg explains. You're still the same old person...only a slightly better version.
And guess what? It's not all about sitting cross-legged on a $200 cushion. Listen to Meg describe the "real benefit" of mindfulness: when you take it off the cushion. Learn about mindfulness in the style of Everyday Buddhism!
To learn more about Meg Salter, Executive Coach and Mindfulness Coach, check out her website: megsalter.com/
Mindfulness is not some magic light bulb that goes off and you're magically transformed, as Meg explains. You're still the same old person...only a slightly better version.
And guess what? It's not all about sitting cross-legged on a $200 cushion. Listen to Meg describe the "real benefit" of mindfulness: when you take it off the cushion. Learn about mindfulness in the style of Everyday Buddhism!
To learn more about Meg Salter, Executive Coach and Mindfulness Coach, check out her website: megsalter.com/
|
To preview her book, Mind Your Life, you can see and order it here on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Mind-Your-Life-Mindfulness-Extraordinary/dp/0995936803/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493238254&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=mind+your+life+mega+salter
|
|
Episode 7 - Right Speech: Zip It!
In this podcast we're going to talk about "Right Speech" or why we should consider just "zipping it."
Talking. We're always talking. Even when we're listening we're talking ... mentally creating our responses. And, now, with endless social media forums and "drive-by" Twitter and Instagram talking, it's a constant stream of yap, yap, yap. Sharing our opinion of everything with everyone.
Learn about the 4 practices of right speech ... Oh, and why Buddhas have big ears and small mouths, while emoticons have big mouths and NO ears.
Talking. We're always talking. Even when we're listening we're talking ... mentally creating our responses. And, now, with endless social media forums and "drive-by" Twitter and Instagram talking, it's a constant stream of yap, yap, yap. Sharing our opinion of everything with everyone.
Learn about the 4 practices of right speech ... Oh, and why Buddhas have big ears and small mouths, while emoticons have big mouths and NO ears.
Episode 6 - Got Intention? AKA How to Be Less of a Jerk
In this podcast we're going to talk about "Right Intention" or how to be less of a jerk. Trying to be less of a jerk requires action ... not just thinking.
We typically have trouble self-correcting, because we do things habitually or from a reactionary pattern. We never actually see ourselves doing them, until we complete the action. Being mindful is the process needed to accomplish change.
Discover the "magic power" of equanimity and learn about Thich Nhat Hanh's 4 practices of right intention.
We typically have trouble self-correcting, because we do things habitually or from a reactionary pattern. We never actually see ourselves doing them, until we complete the action. Being mindful is the process needed to accomplish change.
Discover the "magic power" of equanimity and learn about Thich Nhat Hanh's 4 practices of right intention.
Episode 5 - Discussion with Noah Rasheta
|
In this podcast I'm talking with Noah Rasheta of the Secular Buddhism podcast and author of the books: Secular Buddhism and No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners: Clear Answers to Burning Questions About Core Buddhist Teachings.
Noah has a great story to share about a crisis of faith, existential angst, and a wondering if everything was falling apart. You won't be disappointed in his story of how he discovers how you can be comfortable in uncertainty through his exploration of Buddhist teachings and practice. You can find out more about Noah on his website: https://secularbuddhism.com/ |
|
Episode 4 - What Does Buddhism Say About...?
In this episode, as a fun diversion, I'm going to talk about "the Buddhist answer to everything. And the answer is: "Maybe."
Buddhism is experiential. You must practice to find out the answer. You must apply it to understand it. You need to ask the questions of yourself and find your own answers.
"Maybe" puts certainty on hold ... giving you time to find your own truth.
Buddhism is experiential. You must practice to find out the answer. You must apply it to understand it. You need to ask the questions of yourself and find your own answers.
"Maybe" puts certainty on hold ... giving you time to find your own truth.
Episode 3 - The Slippery Self
In this podcast, we'll look at the Buddhist concept of "No-Self", or Anatta, I introduced in episode 2. Where is your "self"? Is it something you can describe? It's hard to describe or identify as a discrete and non-changing thing, yet we sometimes cling to ideas of self that cause us to be stuck and miserable in life.
Do you wear an internal label that "brands" you forever in your own mind, your own sense of identity? Are you trapped wearing the label of chronically ill? Victim? Old and useless? What if you could see life outside the shadow of that label?
What if you could catch a glimpse of life happening without that "you" getting in the way? In this episode, I offer 3 short mindfulness exercises that will allow you to slip away from yourself for a few minutes and feel how peaceful it is!
Do you wear an internal label that "brands" you forever in your own mind, your own sense of identity? Are you trapped wearing the label of chronically ill? Victim? Old and useless? What if you could see life outside the shadow of that label?
What if you could catch a glimpse of life happening without that "you" getting in the way? In this episode, I offer 3 short mindfulness exercises that will allow you to slip away from yourself for a few minutes and feel how peaceful it is!
Episode 2 - What Is Your Why? Align Yourself with a Big Story
This episode is about finding your WHY. How do you feel about your life? Is it motivated by a big story, something bigger than yourself and your own little ego-driven, perceived wants and needs? The Buddha offered his followers an opportunity to become part of a big story. Being part of a big story is the answer to your WHY. It's a story of how our afflictions are met with a noble response.
Do you complain about everything? Your aches and pains, your busyness, the weather? In our culture it seems complaining is the natural way of communication. A constant drone of whining. We wear our complaints like badges of honor. The Buddha offered another way in his big story. The story of how our thoughts and feelings—which sometimes can feel and be so destructive—can actually be transformed into happiness, by following a path that teaches us to see life as it is, not as we would like it to be.
Instead of having a whiny response to life, the Buddha taught us to see life exactly as it is: A noble response.
Do you complain about everything? Your aches and pains, your busyness, the weather? In our culture it seems complaining is the natural way of communication. A constant drone of whining. We wear our complaints like badges of honor. The Buddha offered another way in his big story. The story of how our thoughts and feelings—which sometimes can feel and be so destructive—can actually be transformed into happiness, by following a path that teaches us to see life as it is, not as we would like it to be.
Instead of having a whiny response to life, the Buddha taught us to see life exactly as it is: A noble response.
Episode 1 - Be an Insider: Change Your Mind; Change Your Life
In the first podcast episode of Everyday Buddhism: Making Everyday Better we'll talk about what it means to be an "insider." The Tibetan word for Buddhist is called Nangpa. Nangpa means “insider.”
Everything in our lives is about how we look at things and nobody makes us see things another way. We have to own our own perspective. We can’t blame anger, sadness—or even happiness—on anything on the outside. Nobody made you feel angry, sad, or happy. You made yourself angry. Something might've happened outside of you to make you the anger arise, but it came from inside of you.
It is only in our looking inside will we discover answers to any of our questions or solutions to any of our problems. Change your mind; change your life.
Everything in our lives is about how we look at things and nobody makes us see things another way. We have to own our own perspective. We can’t blame anger, sadness—or even happiness—on anything on the outside. Nobody made you feel angry, sad, or happy. You made yourself angry. Something might've happened outside of you to make you the anger arise, but it came from inside of you.
It is only in our looking inside will we discover answers to any of our questions or solutions to any of our problems. Change your mind; change your life.
Shout out to Paul Werner for the awesome theme music track, "Hello." Podcast listeners frequently contact me to say
they can't stop smiling when they hear it. Me too! So give him some love. Here is the link to the track on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/paulwernermusic/hello
they can't stop smiling when they hear it. Me too! So give him some love. Here is the link to the track on SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/paulwernermusic/hello
Subscribe to the Podcast through your favorite platform:
