June 17, 2024 • 62 mins
If you look at social media with its reliance on meme-based psychology, you’d think that the Buddhist approach to life is to not let things get to you - that the true spiritual path helps you rise above such limited, unenlightened human feelings like grief, greed, and resentment.
This week on It’s OK, Zen teacher Koshin Paley Ellison is here to tell you that your suffering deserves your attention.
In this episode we cover:
- How an experience of targeted violence shaped Koshin’s childhood, and what it’s taught him about the suffering of others
- Why it’s healthier to spend time in the “life is suffering” part of the 4 Noble Truths, rather than rushing to the other 3 as solutions
- How to work with the pain and the suffering in your own life, so that it doesn't fester and cause more harm
- Why going to the furniture store looking for milk is only going to lead to disappointment
- Koshin’s new book, Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion
We're re-releasing some of our favorite episodes from the first 3 seasons. This episode was originally recorded in 2022.
Looking for a creative exploration of grief? Check out the best selling Writing Your Grief course here.
About our guest:
Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison is an author, Zen teacher, and Jungian psychotherapist who has devoted his life to the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism. Koshin co-founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, with his husband Chodo Robert Campbell, to transform the culture of care through contemplative practice by meeting illness, aging, and death with compassion and wisdom.
Koshin’s work has been featured in The New York Times, PBS, and CBS Sunday Morning among other media outlets. His newest book is Untangled: Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion. Find him on IG @koshinpaleyellison
About Megan:
Psychotherapist Megan Devine is one of today’s leading experts on grief, from life-altering losses to the everyday grief that we don’t call grief. Get the best-selling book on grief in over a decade, It’s Ok that You’re Not OK, wherever you get books. Find Megan @refugeingrief
Additional Resources:
Chodo and Koshin joined us in season one of It’s Ok that You’re Not OK. Listen to that episode here.
Learn about the New York Zen Center’s contemplative care program at zencare.org
Want to talk with Megan directly? Join our patreon community for live monthly Q&A grief clinics: your questions, answered. Want to speak to her privately? Apply for a 1:1 grief consultation here.
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You're Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed
Books and resources may contain affiliate links.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The first nobilities that there is suffering, and I remember
as a young kid feeling so grateful for someone acknowledging
that things are hard, that they're suffering in life, that
it's real because I grew up in a space where
(00:20):
most people were telling me what I was thinking was
happening wasn't happening, and everything was just fine, and it
wasn't fine.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm
Megan Divine. This week, one of my favorite people on
the planet returns to the show, Zen teacher Koshin Paley
Ellison is here to talk about his book Untangled and
how the real work of spiritual practice is turning to
face what hurts, not trying to rise above it. There
(00:53):
is no spiritual bypassing allowed here, friends, ever, but certainly
not in this episode. Stay tuned and I will be
right back after this first break. Before we get started,
two quick notes. One, this episode is an encore performance.
(01:16):
I am on break working on a giant new project,
so we're releasing a mix of our favorite episodes from
the first three seasons of the show. Some of these
conversations you might have missed in their original seasons, and
some shows just truly deserve multiple listens so that you
capture all of the goodness. Second note, while we cover
a lot of emotional relational territory in our time here together,
(01:39):
this show is not a substitute for skilled support, but
a licensemental health provider or for professional supervision related to
your work. Take what you learn here, take your thoughts
and your reflections out into your world and.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Talk about it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hey, today's guest is an old friend of mine, an
old friend from way back in season one of the podcast.
He's back because he's got a new book out called
Untangled Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion.
But I'll tell you the truth, a little secret. I
(02:15):
have him back on the show because his presence is
like medicine for me personally, his words, his way of
looking at the world, and his silliness, especially his silliness.
I always feel somehow both calm and joyful after spending
time with him, even when we talk about difficult or
painful things. Kohin Paley Ellison is an author, a zen teacher,
(02:38):
and a Jungian psychotherapist who has devoted his life to
the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism. Koshin co
founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care with
his husband Shodo. Robert Campbell, and Koshin's newest book is Untangled,
Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion. As
I mentioned earlier, now, it is not important that you
(02:59):
know what the Eightfold Path is or what the foreign
Noble Truths are in order to get something beautiful and
useful out of today's episode. But in a very brief nutshell,
in case you want to know, think of the four
Noble truths like a concise description of the human condition.
Suffering exists, it has a cause, it has an end,
(03:20):
and there is a path or a practice that will
help you find the end to suffering. That path is
called the Middle Way. Now side note here, if you
have read my book It's okay that you're not okay,
you might remember that there is a short little section
on the Teachings of the Buddha in my book where
I talk about the middle Way. So if you're like,
I've heard this before, that might be it. The middle
(03:40):
Way introduces us to the noble Eightfold Path, which is
what helps us find the cessation of suffering. It is
not an eight step plan to pretending that things don't suck.
The point of practice, and the point of Koshin's new
book is that if you can find your own roots,
your own center inside difficult times, you can tend to
(04:02):
your pain in ways that make it a lot less
likely your pain will fester and cause more harm aka suffering.
That's going to all make a lot more sense when
you listen to this week's show, So for now, just
let that part wash over you. Now, a couple of
content notes for today's episode. The real power of Koshin's
(04:23):
work is that it's rooted in intense pain and suffering.
He really knows intimately and personally the power of the
tools he teaches. You'll hear him tell a very intense
story of anti semitism in his childhood and how that
experience affects him to this day. He does that so
that he can talk about the ways that Buddhism has
(04:43):
helped him engage with what happened to him in ways
that make that memory easier to endure. So one content note,
there is a graphic description of antisemitism in this episode,
and two a reminder that anti Semitism is not a
thing of the distant past. It is here, now, present
and growing. I shall hear Koshins say in this episode,
(05:06):
all violence has suffering at its root. All right, that's
enough prep out of me. I hope you find so
much to carry with you in this episode. Friends, Koshin's
joy shines through everything he does, and I'm so happy
to share his wisdom and his presence with you here again. Hello,
my friend. I am so glad to be back. And
(05:29):
of course we have been chatting before this, and I
feel like we could get together for this show once
a season for years and years and years and years
and just sort of vaguely chat about everything forever. But
this time, this time, we are here to talk about
your new book and why it matters in this moment,
individually and collectively. So I want to hear about two
(05:53):
things before we really get rolling. And I'm doing this
because I know how conversations with you go. You say
something and it reminds me of something else, and then
we're before we know it, those horses have not only
left the barn, but they are in Arkansas and we
started in California. So two things that I want to
know from you before we get rolling. First, can you
(06:15):
tell us about your new book? And second can you
give a little primer on the Buddhist eightfold path so
that people know what we're referring to as we talk
about it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So, first of all, it's really sweet to see you
and thank you. Yeah. So the new book, Untangled.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Is really a book that I've been in some ways
living for the last couple of decades and really looking
at how we can actually address the gap.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Between what we all kind of know.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
If we pause for a second and you say, what
do I really value? What do I really care about?
What are the things that I care about? What activities
that are nourishing to me, the people, and actually what
we're doing with our time? And so for me, the
forl Noble Truths and they both have are exactly the
(07:13):
medicine to address that gap that we kind of all know.
And I think it's a gap of anxiety. It's a
gap of aversion from our discomfort for what feels hard.
We don't want to do something that's hard, and to
be with our grief, to be with our sadness, to
(07:36):
be with our anger, to be with our greed. You know,
we just fill in, you know, and cover over what
is most important, and then we end up living our lives,
or we can end up living our lives actually just
always far away from what we most care about. And so,
(07:57):
you know, the historical Liddho was so smart and often
he has thought of as the great position and as
the great position. One of the reasons why he's known
is that is because he diagnosed the problem, which is
that there's suffering, that there is tangled that there's you know,
as my grandmother would say, it was souris you know,
(08:20):
like basically it hurts, and we feel confused and overwhelmed
and all of this stuff. And the first nobility is
that there is suffering. And I remember as a young
kid feeling so grateful for someone acknowledging that things are hard,
(08:43):
that they're suffering in life, that it's real. Because I
grew up in a space where most people were telling
me what I was thinking was happening wasn't happening, and
everything was just fine, and it wasn't fine.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
So hearing that first.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Nobility and the nobility of suffering, that that it's noble,
you know, that we can actually sit in nobility and
realize that yes, I feel tangled up and that there
is something about honoring that that I feel like a
mess where I feel terrible. And the second nobility are
(09:22):
these giants of what I think of as giants because
they giants exist in pretty much any culture where they're
kind of like the giant size of what we is
normally you know, smaller, which is greed and resentment and
delusion and oh boy, and to really jump into that,
(09:47):
these are what caused the suffering, caused the tangle, and
to me, there to really honor, you know, to really
see clearly with acuity, with a loving acuity of attention.
And I feel like that's probably the most important, is
to really look at really carefully in a loving tender way, like, oh,
(10:11):
I'm so greedy, I you know, I know for much
of my life, you know, I was holding onto this
feeling of victimization. I was really sure because of you know,
the different kinds of abuse that I experienced that it
made me a victim, which on one hand I was,
(10:34):
you know, those things happened, and what was extra is
my greed of holding onto like that's who I was.
When I realized, like I had, terrible things happened to
me and many wonderful things, but I was kind of
holding on to one side of that as an identity.
(10:55):
So it's kind of a different way of understanding greed.
You know, sometimes we understand greed which is also a
cause of suffering, which is trying to get stuff in
the world. You know, if my teacher thought I was
a good person, or if I got a car or
an iPhone or whatever that is, you know, or people
(11:17):
like me that can be agreed to, like the desire
to be liked and all those different ways, and so
so greed is one of them the causes of our
suffering and then resentment holding on holding on to like.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
That kind of anger that where we just.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Like hold it and hold it and hold it. It
just corrodes, corrodes away. And I know for me, you
know too, I'm in my own experience. And this is
one of the things that was really important for me
in writing this, is to really get into that spaces
myself so that I could walk with you the reader,
(12:02):
to really say, like, I have my experience and what
is yours? And you know, that feeling of resentment towards
the people who had perpetrated against me, Like I really
held onto this like and it became like a black bile,
you know, like you just like look and really seeing that,
(12:26):
just seeing like how we hold on to resentment and
what it does to us.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
What does the greed do to us? You know?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
In the last one's delusion where we kind of separate,
we are delusive because we think that we're alone. To me,
that's the fundamental delusion, is that we're alone. And you know,
for one of my favorite antidotes to that is just
to look up and look around and realize that we're
just part of the world and it's our delusion that
(12:57):
we're not. To me, the fun delusion of separateness is
really like when we have the feeling of being alone
and then turning it into a truth, you know, and
how often instead of feeling our feelings and letting the
feelings just flow like a river and we can sit
(13:18):
on the bank and just watch all those thoughts and
feelings flow around and learning how to see that instead
of identifying of that's who I am, I am that
feeling of alone.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I love that you started all of this with the
acknowledgment of suffering. I also like we're probably going to
pull out what you said about that first truth of
the nobility of suffering, being able to look at the
world and say ouch.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
One of the things that irritates me about spiritual bypassing
is that we take these intensely deep and beautiful and useful, single, simple,
simple in air quotes here, simple teachings and twist them
to our own nefarious devices. Right, like to be able
(14:10):
to say, like yea, yeah, yeah, life is pain. You
have to get over it. You have to move on.
That happened to you, but you can't let it define you.
That is not what the Buddha taughte and that is
not what the apl path is about. It is not
about saying yeah, yeah, yeah, this terrible stuff happened to you,
but you have to not hold on to it. You
(14:31):
have to let go of your feelings about what happened
to you. I feel like we could spend an entire
lifetime just studying thing one which is ouch and giving
space to letting things hurt and seeing our hurt in
(14:52):
ourselves and seeing the hurt in the people around us,
and seeing the things that hurt in the world and
giving that breathing space. And if we can't do that,
it makes it really difficult to go into all of
the things that you just described about noticing your feelings
and getting untangled and working with resentment and looking at
(15:14):
the ways that in a way, painful things get weaponized,
whether by the world outside not seeing you and not
recognizing the truth of what you're living, and therefore we
get sort of resentful of like if you're not gonna
see me, then I'm going to make sure you see me. Right,
pain passed to the outside world or that sort of
(15:38):
spiritual bypassing of it's not quote unquote enlightened to be
in pain. You're supposed to use these tools to free
yourself of it. And I am very Buddhist light in
my understanding of the teachings. This is something that I
hear a lot from people that they move away from
(16:01):
anything spiritual or religious, or meditation can cure cancer, all
of these things because we don't do that step number one,
you're in pain, and I see it totally.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I mean, yeah, it's to me the most important. It
was also so interesting because when I was preparing to
write this book, I started reading on their texts about
the vulnerable truths, and usually the first three you know,
as you're saying the out or the tangle and the
causes of suffering. You know, people tend to write like
(16:36):
one chapter about that and then then move into the
rest of it as they full path, which is kind
of the prescription to heal and for me like, no, no, no, no,
I just slow it down. Yeah, if we're to be real,
you know, I thought, actually, what you were going to
say about the challenge of spiritual bypassing, I would that
(16:58):
you're going to say this challenges spiritual bypassing.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Is spiritual bypassing?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Why?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yes, that is accurate. Bypassing is bad because it's bypassing. Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And I think that it's so important to honor what's hard.
It's just critical because the reality is that life is
sour and sweet and savory and everything. So how do
we appreciate what's hard because we all know that life's
hard and it's also so interesting, and so that another.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Reason we need each other is to remind each.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Other, Oh, it's hard, all right, Yeah, yeah, you're in
that hard spot.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I feel like you can watch somebody, if somebody is
in pain, and instead of cheering them up, telling them
to look on the bright side, telling them that maybe
they should get on their mat and meditate, Like all
of these things if you do what you just described,
which is mirror that back. Yeah, this sucks, this is hard.
What happened to you was not okay? Right, you can
(18:09):
watch their physical being relax in a way. Right, Like
there is such powerful medicine and acknowledgment. What I hear
you saying is like, we only get to use the
tools to come to our own aid and our own
assistance when we tell the truth, and it super helps
(18:30):
to have that truth reflected and validated by the world
around you. And then we can jump into all of
these beautiful tools that you're talking about in Untangling. Then
we can talk about how do you work with the
pain and the suffering in your own life so that
it doesn't fester and cause more harm. We're talking with
(19:01):
Koshin Paley Ellison, author of the new book Untangled. Let's
get back to it.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, I was thinking about we have this Contemplative
Medicine fellowship for our physicians and there's practitioners, and it's
a year long training because we were really just worried
about doctors and nur's practitioners because they have the highest
rates of suicide, the highest rates of divorce, drugging, alcohol
abuse and leaving the profession. It's actually often thought of
(19:31):
as the most unhealthy profession.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
And we realized that in.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Order to engage them in a loving way, we had
to start with the truth of suffering, right, And so
we start right there, and it's like, okay, so let's
talk about what's hard and what you're caring inside of
yourself in your interpersonal relationships and your life out in
(19:59):
the world. I think that it's such a beautiful model
for all of us to think about, Okay, what hurts,
what's tangled up inside of me, what's tangled up in
my inner personal relationships, and what's tangled up in my
relationship with the world, and what's topsy turvy, you know
what is kind of a little cup cooop here. And
(20:22):
to me, when we start to do that, you know,
I was thinking about my teacher again, you and he
was talking about the most important thing is to suffer
together first.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
So let's suffer together.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And so to me, that's why those very powerful giants
of greed and resentment and delusion are so important. Is like,
oh you too, you too. Tell me about how those
things affect you, and I'll tell you how they affect me.
And so we can get really.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Real, yeah, real, and curious about each other, right, curious
about pain in our own lives and the pain in others,
so that we can suffer together.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You only get that kind of companionship and connection when
you can tell the truth about what it's like to
be you, and the you that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
We don't often share with most people because we want
appear like we're okay.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Reminds me of a book that you wrote, Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's okay that you're not okay exactly. Yeah, I mean
this is this is such a challenge, right, It's sort
of chicken in the egg type thing. We pretend to
be okay when we're not because we've internalized all of
that messaging that says that happiness is the only true
marker of health and if you're suffering, you're doing it wrong.
And also behavioral conditioning. Right, if I come to the
(21:53):
people in my life and I say, hey, this is
really hard right now, and what I get back is
not validation or acknowledgment, it's spiritual bypassing. It's you think
you have it bad, My life is worse. One of
the things that I say often is like, if you
keep going to the grocery store looking for milk and
they insist on selling you furniture. You're going to stop
(22:16):
going to that store because you're not going to get
what you need.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So it's tricky because I think, I think, because we
have such a backlog of being able to name the
truth of suffering, it almost fuels the resentment that we're
trying to untangle by using the tools of untangling resentment
because it's like, oh, great, now I'm just supposed to
like start being open and honest and start dealing with
(22:42):
my resentment. I mean, I can feel myself getting tangled
up even just trying to express it right.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Like right, because before we think that there is it's
linear right now, reality is not linear. Our brains sometimes
just wants to create a linear story. First do this,
then do that, and then do that. Like many of us,
you know, look for self help books or different things
(23:10):
where tell me what to do to not feel often.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
What I'm feeling. And to me, the courage comes from
that clarity of oh, right.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Like, I'm in a hard moment right now, and to
realize we're just in that moment that's challenging, not in
a reality that we can turn it into like that's
my reality. Everything's hard, life sucks, and sometimes life does suck.
(23:44):
But I think that the key part is sometimes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Sometimes yeah, it's it's interesting, and this is this is
the effect that you have in the world. I will
just say this, Like I just mentioned that, like even
talking about and resentment and all of these things, I
could feel myself getting tangled and in my head I
went go back to step one, go back to step one,
which is, oh right, this is hard, and that did something.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I mean, it's amazing. Just telling the truth seems like
it's too simple to be of any kind of use
at all. But I feel like we're in such a
habit of managing the feelings instead of naming the experience,
and that that really is what this book is about.
Right when you're noticing that tangle, that anxiety, that resentment,
(24:37):
that frustration, and going back to step one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Acknowledgement, Oh I'm in that nobility of things get tangled up.
I'm just I'm back here, okay, yeah, okay, okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I want to talk a little bit about you as
a younger person, because I think that these conversations can
get philosophical and esoteric really quickly. So there's a story
in the book where you talk about being chased through
the woods as a child. Are you okay if we
talk about that story, do you want to share that story?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So I think what's important about the story too, is
that what happened before the story and okay, what happened
is that there were these pictures that maybe some of
us all remember of those refugees being kind of lassoed
at the border and kind of hunted at the border,
(25:46):
like on horseback. And the images were so haunting and
so disturbing to me. I just felt such tenderness and
such sorrow and fear these images, and there was something
about it. I was like, what is it about that
image that is so scary to me?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
And I was biking.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Home and you know, I live in a little island
called Manhattan and has these beautiful rivers all around it,
and I liked to bike home at night. And I
was biking home and you kind of have to go
off into the wooded area and it was getting dark,
and I suddenly this memory just like shot through me
(26:33):
and I literally fell off my bike, like it just
like literally.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Hit me, and I just fell off the bike.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And what happened was that my mother and my stepfather
had this kind of idea of romantic idea kind of
a beautiful utopian idea of homesteading and living off the
land and moving into a rural place and won't that
be great? And a razor on food and whatever that is.
(27:04):
So we moved to this tiny little town in the
upstate New York and clearly they had never had Jews there,
and you know, the first night that kind of circled
our house and the four wheelers and were shooting at
the house and painted jew in the mailbox. And I actually,
(27:25):
I was, I think ten years old, and I had
never been so terrified in my life. And actually I
didn't even know that I was. I didn't really even
understand that I was Jewish, like even what that meant,
because I felt like I looked like everybody else, but
it was clear I was not like everybody else. So
we lived in this kind of town where actually, even
(27:48):
in the public school, it's so horrific, you know, and
I think it's important you know that this is in
New York state, upstate New York. And the teacher lifting
me up by my hair and saying, show us your
horns jew and somehow, and I still can feel the
pain of that, like the physical pain and.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
The kind of humiliation of that.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And I remember still feeling a sense of agency somehow
going to the principal's office and saying, you know, this
is what happens, and he's like, well, where are your horns?
So it was that kind of town, deeply racist place,
and one of the places where I found a lot
of solace as a young person. We had a lot
(28:35):
of woods, and so i'd go off into the woods
and find these big boulders and lay on the boulders
and just try to you know, often the boulders were
covered in moss, and just to be able to feel
the ground and feel supported and comforted by the world,
and just looking up at the canopy of trees and
(28:57):
the light coming through the trees has always been so
magical to me and continues to be just the kind
of effmorable, ephemeral beauty of the world.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
One afternoon, late afternoon.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'd gotten really far away from the house and pretty
deep in the woods where there were these trails that
I heard the four wheelers coming and they saw me
and they're like, you know, died you died, and they
had guns and they were shooting at me. So it's
like being I was actually being hunted, and even now,
(29:32):
like it's hard to even touch the feeling of it,
you know, And so I'm even noticing while I'm saying
it now, it's so hard to touch the depth of
that terror.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
So it was getting.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Dark into the lights on their four wheelers and the gunshots,
and I just remember like jumping into like the side
off the trail.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I went around a corner and I thought I'd kind of.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Be able to hide and landed in this BlackBerry bramble
which you got completely cut up, and just laid there,
you know, a breath and heart beating, and that's all
I really remember. And they passed and couldn't find me.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
But it was so so.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Powerful, And that's what I remember, the hunting, like i'd remember.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
The hair pulling. I remembered, you know, being.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Our house being circled, but the hunting, being a human
being hunted by other humans, like I was a young boy,
and what is that, you know? So what I fell
off my bike is like that's what I remembered. The
light kind of getting dark in the forest and being
(30:54):
terrified and they were my neighbors. I knew these people,
So it really, you know, brought me back to you know,
I've come from a family who were affected by the Holocaust,
and we're actually most of my family who were killed
were killed by their neighbors.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
And how easily that can happen, and how that almost
happened to me. Well, it did happen, but I didn't
get killed, you know, And so I think that there
was also this like, well what is that?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
And someone that could do that, they were probably, like
I don't know, teenagers of some kind, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
And if we think about compassion, how.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Does compassion include those people and yet hold people responsible.
So it makes me really feel really deeply for the
challenge that.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
We're met with.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And for me, what has been so important for my
own healing process is to really recognize and turn the
light to where it isn't and saying, oh, right, this happened,
It was real, It was terrifying, and in some ways.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Those wounds, my wounds.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Those wounds are exactly what has propelled me into a
life of healing and intimacy and the almost demand for that.
And I learned from early early age that my body
wouldn't necessarily continue that my body could get killed like that.
(32:41):
I knew that from a very young age, and so
I think this it has brought this like exquisite focus.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Into the beauty of the world.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And so I think sometimes I think the was the
mythologist Michael Mead where he's talks about like these wounds
and he's like kind of almost like knife loves to
your heart at an early age can propel us into
our life purpose. And so I'm also so glad that
I was able to, you know, with lots of therapy,
(33:15):
a lot, but really a lot of therapy, and with
really good people, having really meaningful friends, and you know,
a steady meditation practice has been completely that kind of
that combination of three things has been what has shifted
(33:37):
things dramatically for me. And really learning how to stay
with what's hard and not turn away. And you know,
it was two years later that I actually met my
first teacher, who was this guy send Say White and
sense White was you know, I'd seen these movies came out,
(34:00):
which now there's remakes and enfranchises about them, Star Wars
and Karate Kid, the original ones, and I would just
love these two, like the Karate Kid and Luke Skywalker
were so whiny and like nag, you know, they were
so whiny, and it was so helpful to me because
(34:21):
I realized, like I felt so whiny, and there was
something about the hero being able to whine, which kind
of gets back to what you were saying before, or
that like incredible scene of.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
When I don't know if.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
You saw this film called Spirited Away where it's a
genius and there's a scene of this giant baby.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I love the giant.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Baby so much, and it's just like this crazy giant
baby and she's like, like, you have to attend to that.
You have to attend to our giant baby.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You know, and that bag, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
And so I found this teacher since White because I realized, oh,
you could have a teacher who actually helps you to
not whine and never had registered to me, and I
felt like I was kind of stuck, and I realized, oh,
I have to find a teacher and ow karate, so
you can learn karate and find a teacher, and so
(35:23):
I went to the local strip mall. This is when
after we moved back from that mountain town.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You could say.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
And in the bottom of the drug store was this
karate school was like really gross, you know, like really
like definitely had a lot of fun gus going on there.
But there was this teacher, sense White, and he used
to have a sit and says that, which is like
when you have your legs underneath yourself, you're sitting almost
like on your knees. And it was not like the
(35:54):
kind of karate school where like there was like kids classes.
So I was like, I was kind of the real
super high ball at eleven years old, which is another theme.
But he used to walk around us and say that
we would sit there like that, and it hurts so
much because now these days, you know, if you sit meditation,
you have a nice chushion, you have a nice share or.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
We laid down and this is like on a hardwood
floor and he would be sweating and sitting there sweating, sweating, sweating,
and he said, you know, you'll never be free until
you can be still with your pain. And coming from
that town, that also I began to see how, you know,
(36:40):
people in my family, how those kids on the four wheelers,
that none of them knew how to be still with
their pain. Otherwise, why would anyone cause so much harm
like I couldn't articulate at that time, but I remember
feeling like I understood them somehow, in not a very
(37:01):
sophisticated way, that I understood that they did not know
how that their values and their actions were together, because
as we were talking about earlier, they didn't know how
to be with their tangle. They didn't know how to
be with their pain or never mind the causes of
their pain. They just like you know, bounce, bounce off
(37:24):
their pain and just.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
React, react, react, react.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
For these days, people's I get trigger, trigger, you know,
and as opposed to yes, I feel pain and I
can stay here with you, Yes, it's true and I'm
here with you. To me, learning how to be still
with your pain is the beginning of intimacy, and that
(37:53):
Mads not crazy, but for me, it is totally true.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Okay, I've been just sitting here listening and thank you
for sharing all of that. I think what you just
said about learning to be silent with your pain is
I don't even remember what you said because it was
so perfect, but about intimacy starting there, right, And this
(38:20):
is something that we've been talking about from various entry
points this whole time, is that it is not that
horrendous things don't happen. It's also not that horrendous things happen. Yeah,
but let's move on and not live there anymore. This
is being here and being human is impossible and it
(38:46):
is and delicious. Yes, I'm getting there, don't you worry.
I'm coming. I'm coming for the joy and the beauty.
But I think there's so much in what you just shared,
and so much of it is loss of intimacy, loss
of connection, feeling like you're the only one in the world,
(39:07):
pain getting passed down and passed down and passed down,
and reactivity time being so fast that you don't even
recognize that you are in pain, and that is driving
your actions and your reactions, and so much of our
real spiritual traditions are about slow the fuck down and
(39:28):
say ouch, and sit with that and tell the truth
about that, and learn to be silent with that pain
so that you can wonder, how do I want to
move in this world? Living what I just lived? And
so much of your work and the Zencenter's work and
(39:50):
all of the things that you do in all of
your books, this one especially really dives right into it
of ouch and how will we live? With that so
that the pain does not eclipse every other experience moving forward. Yes,
(40:10):
the joy, the beauty and the intimacy. It's not about
deal with your pain so you can put it behind you.
It is listen to your pain so that you get
to have some agency and some choice in how that
lives in you.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yes, you know, I think that you know, I still
have scars from that moment of being hunted, and and
I think I'm glad.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
That I do, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And that to me it's also part of like I
can see it on my body, you know, like there
it is, but it's real. And I think that so
much of our negation of what's happened is what causes
more suffering. And so to me it's like, yes, that happened,
(41:02):
and it is what's propelled me towards healing, and so
like that, I'm just loving this conversation, first of all
being with you. And that's why those first tree noble
truths are they deserve that nobility of attention and really
(41:24):
feeling them so that we can go to the actually
you're asked about the that for me, it's actually the
third one nobility is that there's another way to do
it you can pivot.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
But it's not to deny.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
The pivot is not a denial or a turning away
from it's because you have suffered and know what it
is to feel almost impossible things.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's because of.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
That you can actually turn in a whole bodied way
towards well, what else is true? Because I know what's hard,
I can actually see you more clearly, and I can
really appreciate the preciousness of this moment, like I can
(42:22):
see your eyes right now, and how rarely we actually
are paying attention, and so like, from there then we
can go into the nobility of yes, there are these practices,
Yes there are, and the full path is really built
on wisdom, compassion and ethics. Like yes, And because we're
(42:46):
not again turning away from anything, we're saying what we
go through and live in this life is what makes
us wives, is what teaches us, compassion is what teaches
us our own ethics, what our ethics actually are, how
(43:10):
to live an ethical life? You know, recently we're with
with our friend Tronia and she has this incredible ranch
in New Mexico and they just have these crazy fires
and eating up everything but not everything, and part of
(43:32):
the land that she's Stewards there has this great, great
cedar tree, and the cedar tree is totally singed by
the fire and yet so alive in the top, you know,
and so alive throughout. And she was saying that, you know,
(43:54):
they the tree is so deep, its roots are so
deep that it stays moist and the fire can't really
burn it and singe it.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
And so to me, the.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Eightful path are actually just living, you know, you could say,
just living with wisdom, compassion, ethics is allowing that depth
and that verticality where we can feel the depth of
the darkness and the height of spirit and air and possibility.
(44:34):
And so I think that that kind of verticality is
always available to all of us. And so it's this
such a gorgeous image of allowing ourself to go deep
into what's heard, into what's confusing, into what is inconceivable,
so that we can actually grow strong. And to me,
(44:57):
that's what courage is, you know, to feel like, oh,
this is scary and let's go ooh this is hard,
and let's go idiot.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Before we get back to this week's guest, I want
to talk with you about exploring your losses. Through writing.
There are lots of grief writing workshops out there with
prompts like tell us about the funeral, that sort of thing.
My thirty day Writing your Grief course is not like that.
Them prompts are deeper, they're more nuanced. They're designed to
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(45:44):
writing isn't going to cure anything, but it can help
you hear your own voice, and that is incredibly powerful.
You can read all about the Writing your Grief Course
at Refuge in Grief dot com backslash wyg. That is
WYG for Writing your Grief. You can see a sample
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(46:07):
still one of the best things I've ever made for you.
Come join more than ten thousand people who have taken
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or you can find the link in the show notes. Okay,
so this phrase just popped into my head and you know,
like pop psychology meme sort of thing, but like the
life you long for is on the other side of fear. Now.
(46:30):
I am not a fan of lifestyle edicts by Meme.
But that's what came up in my mind as you
were talking about that. And again, it's not it's not
a binary and it's not linear. It's not you dive
into really witnessing and paying attention to your pain or
somebody else's pain or the pain of the world so
(46:52):
that you can live a great life like this. That
binary is trash and that is not what we're talking about.
But what we're talking about is we all intrinsically as
social creatures, as mammals, we need each other to survive
and in order to feel companioned inside the impossible things
(47:16):
that we live and feel companioned, enjoy this practice that
you talk about in the book, that you live in
your life, that you've created in the in the world
for the people who are fortunate to be near you.
This is one of the tools by which you can
build that kind of life where all is welcome and
(47:38):
if not welcome, all is seen.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, there's this image to and when you're talking, I
just really reminds me of this other image I've always
enjoyed so much. There's this text called the load Is Sutra,
which sounds promising and.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
At the beginning of it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
It's this, you know, that this assembly, this greatest where
the buddhas you know, hanging out there about to give
a talk, and that the whole chapter, the whole first chapter,
is describing all the people who are there. And there's
demons and snakes and and you know, monks in the
(48:17):
usual suspects, you know, a mons.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Nuns and gods and all kinds of magical creatures.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
But there's also demons and snakes and fighting people and
all kinds of people. So it's like that welcoming of
this kind of canopy of reality. And to me, like
that's an easy thing to say, and to me, that's
why we need good spiritual friends. Why we're living actually
(48:45):
in a sort of extraordinary time where we can actually
be in community virtually and online and so like we
can actually there's less barriers now than ever before to
actually connect.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
And I know many people who have.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Been part of the Zen Center in the last couple
of years or just become.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Very connected, and they live in the.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Mountains of the Dominican Republic, in South Africa and all
these different places, and they really feel a sense of belonging.
So I think we need community in order to remind us. Yes,
it's about inviting it all in, which is an easy
thing to say, but it's like when it gets hard
(49:31):
sometimes having someone to call like, ooh.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
I'm having a really hard moment, I'm all tangled.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Ouch.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, and we can say come on, we can do
this together. We can suffer together and open.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
It up again.
Speaker 4 (49:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
And this, this sort of radical acknowledgment of reality is
how we build connection, and it is also how we
build the world that we want right where young people
don't have to suffer the things that you suffer. Anyone does.
(50:08):
And also we start you know, there's a there's another
episode during this season, and I don't remember which one,
but there's something where I say that heard people, hear people,
which is sort of a play on that hurt people,
hurt people, right, Like in that practice of hearing and
listening and seeing it gives it seeing our own our
(50:30):
own pain and saying ouch, and what do I need
in this moment?
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (50:36):
That opens up the capacity and the ability to do
that for others, which is not the same as excusing
people for their crap behavior. But that's a conversation for
a different day. But really, you know, one of the
things that you talk about in the book that I
just want to touch on really briefly. Here is that
epidemic of loneliness, and so much of what you and
I have been talking about today, and so much of
what is in your new book is about the antidote
(51:00):
to that loneliness, and the antidote to loneliness this is
this is not the bumper sticker we want it to be.
But the antidote to loneliness is acknowledging the reality of pain,
right like, oh, Megan is such a downer, but discarding
all of those things that we've internalized and learned and
(51:22):
promoted to the world that the only way you're going
to be liked, the only way you're going to be connected,
is if you're happy and you rise above anything bad
that's ever happened to you. Like all of that resilience
porn and all of that stuff, but like, no, actually,
real connection is in the mess of life, the beauty,
the joy, the moments, the hardships, the suffering. That is
(51:43):
where love comes from.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
My greatest teacher about love is my grandmother, and you
know she I can't remember if we shared this story
the last time we were together, but right before she
was dying, she said, you know, she woke me up
in the night. I was sleeping with her in the hospice,
and she woke me up and she was crying and crying,
and she said, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I
was like, what are you sorry about it? Because I
(52:10):
never felt so loved by someone. She said, I just
realized that there's a part of me that withdrew from
you because I didn't understand that whole zending. And I
feel so sorry about it because now I'm just realizing
(52:31):
to love someone is to love all the parts of them,
not just the parts that I understand, but it's their
complexity that makes them who they are.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
I love that. I had to bite my tongue because
you said that. She's like, I didn't get the whole
zend thing. I'm like, wait a minute, you totally get
the whole end thing.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
I know, of course, because the next morning is when
she said, you know, I often tell because it's just
so amazing. It's just like, you know, there is something
to the zen thing. I never thought i'd say that.
And she said, you and Jodah, who is my husband.
You know, you guys should.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Start some.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Kind of nonprofit organization teach people about the Zen and
teach people how to care for people, and that's what
we're doing.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
I did not know that origin story.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
It was Mammy Schwartz, Hungarian immigrant. She's the true founder.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah, that's really cool. I absolutely love that. Thank you,
Mimi Schwartz. Okay, I'm going to ask you the question
that I'm asking everybody during this season, knowing that we're
coming up on time. But you and I do this
and I'm here for it. Okay. So, knowing what you know,
knowing what you've lived through, what you've seen not just
(53:56):
in your own personal history, but in the work that
you do with contemplative care and end of life and
working with medical providers and being a partner and you know,
all of the things. Knowing what you know and being
who you are, what does hope look like for you
in this moment, at this time.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
For me, hope is actually not so great.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
And so actually I write about this in the book
and where I You know, Pandora's baskets, you know, we
thought of it. I mean think of them now as
Pandora's box. But back in the day, there were baskets,
and there was one about all the blessings and almost
all the curses on humankind, and like most people get curious,
(54:44):
and she opened up the basket and all greed, anger
and ignorance came out, jealousy and envy and justice was
put in the lid.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Back got hope jumped down.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
And so I've always thought a lot about that because
I remember as a young person, I was so into
Greek de belot and for me, I hope is kind
of wishing that things were different, and so I think
it's so tricky and for me as a human, I
don't find it very helpful. Like I wished how it
(55:19):
was different, you know, I hope it will change. I
hope fill in the blank. And I'm much more interested
in how are things and.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
What do I care about, and how do.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I nourish those things so that they can move into
a new life, you know. And I'm so much more
interested in how, you know, the great Tony Morrison loved
Tony Moore, since you know why it's too hard to
take refuge and how it's like I'm much more interested
(55:54):
in how we actually get really connected to our value
and what we care about and how we nourish them
so that we can be more ourselves and other people
can be more in themselves, and that we can do
the healing work that we can do.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
In this line, that might be my favorite definition of
hope so far. I have grammatical and etymological issues with
the actual word hope, but you know, you just brought
up something that I hadn't thought about before, is that
hope is not now, Hope is future. Hope is for something.
(56:39):
As you said, that things are different, but that aspect
of you're living in the future when you're hoping and
what is important is right now.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
I really dig that.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
I am definitely taking that one with me forward from
this conversation. I know we rock.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
It's all yours, Megan, Thank you. Take it away.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
I'm taking it. I'm taking it. And you know, after
we come back from the last break, obviously, I'm going
to have some words to say about it, because that's
what we do here. I close up with my beloved
guests and then we go to break, and then I
come back and I talk about WHOA. That was amazing,
wasn't it. So that's what's going to happen next. And
we're going to link to you and the Zen Center
(57:22):
and your books and all of the things in the
show notes and as we close up here, what do
you want people to know? A sort of a partying
message for this episode, but also like where can we
find you? Where should they interact with you? All of
those things.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
So our center call is called the New York Sun
Center for Contemplative Care, and the website is zencare dot org.
So keeping with Mammy Schwartz's memory, bringing those two things together,
and my own instagram is kachin Pale Allison, and we
(58:00):
have lots of opportunities for people to practice with us.
We have a ninety day practice period that begins actually
in January, and that's an opportunity to really dig into
and build a practice of meditation. And we have sixteen
beautiful teachers and it's just really gorgeous. And two things
(58:24):
that I always like to share. One is called Foundations
and Contemplative Care. So it's a nine month training for
anyone who's interested in that gap and how do I
bring my practice my spiritual practice of some kind or
build a spiritual practice and learn how to serve and
be intimate. And so that's available for anybody and for
(58:47):
nurse practitioners and physician assistants and physicians. We have this gorgeous,
a year long contemplative medicine fellowship that with some of
the some gorgeous faculty and really meaningful work to do.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
And so those are some things that could be helped.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
And the book again, and the.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
New book is called Untangled Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage,
and Compassion.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yes, and get that book, everybody, find it wherever you
get your books. And I'm also going to link in
the show notes. During season one, quoshin end Choto came
on and talked about their oh my gosh, oh my god,
I just totally got a complete Yeah. They came on
and talked about love No No No, the the contemporative
(59:40):
care training program for healthcare providers. We talked about that
at length during our season one episode, so we will
link to that. All right, everybody, I'm going to close
up our conversation here and we'll be right back after
this break. Obviously, you're going to hear about the things
I'm carrying with me and the things I would love
to hear that you took from this episode. Each week,
(01:00:12):
I leave you with some questions to carry with you
until we meet again. Now this season has a running theme,
and it's more obvious in some episodes than others. This
season is all about hope, finding it, losing it, redefining it,
and fighting for it in these weird personal and collective times.
So you know, what really struck me in my talk
with Koshin is one like how often we look to
(01:00:34):
spiritual tools to somehow lift us out of the pain
we're in, and how spiritual practices are often weaponized, right like,
if you just motitate more, everything will be fine. What
I love about Koshin is that he does give you
a way forward. He does help you reduce your suffering,
but he never asks you to pretend that things don't hurt.
(01:00:57):
I also really really liked what he said about hope
at the end there that he has an issue with hope.
I mean, first of all, there's a reason we're friends.
We both have issues with the word hope. But I
love that he said hope is always a future issue
and he's more interested in right now. I love that
what parts of the conversation today made you see things
(01:01:19):
in a different way or just feel a tiny bit
better in the moment that you're in. Everybody's going to
take something different from today's show, but I do hope
you found something to hold on to. There are lots
of ways to open these conversations on everyday grief and
how we survive the things that happen to us, and
we definitely want to hear from you on all of
(01:01:41):
these things. What are you holding onto you right now?
If you like the show, please leave a review on
Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Share the show with
your friends and your colleagues. These are the conversations that
so many of us long for in our daily lives
and just don't always have the opportunity to have them.
Sharing the show makes it just that much easier to
(01:02:03):
have that kind of connection. Thanks, friends. Grief education doesn't
just belong to end of life issues. As my dad says,
daily life is full of everyday grief that we don't
call grief. Learning how to talk about all of that
without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is an
important skill for everyone, especially if you're in any of
(01:02:24):
the helping professions. Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and
produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown,
co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio. Logistical and social media support
by Micah, edited by Houston Tilly, and music provided by
Wave Crush. Background Noise Today provided by the leaf Blowers.
The first nobilities that there is suffering, and I remember
as a young kid feeling so grateful for someone acknowledging
that things are hard, that they're suffering in life, that
it's real because I grew up in a space where
(00:20):
most people were telling me what I was thinking was
happening wasn't happening, and everything was just fine, and it
wasn't fine.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
This is it's okay that you're not okay, and I'm
Megan Divine. This week, one of my favorite people on
the planet returns to the show, Zen teacher Koshin Paley
Ellison is here to talk about his book Untangled and
how the real work of spiritual practice is turning to
face what hurts, not trying to rise above it. There
(00:53):
is no spiritual bypassing allowed here, friends, ever, but certainly
not in this episode. Stay tuned and I will be
right back after this first break. Before we get started,
two quick notes. One, this episode is an encore performance.
(01:16):
I am on break working on a giant new project,
so we're releasing a mix of our favorite episodes from
the first three seasons of the show. Some of these
conversations you might have missed in their original seasons, and
some shows just truly deserve multiple listens so that you
capture all of the goodness. Second note, while we cover
a lot of emotional relational territory in our time here together,
(01:39):
this show is not a substitute for skilled support, but
a licensemental health provider or for professional supervision related to
your work. Take what you learn here, take your thoughts
and your reflections out into your world and.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Talk about it.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Hey, today's guest is an old friend of mine, an
old friend from way back in season one of the podcast.
He's back because he's got a new book out called
Untangled Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion.
But I'll tell you the truth, a little secret. I
(02:15):
have him back on the show because his presence is
like medicine for me personally, his words, his way of
looking at the world, and his silliness, especially his silliness.
I always feel somehow both calm and joyful after spending
time with him, even when we talk about difficult or
painful things. Kohin Paley Ellison is an author, a zen teacher,
(02:38):
and a Jungian psychotherapist who has devoted his life to
the study and application of psychotherapy and Buddhism. Koshin co
founded the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care with
his husband Shodo. Robert Campbell, and Koshin's newest book is Untangled,
Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage, and Compassion. As
I mentioned earlier, now, it is not important that you
(02:59):
know what the Eightfold Path is or what the foreign
Noble Truths are in order to get something beautiful and
useful out of today's episode. But in a very brief nutshell,
in case you want to know, think of the four
Noble truths like a concise description of the human condition.
Suffering exists, it has a cause, it has an end,
(03:20):
and there is a path or a practice that will
help you find the end to suffering. That path is
called the Middle Way. Now side note here, if you
have read my book It's okay that you're not okay,
you might remember that there is a short little section
on the Teachings of the Buddha in my book where
I talk about the middle Way. So if you're like,
I've heard this before, that might be it. The middle
(03:40):
Way introduces us to the noble Eightfold Path, which is
what helps us find the cessation of suffering. It is
not an eight step plan to pretending that things don't suck.
The point of practice, and the point of Koshin's new
book is that if you can find your own roots,
your own center inside difficult times, you can tend to
(04:02):
your pain in ways that make it a lot less
likely your pain will fester and cause more harm aka suffering.
That's going to all make a lot more sense when
you listen to this week's show, So for now, just
let that part wash over you. Now, a couple of
content notes for today's episode. The real power of Koshin's
(04:23):
work is that it's rooted in intense pain and suffering.
He really knows intimately and personally the power of the
tools he teaches. You'll hear him tell a very intense
story of anti semitism in his childhood and how that
experience affects him to this day. He does that so
that he can talk about the ways that Buddhism has
(04:43):
helped him engage with what happened to him in ways
that make that memory easier to endure. So one content note,
there is a graphic description of antisemitism in this episode,
and two a reminder that anti Semitism is not a
thing of the distant past. It is here, now, present
and growing. I shall hear Koshins say in this episode,
(05:06):
all violence has suffering at its root. All right, that's
enough prep out of me. I hope you find so
much to carry with you in this episode. Friends, Koshin's
joy shines through everything he does, and I'm so happy
to share his wisdom and his presence with you here again. Hello,
my friend. I am so glad to be back. And
(05:29):
of course we have been chatting before this, and I
feel like we could get together for this show once
a season for years and years and years and years
and just sort of vaguely chat about everything forever. But
this time, this time, we are here to talk about
your new book and why it matters in this moment,
individually and collectively. So I want to hear about two
(05:53):
things before we really get rolling. And I'm doing this
because I know how conversations with you go. You say
something and it reminds me of something else, and then
we're before we know it, those horses have not only
left the barn, but they are in Arkansas and we
started in California. So two things that I want to
know from you before we get rolling. First, can you
(06:15):
tell us about your new book? And second can you
give a little primer on the Buddhist eightfold path so
that people know what we're referring to as we talk
about it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So, first of all, it's really sweet to see you
and thank you. Yeah. So the new book, Untangled.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Is really a book that I've been in some ways
living for the last couple of decades and really looking
at how we can actually address the gap.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Between what we all kind of know.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
If we pause for a second and you say, what
do I really value? What do I really care about?
What are the things that I care about? What activities
that are nourishing to me, the people, and actually what
we're doing with our time? And so for me, the
forl Noble Truths and they both have are exactly the
(07:13):
medicine to address that gap that we kind of all know.
And I think it's a gap of anxiety. It's a
gap of aversion from our discomfort for what feels hard.
We don't want to do something that's hard, and to
be with our grief, to be with our sadness, to
(07:36):
be with our anger, to be with our greed. You know,
we just fill in, you know, and cover over what
is most important, and then we end up living our lives,
or we can end up living our lives actually just
always far away from what we most care about. And so,
(07:57):
you know, the historical Liddho was so smart and often
he has thought of as the great position and as
the great position. One of the reasons why he's known
is that is because he diagnosed the problem, which is
that there's suffering, that there is tangled that there's you know,
as my grandmother would say, it was souris you know,
(08:20):
like basically it hurts, and we feel confused and overwhelmed
and all of this stuff. And the first nobility is
that there is suffering. And I remember as a young
kid feeling so grateful for someone acknowledging that things are hard,
(08:43):
that they're suffering in life, that it's real. Because I
grew up in a space where most people were telling
me what I was thinking was happening wasn't happening, and
everything was just fine, and it wasn't fine.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
So hearing that first.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Nobility and the nobility of suffering, that that it's noble,
you know, that we can actually sit in nobility and
realize that yes, I feel tangled up and that there
is something about honoring that that I feel like a
mess where I feel terrible. And the second nobility are
(09:22):
these giants of what I think of as giants because
they giants exist in pretty much any culture where they're
kind of like the giant size of what we is
normally you know, smaller, which is greed and resentment and
delusion and oh boy, and to really jump into that,
(09:47):
these are what caused the suffering, caused the tangle, and
to me, there to really honor, you know, to really
see clearly with acuity, with a loving acuity of attention.
And I feel like that's probably the most important, is
to really look at really carefully in a loving tender way, like, oh,
(10:11):
I'm so greedy, I you know, I know for much
of my life, you know, I was holding onto this
feeling of victimization. I was really sure because of you know,
the different kinds of abuse that I experienced that it
made me a victim, which on one hand I was,
(10:34):
you know, those things happened, and what was extra is
my greed of holding onto like that's who I was.
When I realized, like I had, terrible things happened to
me and many wonderful things, but I was kind of
holding on to one side of that as an identity.
(10:55):
So it's kind of a different way of understanding greed.
You know, sometimes we understand greed which is also a
cause of suffering, which is trying to get stuff in
the world. You know, if my teacher thought I was
a good person, or if I got a car or
an iPhone or whatever that is, you know, or people
(11:17):
like me that can be agreed to, like the desire
to be liked and all those different ways, and so
so greed is one of them the causes of our
suffering and then resentment holding on holding on to like.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
That kind of anger that where we just.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Like hold it and hold it and hold it. It
just corrodes, corrodes away. And I know for me, you
know too, I'm in my own experience. And this is
one of the things that was really important for me
in writing this, is to really get into that spaces
myself so that I could walk with you the reader,
(12:02):
to really say, like, I have my experience and what
is yours? And you know, that feeling of resentment towards
the people who had perpetrated against me, Like I really
held onto this like and it became like a black bile,
you know, like you just like look and really seeing that,
(12:26):
just seeing like how we hold on to resentment and
what it does to us.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
What does the greed do to us? You know?
Speaker 1 (12:34):
In the last one's delusion where we kind of separate,
we are delusive because we think that we're alone. To me,
that's the fundamental delusion, is that we're alone. And you know,
for one of my favorite antidotes to that is just
to look up and look around and realize that we're
just part of the world and it's our delusion that
(12:57):
we're not. To me, the fun delusion of separateness is
really like when we have the feeling of being alone
and then turning it into a truth, you know, and
how often instead of feeling our feelings and letting the
feelings just flow like a river and we can sit
(13:18):
on the bank and just watch all those thoughts and
feelings flow around and learning how to see that instead
of identifying of that's who I am, I am that
feeling of alone.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I love that you started all of this with the
acknowledgment of suffering. I also like we're probably going to
pull out what you said about that first truth of
the nobility of suffering, being able to look at the
world and say ouch.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
One of the things that irritates me about spiritual bypassing
is that we take these intensely deep and beautiful and useful, single, simple,
simple in air quotes here, simple teachings and twist them
to our own nefarious devices. Right, like to be able
(14:10):
to say, like yea, yeah, yeah, life is pain. You
have to get over it. You have to move on.
That happened to you, but you can't let it define you.
That is not what the Buddha taughte and that is
not what the apl path is about. It is not
about saying yeah, yeah, yeah, this terrible stuff happened to you,
but you have to not hold on to it. You
(14:31):
have to let go of your feelings about what happened
to you. I feel like we could spend an entire
lifetime just studying thing one which is ouch and giving
space to letting things hurt and seeing our hurt in
(14:52):
ourselves and seeing the hurt in the people around us,
and seeing the things that hurt in the world and
giving that breathing space. And if we can't do that,
it makes it really difficult to go into all of
the things that you just described about noticing your feelings
and getting untangled and working with resentment and looking at
(15:14):
the ways that in a way, painful things get weaponized,
whether by the world outside not seeing you and not
recognizing the truth of what you're living, and therefore we
get sort of resentful of like if you're not gonna
see me, then I'm going to make sure you see me. Right,
pain passed to the outside world or that sort of
(15:38):
spiritual bypassing of it's not quote unquote enlightened to be
in pain. You're supposed to use these tools to free
yourself of it. And I am very Buddhist light in
my understanding of the teachings. This is something that I
hear a lot from people that they move away from
(16:01):
anything spiritual or religious, or meditation can cure cancer, all
of these things because we don't do that step number one,
you're in pain, and I see it totally.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
I mean, yeah, it's to me the most important. It
was also so interesting because when I was preparing to
write this book, I started reading on their texts about
the vulnerable truths, and usually the first three you know,
as you're saying the out or the tangle and the
causes of suffering. You know, people tend to write like
(16:36):
one chapter about that and then then move into the
rest of it as they full path, which is kind
of the prescription to heal and for me like, no, no, no, no,
I just slow it down. Yeah, if we're to be real,
you know, I thought, actually, what you were going to
say about the challenge of spiritual bypassing, I would that
(16:58):
you're going to say this challenges spiritual bypassing.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
Is spiritual bypassing?
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Why?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yes, that is accurate. Bypassing is bad because it's bypassing. Yes.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And I think that it's so important to honor what's hard.
It's just critical because the reality is that life is
sour and sweet and savory and everything. So how do
we appreciate what's hard because we all know that life's
hard and it's also so interesting, and so that another.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Reason we need each other is to remind each.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Other, Oh, it's hard, all right, Yeah, yeah, you're in
that hard spot.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I feel like you can watch somebody, if somebody is
in pain, and instead of cheering them up, telling them
to look on the bright side, telling them that maybe
they should get on their mat and meditate, Like all
of these things if you do what you just described,
which is mirror that back. Yeah, this sucks, this is hard.
What happened to you was not okay? Right, you can
(18:09):
watch their physical being relax in a way. Right, Like
there is such powerful medicine and acknowledgment. What I hear
you saying is like, we only get to use the
tools to come to our own aid and our own
assistance when we tell the truth, and it super helps
(18:30):
to have that truth reflected and validated by the world
around you. And then we can jump into all of
these beautiful tools that you're talking about in Untangling. Then
we can talk about how do you work with the
pain and the suffering in your own life so that
it doesn't fester and cause more harm. We're talking with
(19:01):
Koshin Paley Ellison, author of the new book Untangled. Let's
get back to it.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know, I was thinking about we have this Contemplative
Medicine fellowship for our physicians and there's practitioners, and it's
a year long training because we were really just worried
about doctors and nur's practitioners because they have the highest
rates of suicide, the highest rates of divorce, drugging, alcohol
abuse and leaving the profession. It's actually often thought of
(19:31):
as the most unhealthy profession.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
And we realized that in.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Order to engage them in a loving way, we had
to start with the truth of suffering, right, And so
we start right there, and it's like, okay, so let's
talk about what's hard and what you're caring inside of
yourself in your interpersonal relationships and your life out in
(19:59):
the world. I think that it's such a beautiful model
for all of us to think about, Okay, what hurts,
what's tangled up inside of me, what's tangled up in
my inner personal relationships, and what's tangled up in my
relationship with the world, and what's topsy turvy, you know
what is kind of a little cup cooop here. And
(20:22):
to me, when we start to do that, you know,
I was thinking about my teacher again, you and he
was talking about the most important thing is to suffer
together first.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
So let's suffer together.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
And so to me, that's why those very powerful giants
of greed and resentment and delusion are so important. Is like,
oh you too, you too. Tell me about how those
things affect you, and I'll tell you how they affect me.
And so we can get really.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Real, yeah, real, and curious about each other, right, curious
about pain in our own lives and the pain in others,
so that we can suffer together.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
You only get that kind of companionship and connection when
you can tell the truth about what it's like to
be you, and the you that.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
We don't often share with most people because we want
appear like we're okay.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Reminds me of a book that you wrote, Yes.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
It's okay that you're not okay exactly. Yeah, I mean
this is this is such a challenge, right, It's sort
of chicken in the egg type thing. We pretend to
be okay when we're not because we've internalized all of
that messaging that says that happiness is the only true
marker of health and if you're suffering, you're doing it wrong.
And also behavioral conditioning. Right, if I come to the
(21:53):
people in my life and I say, hey, this is
really hard right now, and what I get back is
not validation or acknowledgment, it's spiritual bypassing. It's you think
you have it bad, My life is worse. One of
the things that I say often is like, if you
keep going to the grocery store looking for milk and
they insist on selling you furniture. You're going to stop
(22:16):
going to that store because you're not going to get
what you need.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Right.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
So it's tricky because I think, I think, because we
have such a backlog of being able to name the
truth of suffering, it almost fuels the resentment that we're
trying to untangle by using the tools of untangling resentment
because it's like, oh, great, now I'm just supposed to
like start being open and honest and start dealing with
(22:42):
my resentment. I mean, I can feel myself getting tangled
up even just trying to express it right.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Like right, because before we think that there is it's
linear right now, reality is not linear. Our brains sometimes
just wants to create a linear story. First do this,
then do that, and then do that. Like many of us,
you know, look for self help books or different things
(23:10):
where tell me what to do to not feel often.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
What I'm feeling. And to me, the courage comes from
that clarity of oh, right.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Like, I'm in a hard moment right now, and to
realize we're just in that moment that's challenging, not in
a reality that we can turn it into like that's
my reality. Everything's hard, life sucks, and sometimes life does suck.
(23:44):
But I think that the key part is sometimes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Sometimes yeah, it's it's interesting, and this is this is
the effect that you have in the world. I will
just say this, Like I just mentioned that, like even
talking about and resentment and all of these things, I
could feel myself getting tangled and in my head I
went go back to step one, go back to step one,
which is, oh right, this is hard, and that did something.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I mean, it's amazing. Just telling the truth seems like
it's too simple to be of any kind of use
at all. But I feel like we're in such a
habit of managing the feelings instead of naming the experience,
and that that really is what this book is about.
Right when you're noticing that tangle, that anxiety, that resentment,
(24:37):
that frustration, and going back to step one, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Acknowledgement, Oh I'm in that nobility of things get tangled up.
I'm just I'm back here, okay, yeah, okay, okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I want to talk a little bit about you as
a younger person, because I think that these conversations can
get philosophical and esoteric really quickly. So there's a story
in the book where you talk about being chased through
the woods as a child. Are you okay if we
talk about that story, do you want to share that story?
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (25:22):
So I think what's important about the story too, is
that what happened before the story and okay, what happened
is that there were these pictures that maybe some of
us all remember of those refugees being kind of lassoed
at the border and kind of hunted at the border,
(25:46):
like on horseback. And the images were so haunting and
so disturbing to me. I just felt such tenderness and
such sorrow and fear these images, and there was something
about it. I was like, what is it about that
image that is so scary to me?
Speaker 3 (26:08):
And I was biking.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Home and you know, I live in a little island
called Manhattan and has these beautiful rivers all around it,
and I liked to bike home at night. And I
was biking home and you kind of have to go
off into the wooded area and it was getting dark,
and I suddenly this memory just like shot through me
(26:33):
and I literally fell off my bike, like it just
like literally.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Hit me, and I just fell off the bike.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
And what happened was that my mother and my stepfather
had this kind of idea of romantic idea kind of
a beautiful utopian idea of homesteading and living off the
land and moving into a rural place and won't that
be great? And a razor on food and whatever that is.
(27:04):
So we moved to this tiny little town in the
upstate New York and clearly they had never had Jews there,
and you know, the first night that kind of circled
our house and the four wheelers and were shooting at
the house and painted jew in the mailbox. And I actually,
(27:25):
I was, I think ten years old, and I had
never been so terrified in my life. And actually I
didn't even know that I was. I didn't really even
understand that I was Jewish, like even what that meant,
because I felt like I looked like everybody else, but
it was clear I was not like everybody else. So
we lived in this kind of town where actually, even
(27:48):
in the public school, it's so horrific, you know, and
I think it's important you know that this is in
New York state, upstate New York. And the teacher lifting
me up by my hair and saying, show us your
horns jew and somehow, and I still can feel the
pain of that, like the physical pain and.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
The kind of humiliation of that.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And I remember still feeling a sense of agency somehow
going to the principal's office and saying, you know, this
is what happens, and he's like, well, where are your horns?
So it was that kind of town, deeply racist place,
and one of the places where I found a lot
of solace as a young person. We had a lot
(28:35):
of woods, and so i'd go off into the woods
and find these big boulders and lay on the boulders
and just try to you know, often the boulders were
covered in moss, and just to be able to feel
the ground and feel supported and comforted by the world,
and just looking up at the canopy of trees and
(28:57):
the light coming through the trees has always been so
magical to me and continues to be just the kind
of effmorable, ephemeral beauty of the world.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
One afternoon, late afternoon.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I'd gotten really far away from the house and pretty
deep in the woods where there were these trails that
I heard the four wheelers coming and they saw me
and they're like, you know, died you died, and they
had guns and they were shooting at me. So it's
like being I was actually being hunted, and even now,
(29:32):
like it's hard to even touch the feeling of it,
you know, And so I'm even noticing while I'm saying
it now, it's so hard to touch the depth of
that terror.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
So it was getting.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Dark into the lights on their four wheelers and the gunshots,
and I just remember like jumping into like the side
off the trail.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
I went around a corner and I thought I'd kind of.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Be able to hide and landed in this BlackBerry bramble
which you got completely cut up, and just laid there,
you know, a breath and heart beating, and that's all
I really remember. And they passed and couldn't find me.
Speaker 3 (30:21):
But it was so so.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Powerful, And that's what I remember, the hunting, like i'd remember.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
The hair pulling. I remembered, you know, being.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Our house being circled, but the hunting, being a human
being hunted by other humans, like I was a young boy,
and what is that, you know? So what I fell
off my bike is like that's what I remembered. The
light kind of getting dark in the forest and being
(30:54):
terrified and they were my neighbors. I knew these people,
So it really, you know, brought me back to you know,
I've come from a family who were affected by the Holocaust,
and we're actually most of my family who were killed
were killed by their neighbors.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
And how easily that can happen, and how that almost
happened to me. Well, it did happen, but I didn't
get killed, you know, And so I think that there
was also this like, well what is that?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
And someone that could do that, they were probably, like
I don't know, teenagers of some kind, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
And if we think about compassion, how.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Does compassion include those people and yet hold people responsible.
So it makes me really feel really deeply for the
challenge that.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
We're met with.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And for me, what has been so important for my
own healing process is to really recognize and turn the
light to where it isn't and saying, oh, right, this happened,
It was real, It was terrifying, and in some ways.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Those wounds, my wounds.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Those wounds are exactly what has propelled me into a
life of healing and intimacy and the almost demand for that.
And I learned from early early age that my body
wouldn't necessarily continue that my body could get killed like that.
(32:41):
I knew that from a very young age, and so
I think this it has brought this like exquisite focus.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Into the beauty of the world.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And so I think sometimes I think the was the
mythologist Michael Mead where he's talks about like these wounds
and he's like kind of almost like knife loves to
your heart at an early age can propel us into
our life purpose. And so I'm also so glad that
I was able to, you know, with lots of therapy,
(33:15):
a lot, but really a lot of therapy, and with
really good people, having really meaningful friends, and you know,
a steady meditation practice has been completely that kind of
that combination of three things has been what has shifted
(33:37):
things dramatically for me. And really learning how to stay
with what's hard and not turn away. And you know,
it was two years later that I actually met my
first teacher, who was this guy send Say White and
sense White was you know, I'd seen these movies came out,
(34:00):
which now there's remakes and enfranchises about them, Star Wars
and Karate Kid, the original ones, and I would just
love these two, like the Karate Kid and Luke Skywalker
were so whiny and like nag, you know, they were
so whiny, and it was so helpful to me because
(34:21):
I realized, like I felt so whiny, and there was
something about the hero being able to whine, which kind
of gets back to what you were saying before, or
that like incredible scene of.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
When I don't know if.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
You saw this film called Spirited Away where it's a
genius and there's a scene of this giant baby.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I love the giant.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Baby so much, and it's just like this crazy giant
baby and she's like, like, you have to attend to that.
You have to attend to our giant baby.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You know, and that bag, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
And so I found this teacher since White because I realized, oh,
you could have a teacher who actually helps you to
not whine and never had registered to me, and I
felt like I was kind of stuck, and I realized, oh,
I have to find a teacher and ow karate, so
you can learn karate and find a teacher, and so
(35:23):
I went to the local strip mall. This is when
after we moved back from that mountain town.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
You could say.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
And in the bottom of the drug store was this
karate school was like really gross, you know, like really
like definitely had a lot of fun gus going on there.
But there was this teacher, sense White, and he used
to have a sit and says that, which is like
when you have your legs underneath yourself, you're sitting almost
like on your knees. And it was not like the
(35:54):
kind of karate school where like there was like kids classes.
So I was like, I was kind of the real
super high ball at eleven years old, which is another theme.
But he used to walk around us and say that
we would sit there like that, and it hurts so
much because now these days, you know, if you sit meditation,
you have a nice chushion, you have a nice share or.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
Whatever that is.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
We laid down and this is like on a hardwood
floor and he would be sweating and sitting there sweating, sweating, sweating,
and he said, you know, you'll never be free until
you can be still with your pain. And coming from
that town, that also I began to see how, you know,
(36:40):
people in my family, how those kids on the four wheelers,
that none of them knew how to be still with
their pain. Otherwise, why would anyone cause so much harm
like I couldn't articulate at that time, but I remember
feeling like I understood them somehow, in not a very
(37:01):
sophisticated way, that I understood that they did not know
how that their values and their actions were together, because
as we were talking about earlier, they didn't know how
to be with their tangle. They didn't know how to
be with their pain or never mind the causes of
their pain. They just like you know, bounce, bounce off
(37:24):
their pain and just.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
React, react, react, react.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
For these days, people's I get trigger, trigger, you know,
and as opposed to yes, I feel pain and I
can stay here with you, Yes, it's true and I'm
here with you. To me, learning how to be still
with your pain is the beginning of intimacy, and that
(37:53):
Mads not crazy, but for me, it is totally true.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Okay, I've been just sitting here listening and thank you
for sharing all of that. I think what you just
said about learning to be silent with your pain is
I don't even remember what you said because it was
so perfect, but about intimacy starting there, right, And this
(38:20):
is something that we've been talking about from various entry
points this whole time, is that it is not that
horrendous things don't happen. It's also not that horrendous things happen. Yeah,
but let's move on and not live there anymore. This
is being here and being human is impossible and it
(38:46):
is and delicious. Yes, I'm getting there, don't you worry.
I'm coming. I'm coming for the joy and the beauty.
But I think there's so much in what you just shared,
and so much of it is loss of intimacy, loss
of connection, feeling like you're the only one in the world,
(39:07):
pain getting passed down and passed down and passed down,
and reactivity time being so fast that you don't even
recognize that you are in pain, and that is driving
your actions and your reactions, and so much of our
real spiritual traditions are about slow the fuck down and
(39:28):
say ouch, and sit with that and tell the truth
about that, and learn to be silent with that pain
so that you can wonder, how do I want to
move in this world? Living what I just lived? And
so much of your work and the Zencenter's work and
(39:50):
all of the things that you do in all of
your books, this one especially really dives right into it
of ouch and how will we live? With that so
that the pain does not eclipse every other experience moving forward. Yes,
(40:10):
the joy, the beauty and the intimacy. It's not about
deal with your pain so you can put it behind you.
It is listen to your pain so that you get
to have some agency and some choice in how that
lives in you.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Yes, you know, I think that you know, I still
have scars from that moment of being hunted, and and
I think I'm glad.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
That I do, you know.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
And that to me it's also part of like I
can see it on my body, you know, like there
it is, but it's real. And I think that so
much of our negation of what's happened is what causes
more suffering. And so to me it's like, yes, that happened,
(41:02):
and it is what's propelled me towards healing, and so
like that, I'm just loving this conversation, first of all
being with you. And that's why those first tree noble
truths are they deserve that nobility of attention and really
(41:24):
feeling them so that we can go to the actually
you're asked about the that for me, it's actually the
third one nobility is that there's another way to do
it you can pivot.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
But it's not to deny.
Speaker 1 (41:40):
The pivot is not a denial or a turning away
from it's because you have suffered and know what it
is to feel almost impossible things.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
It's because of.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
That you can actually turn in a whole bodied way
towards well, what else is true? Because I know what's hard,
I can actually see you more clearly, and I can
really appreciate the preciousness of this moment, like I can
(42:22):
see your eyes right now, and how rarely we actually
are paying attention, and so like, from there then we
can go into the nobility of yes, there are these practices,
Yes there are, and the full path is really built
on wisdom, compassion and ethics. Like yes, And because we're
(42:46):
not again turning away from anything, we're saying what we
go through and live in this life is what makes
us wives, is what teaches us, compassion is what teaches
us our own ethics, what our ethics actually are, how
(43:10):
to live an ethical life? You know, recently we're with
with our friend Tronia and she has this incredible ranch
in New Mexico and they just have these crazy fires
and eating up everything but not everything, and part of
(43:32):
the land that she's Stewards there has this great, great
cedar tree, and the cedar tree is totally singed by
the fire and yet so alive in the top, you know,
and so alive throughout. And she was saying that, you know,
(43:54):
they the tree is so deep, its roots are so
deep that it stays moist and the fire can't really
burn it and singe it.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
And so to me, the.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
Eightful path are actually just living, you know, you could say,
just living with wisdom, compassion, ethics is allowing that depth
and that verticality where we can feel the depth of
the darkness and the height of spirit and air and possibility.
(44:34):
And so I think that that kind of verticality is
always available to all of us. And so it's this
such a gorgeous image of allowing ourself to go deep
into what's heard, into what's confusing, into what is inconceivable,
so that we can actually grow strong. And to me,
(44:57):
that's what courage is, you know, to feel like, oh,
this is scary and let's go ooh this is hard,
and let's go idiot.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
Before we get back to this week's guest, I want
to talk with you about exploring your losses. Through writing.
There are lots of grief writing workshops out there with
prompts like tell us about the funeral, that sort of thing.
My thirty day Writing your Grief course is not like that.
Them prompts are deeper, they're more nuanced. They're designed to
get you into your heart and into your own actual story. Now,
(45:44):
writing isn't going to cure anything, but it can help
you hear your own voice, and that is incredibly powerful.
You can read all about the Writing your Grief Course
at Refuge in Grief dot com backslash wyg. That is
WYG for Writing your Grief. You can see a sample
prompt from the course and get writing your own words
in minutes. My thirty day Writing your Grief Course is
(46:07):
still one of the best things I've ever made for you.
Come join more than ten thousand people who have taken
the Writing your Grief Course Refugegrief dot Com backslash wyg,
or you can find the link in the show notes. Okay,
so this phrase just popped into my head and you know,
like pop psychology meme sort of thing, but like the
life you long for is on the other side of fear. Now.
(46:30):
I am not a fan of lifestyle edicts by Meme.
But that's what came up in my mind as you
were talking about that. And again, it's not it's not
a binary and it's not linear. It's not you dive
into really witnessing and paying attention to your pain or
somebody else's pain or the pain of the world so
(46:52):
that you can live a great life like this. That
binary is trash and that is not what we're talking about.
But what we're talking about is we all intrinsically as
social creatures, as mammals, we need each other to survive
and in order to feel companioned inside the impossible things
(47:16):
that we live and feel companioned, enjoy this practice that
you talk about in the book, that you live in
your life, that you've created in the in the world
for the people who are fortunate to be near you.
This is one of the tools by which you can
build that kind of life where all is welcome and
(47:38):
if not welcome, all is seen.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
Yeah, there's this image to and when you're talking, I
just really reminds me of this other image I've always
enjoyed so much. There's this text called the load Is Sutra,
which sounds promising and.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
At the beginning of it.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
It's this, you know, that this assembly, this greatest where
the buddhas you know, hanging out there about to give
a talk, and that the whole chapter, the whole first chapter,
is describing all the people who are there. And there's
demons and snakes and and you know, monks in the
(48:17):
usual suspects, you know, a mons.
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Nuns and gods and all kinds of magical creatures.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
But there's also demons and snakes and fighting people and
all kinds of people. So it's like that welcoming of
this kind of canopy of reality. And to me, like
that's an easy thing to say, and to me, that's
why we need good spiritual friends. Why we're living actually
(48:45):
in a sort of extraordinary time where we can actually
be in community virtually and online and so like we
can actually there's less barriers now than ever before to
actually connect.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
And I know many people who have.
Speaker 1 (49:03):
Been part of the Zen Center in the last couple
of years or just become.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Very connected, and they live in the.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
Mountains of the Dominican Republic, in South Africa and all
these different places, and they really feel a sense of belonging.
So I think we need community in order to remind us. Yes,
it's about inviting it all in, which is an easy
thing to say, but it's like when it gets hard
(49:31):
sometimes having someone to call like, ooh.
Speaker 3 (49:33):
I'm having a really hard moment, I'm all tangled.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Ouch.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Yeah, and we can say come on, we can do
this together. We can suffer together and open.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
It up again.
Speaker 4 (49:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:46):
And this, this sort of radical acknowledgment of reality is
how we build connection, and it is also how we
build the world that we want right where young people
don't have to suffer the things that you suffer. Anyone does.
(50:08):
And also we start you know, there's a there's another
episode during this season, and I don't remember which one,
but there's something where I say that heard people, hear people,
which is sort of a play on that hurt people,
hurt people, right, Like in that practice of hearing and
listening and seeing it gives it seeing our own our
(50:30):
own pain and saying ouch, and what do I need
in this moment?
Speaker 3 (50:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (50:36):
That opens up the capacity and the ability to do
that for others, which is not the same as excusing
people for their crap behavior. But that's a conversation for
a different day. But really, you know, one of the
things that you talk about in the book that I
just want to touch on really briefly. Here is that
epidemic of loneliness, and so much of what you and
I have been talking about today, and so much of
what is in your new book is about the antidote
(51:00):
to that loneliness, and the antidote to loneliness this is
this is not the bumper sticker we want it to be.
But the antidote to loneliness is acknowledging the reality of pain,
right like, oh, Megan is such a downer, but discarding
all of those things that we've internalized and learned and
(51:22):
promoted to the world that the only way you're going
to be liked, the only way you're going to be connected,
is if you're happy and you rise above anything bad
that's ever happened to you. Like all of that resilience
porn and all of that stuff, but like, no, actually,
real connection is in the mess of life, the beauty,
the joy, the moments, the hardships, the suffering. That is
(51:43):
where love comes from.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Totally.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
My greatest teacher about love is my grandmother, and you
know she I can't remember if we shared this story
the last time we were together, but right before she
was dying, she said, you know, she woke me up
in the night. I was sleeping with her in the hospice,
and she woke me up and she was crying and crying,
and she said, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I
was like, what are you sorry about it? Because I
(52:10):
never felt so loved by someone. She said, I just
realized that there's a part of me that withdrew from
you because I didn't understand that whole zending. And I
feel so sorry about it because now I'm just realizing
(52:31):
to love someone is to love all the parts of them,
not just the parts that I understand, but it's their
complexity that makes them who they are.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
I love that. I had to bite my tongue because
you said that. She's like, I didn't get the whole
zend thing. I'm like, wait a minute, you totally get
the whole end thing.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
I know, of course, because the next morning is when
she said, you know, I often tell because it's just
so amazing. It's just like, you know, there is something
to the zen thing. I never thought i'd say that.
And she said, you and Jodah, who is my husband.
You know, you guys should.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
Start some.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Kind of nonprofit organization teach people about the Zen and
teach people how to care for people, and that's what
we're doing.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
I did not know that origin story.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
It was Mammy Schwartz, Hungarian immigrant. She's the true founder.
Speaker 4 (53:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah, that's really cool. I absolutely love that. Thank you,
Mimi Schwartz. Okay, I'm going to ask you the question
that I'm asking everybody during this season, knowing that we're
coming up on time. But you and I do this
and I'm here for it. Okay. So, knowing what you know,
knowing what you've lived through, what you've seen not just
(53:56):
in your own personal history, but in the work that
you do with contemplative care and end of life and
working with medical providers and being a partner and you know,
all of the things. Knowing what you know and being
who you are, what does hope look like for you
in this moment, at this time.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
For me, hope is actually not so great.
Speaker 1 (54:23):
And so actually I write about this in the book
and where I You know, Pandora's baskets, you know, we
thought of it. I mean think of them now as
Pandora's box. But back in the day, there were baskets,
and there was one about all the blessings and almost
all the curses on humankind, and like most people get curious,
(54:44):
and she opened up the basket and all greed, anger
and ignorance came out, jealousy and envy and justice was
put in the lid.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
Back got hope jumped down.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
And so I've always thought a lot about that because
I remember as a young person, I was so into
Greek de belot and for me, I hope is kind
of wishing that things were different, and so I think
it's so tricky and for me as a human, I
don't find it very helpful. Like I wished how it
(55:19):
was different, you know, I hope it will change. I
hope fill in the blank. And I'm much more interested
in how are things and.
Speaker 3 (55:30):
What do I care about, and how do.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I nourish those things so that they can move into
a new life, you know. And I'm so much more
interested in how, you know, the great Tony Morrison loved
Tony Moore, since you know why it's too hard to
take refuge and how it's like I'm much more interested
(55:54):
in how we actually get really connected to our value
and what we care about and how we nourish them
so that we can be more ourselves and other people
can be more in themselves, and that we can do
the healing work that we can do.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
In this line, that might be my favorite definition of
hope so far. I have grammatical and etymological issues with
the actual word hope, but you know, you just brought
up something that I hadn't thought about before, is that
hope is not now, Hope is future. Hope is for something.
(56:39):
As you said, that things are different, but that aspect
of you're living in the future when you're hoping and
what is important is right now.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
I really dig that.
Speaker 2 (56:51):
I am definitely taking that one with me forward from
this conversation. I know we rock.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
It's all yours, Megan, Thank you. Take it away.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
I'm taking it. I'm taking it. And you know, after
we come back from the last break, obviously, I'm going
to have some words to say about it, because that's
what we do here. I close up with my beloved
guests and then we go to break, and then I
come back and I talk about WHOA. That was amazing,
wasn't it. So that's what's going to happen next. And
we're going to link to you and the Zen Center
(57:22):
and your books and all of the things in the
show notes and as we close up here, what do
you want people to know? A sort of a partying
message for this episode, but also like where can we
find you? Where should they interact with you? All of
those things.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
So our center call is called the New York Sun
Center for Contemplative Care, and the website is zencare dot org.
So keeping with Mammy Schwartz's memory, bringing those two things together,
and my own instagram is kachin Pale Allison, and we
(58:00):
have lots of opportunities for people to practice with us.
We have a ninety day practice period that begins actually
in January, and that's an opportunity to really dig into
and build a practice of meditation. And we have sixteen
beautiful teachers and it's just really gorgeous. And two things
(58:24):
that I always like to share. One is called Foundations
and Contemplative Care. So it's a nine month training for
anyone who's interested in that gap and how do I
bring my practice my spiritual practice of some kind or
build a spiritual practice and learn how to serve and
be intimate. And so that's available for anybody and for
(58:47):
nurse practitioners and physician assistants and physicians. We have this gorgeous,
a year long contemplative medicine fellowship that with some of
the some gorgeous faculty and really meaningful work to do.
Speaker 3 (59:05):
And so those are some things that could be helped.
Speaker 2 (59:08):
And the book again, and the.
Speaker 1 (59:10):
New book is called Untangled Walking the Eightfold Path to Clarity, Courage,
and Compassion.
Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yes, and get that book, everybody, find it wherever you
get your books. And I'm also going to link in
the show notes. During season one, quoshin end Choto came
on and talked about their oh my gosh, oh my god,
I just totally got a complete Yeah. They came on
and talked about love No No No, the the contemporative
(59:40):
care training program for healthcare providers. We talked about that
at length during our season one episode, so we will
link to that. All right, everybody, I'm going to close
up our conversation here and we'll be right back after
this break. Obviously, you're going to hear about the things
I'm carrying with me and the things I would love
to hear that you took from this episode. Each week,
(01:00:12):
I leave you with some questions to carry with you
until we meet again. Now this season has a running theme,
and it's more obvious in some episodes than others. This
season is all about hope, finding it, losing it, redefining it,
and fighting for it in these weird personal and collective times.
So you know, what really struck me in my talk
with Koshin is one like how often we look to
(01:00:34):
spiritual tools to somehow lift us out of the pain
we're in, and how spiritual practices are often weaponized, right like,
if you just motitate more, everything will be fine. What
I love about Koshin is that he does give you
a way forward. He does help you reduce your suffering,
but he never asks you to pretend that things don't hurt.
(01:00:57):
I also really really liked what he said about hope
at the end there that he has an issue with hope.
I mean, first of all, there's a reason we're friends.
We both have issues with the word hope. But I
love that he said hope is always a future issue
and he's more interested in right now. I love that
what parts of the conversation today made you see things
(01:01:19):
in a different way or just feel a tiny bit
better in the moment that you're in. Everybody's going to
take something different from today's show, but I do hope
you found something to hold on to. There are lots
of ways to open these conversations on everyday grief and
how we survive the things that happen to us, and
we definitely want to hear from you on all of
(01:01:41):
these things. What are you holding onto you right now?
If you like the show, please leave a review on
Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Share the show with
your friends and your colleagues. These are the conversations that
so many of us long for in our daily lives
and just don't always have the opportunity to have them.
Sharing the show makes it just that much easier to
(01:02:03):
have that kind of connection. Thanks, friends. Grief education doesn't
just belong to end of life issues. As my dad says,
daily life is full of everyday grief that we don't
call grief. Learning how to talk about all of that
without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is an
important skill for everyone, especially if you're in any of
(01:02:24):
the helping professions. Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and
produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown,
co produced by Elizabeth Fozzio. Logistical and social media support
by Micah, edited by Houston Tilly, and music provided by
Wave Crush. Background Noise Today provided by the leaf Blowers.
Host
Megan Devine
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